"Trace stop shaking your leg!"

"But I didn't even know I was doing it, Mom, jeez!"

Hey there, fidgeting friends, Trace here for DNews.

Once upon a time, psychologist Sir Francis Galton was sitting in a lecture.

He got bored and decided to watch the audience instead of listen to the guy speaking. Been there!

According to him, these elderly Victorian lecture-goers were swaying from side to side at about 1 fidget per minute.

When the audience's attention was aroused, he noticed that their fidgeting would lessen.

In his paper, published in Nature, titled "The Measure of Fidget" Galton determined that people must fidget out of boredom!

This was before discussions about hyperactivity or sugar, before the television ruined our attention span.

This was in 1885!

130 years ago, people fidgeted.

It is definitely not caused by over-caffeinated, ADHD-prone, coddled millennials.

And instead, fidgeting seems to be part of human nature.

The dictionary defines fidgeting as "small movements, especially of the hands and feet, caused by nervousness or impatience."

But science has another explanation: it's a way to keep my brain active and focused.

Yeah, you heard me, fidgeting might equal better focus.

Hashtag Science Yo!

When brains are stressed, we don't pay as close attention, and we don't learn as much!

Cognitive Load Theory says to think of the brain like a CPU.

When you have too much going on in there, the brain can't focus.

So, to offload some of that stress, the brain might trigger fidgeting!

Lower stress is highly associated with better learning and memory performance, so fidgeting might help us learn!

Though science isn't sure if it's everybody or maybe just men.

For some reason men fidget twice as often as women.

And a 2005 study from the University of Hertfordshire found that fidgeting can reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which should lower stress.

A study in PLoS ONE, however, found that benefits seem to fall on men who fidgeted.

The fidgeting men they tested performed better on cognitive tests and had lower stress, but fidgeting women did neither of those things.

A study with ADHD kids further muddles the fidgeting waters, as fidgeting doesn't help everyone all the time.

A study in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, assessed the working memory of young fidgeting boys.

When ADHD kids were put in a swivel chair and allowed to spin, which sounds dangerous, they performed better on memory tests.

However, kids without ADHD performed worse when they were allowed to spin, and better only when they stayed still.

It would seem, though fidgeting may lower stress and help learning, there is a level where the benefits to our attention and learning disappear.

For example, drawing random doodles, kicking your feet or shaking your legs while sitting might be fine.

But drawing specific pictures or walking around the room; that's too distracting, and the benefits are just lost.

So, perhaps boys with ADHD need to fidget?

But what about girls?

Do they get benefit, too?

Well, a study from September 2015 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, looked at 13,000 UK women over 12 years.

And they found adults who fidgeted also burned calories!

Their results found fidgeters had quote "better health outcomes," than their still counterparts.

And another study in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise found that fidgeting can burn up to 144 calories a day.

That's more than a can of pop or soda!

Some researchers believe fidgeting seems to be an adaptation to our more sedentary lifestyle.

But a study in Frontiers in Psychology looking at memory retention of lectures and fidgeting, found that almost the same thing happens today as did with Galton in 1885.

If you track the number of fidgets per minute, it's a pretty good indicator of audience boredom.

Fidgeting seems to be a representation of our animal brains working hard to keep on task and keep learning.

It can be irksome, but as long as it's not distracting to others, it's not necessarily bad; and it is, at least, burning some calories!

Sometimes we're just fidgety widgety.

Do you fidget? How?

Pen clicker? Leg shaker? Finger tapper? Nail biter? What you got?

Tell us your fidgeting functions down below in the comments.

Fidgeting might be annoying to some, but sitting — that's killing you.

Yeah, your chair? Slowly killing you, right now.

Find out more in this video.