Interesting! I too have problems sitting still when I'm anxious/distressed. I'm always fidgeting with my hands and I'm always shaking my foot up and down. My SE therapist explains it as an autonomic nervous system response. For me, my normal response to something stressful/traumatic is to freeze. But I also have this underlying flee response. My system is not able to regulate very effectively. I often simultaneously have a powerful urge to run out of the therapy room but am, in reality, stuck frozen on the couch. My SE T says that it's like the gas and brake pedals in a car - they are both being pushed. So the response is that I'm caught feeling frozen but also have this overwhelming energy deep inside me. It comes out in my fidgets and inability to stay still. (a lot of times when I feel really frozen in session, I will exercise right after I leave. I feel like I have to get out my stored energy that was accumulating as I sat frozen.) Sometimes in session, we have followed my urge but without moving. I imagine myself completing whatever the urge is. It's supposed to complete the response..follow it until the end so that I won't be caught up in the urges. That's a very basic explanation of it. I find it so interesting! Even though I've done some of these exercises, I still find myself fidgeting though. My regular T has never commenting on it, although it's very obvious and I know she notices. I get self-conscious when my SE T draws attention to it. But I guess that's the kind of therapy she does! The body is so interesting.