Misokinesia: what it is, characteristics, symptoms, causes and how to manage it.

Let's see what misokinesia is and how this unpleasant phenomenon affects people.

Are you annoyed by someone sitting next to you who keeps moving his or her legs? Does the sound of that person who keeps snapping his or her fingers and toes make you nervous? Or the drumming of his or her hands? This sensation has a name: misokinesia.

Misokinesia is a psychological phenomenon that, although it is not considered a mental disorder by any means, is a rather annoying condition, even capable of driving us away from someone whose bodily nervousness becomes unbearable.

This psychological phenomenon is experienced in many ways and, although it is not worrying in principle, it can become an obstacle to our social life. Let's find out why...

• Article related: "Types of phobias: exploring the disorders of fear".

What is misokinesia?

Misokinesia is a psychological disturbance that is usually accompanied with discomfort and discomfort when seeing and hearing someone who keeps making small repetitive body movements..

For example, a person with this psychological condition would feel very uncomfortable being around someone who keeps making sounds with their fingers, clicks their pen over and over again, shakes their legs while sitting, or keeps rocking in their chair.

This word is relatively new, but the psychological phenomenon behind it has been suspected for some time. Proof of this can be found in a 2014 Dutch research study conducted by the University of Amsterdam, in which the existence of misokinesia was already anticipated.

In their study, Arjan Schröder's research group addressed misophonia, i.e. the irritability of hearing sounds such as the dripping of a faucet, hearing someone chewing, the sound of cell phone notifications.

The researchers found that a good part of their experimental sample was not only prone to feeling uncomfortable at certain sounds, but also had another extreme reaction: discomfort at seeing and hearing the sounds of a mobile phone.discomfort at seeing and hearing certain body movements.

It was just from this finding that over time another research group, that of the scientist Sumeet Jaswal (University of British Columbia) would propose the name "misokinesia" from the Greek "miso", which means "hate", and "kinesis", which means "movement".

As conceptualized by Jaswal's group, misokinesia can be defined as a strong negative affective or emotional response to the sight of small, repetitive body movements of others, such as seeing someone mindlessly moving a hand or foot. Although these movements are trivial and do not cause harm to the recipient, they produce enough anguish not to want to be near the person who performs them..

Symptoms

Misokinesia is not a mental disorder, nor is it a serious enough condition on its own to require urgent professional help.. Since its conceptualization is relatively recent, the characteristic symptoms of this phenomenon are still being studied and defined.

Proof of this is the study by Sumeet Jaswal, who has sought to clarify and understand this phenomenon in greater depth. His study states that this phenomenon can affect about 33% of the population, an extremely high percentage of the population.. Some of the symptoms that can manifest a person with misokinesia are:

• Irritability and even feeling angry when someone makes repetitive body movements.
• Feeling anxious when someone closes and opens a pen, squeezes an anti-stress ball with his or her hand, crunches his or her fingers or drumming them on a surface.
• Moving away from people who make repetitive movements.

It should be noted that Each person is different and so is the way in which misokinesia affects him or her.. There are different degrees of this condition, and it also manifests itself in very different ways in terms of the stimulus that is annoying to those who have this syndrome. What most of the people who have this peculiar phenomenon have in common is that they feel anxiety and discomfort before the movements of others, being able to support them or not to a greater or lesser extent.

There are cases that are serious, while there are people who are unable to work or meet with people who are known to be especially nervous or who move their legs or hands compulsively. To be next to somebody with many nervous tics can be a calvary for a person who has misokinesia, arriving it to distract him/her very much when the person in question executes repetitive movements without stopping.

• Article related: "The 8 types of emotions (classification and description)".

What is its cause?

Since it is a relatively recent concept, there is still not enough data available to point to the exact cause behind misokinesia. However, given its possible relationship with misophonia, a condition whose cause is known. It has been found that the phobia to certain sounds, such as listening to others chewing or even breathing, has a cerebral origin..

Research on misophonia has detected that people suffering from this condition present an alteration in the anterior insular cortex, a region that becomes hyperactive when exposed to certain sounds. This is a region that activates intense emotions, such as fear or anger, as well as being associated with feelings of stress, increased sweating and Heart rate. Given the potential relationship between misophonia and misokinesia, it is expected that this same region is hyperactivated in people with the latter condition.

In addition to this, there has been speculation that mirror neurons might also be involved.. These neurons are activated when we see someone doing something, replicating it in our brain and imagining that we ourselves also carry out the same action. With misokinesia what would happen is that, the simple fact of seeing someone with a nervous tic would activate the mirror neurons and we would experience that nervousness in our own flesh, only at much higher levels.

How to manage this annoying psychological phenomenon?

Misokinesia is a phenomenon that has only recently been discovered, but it is believed to have a high incidence in the population and it is therefore a matter of time before it is addressed in depth and it is discovered how this psychological phenomenon can be managed. As this problem affects each person in a different way, each one can develop and manage very different strategies to cope with (or avoid) the situations that cause their misokinesia to come to light.

As we have mentioned before it is not considered a mental disorder or something serious enough on its own to need professional help..

However, if feeling uncomfortable in front of the repetitive movements of other people involves a high degree of affectation in social, work, academic and family life, it would be advisable to see a psychologist in order to to learn techniques of management of the anxiety and to learn to stop being fixed in the tics of the others..

Equally, we can put in practice relaxation techniques and deep breathing to reduce the symptoms of anxiety. We can also use the visualization technique, which consists of creating an alternative mental image while someone in real life is performing movements that are uncomfortable for us. We can try to put assertiveness into practice by asking the person making the repetitive movements to please stop, although this may not always be possible...