One may say conflict intensifies as we get older.
With the toll high school takes on us teenagers, fidget toys help ease the stress and anxiety of our workload and social life. Although they can be seen as distractions at first glance, fidget toys are a great tool for helping people focus and manage stress.
Fidget toys have become widely recognized as a trend on social platforms, an example being the hysteria of the fidget spinner. Nonetheless, they have been proven to offer genuine benefits, especially to teenagers. The use of the tool provides a sensory outlet that helps students redirect excess energy.
As students, we can tend to get distracted by various things around classrooms. With the use of fidget toys, it allows students to redirect attention to a physical outlet which helps to maintain attention while completing classwork and during instructional lessons.
Fidget toys tend to look very different. When shopping for the tool, people purchase one depending on its characteristics. These characteristics include temperature, texture, sound, and movement.
Junior Claire Truszkowski describes her experience, “For me especially; I always feel the need to pick at something, [fidget toys] has always been helpful for me.”
Other than the benefits it provides to students in classrooms, fidget toys have become widely recognized as a valuable tool in workplaces and therapeutic environments.
Stephen DiCarlo, a resident counselor in the state of Virginia, explains, “Providing fidget toys in my office serves multiple purposes, all rooted in creating a therapeutic environment where clients feel comfortable, engaged, and supported.” By providing the option to give the tool to the client, “They can improve concentration levels by occupying part of the brain allowing the other parts to focus more fully during the session. This is can be particularly helpful for teens with ADHD.”
ADHD or Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder is a disorder which includes, but are not limited to, symptoms such as restlessness, difficulty with attention, and impulsive tendencies. The use of fidget toys has been shown to severely benefit students who experience similar tendencies or inherit ADHD.
Furthermore, within professional spaces, there are adults who struggle with anxiety or the need to stay focused that have found fidget toys to be effective tools for reducing stress and helping with concentration. Whether in meetings, planning periods, or long stretches of work, fidget toys can offer a great way to manage nervous energy and stay engaged.
An adult within the community, who would like to remain anonymous, is a talent discovery executive director who describes, “In my line of work there are times I have to have very uncomfortable conversations and it can be really helpful to have something in my hands to distract myself with, to press on, or squeeze. So, I leverage sensory type objects quite a bit.”
Altogether, we can observe through the opinions of people of all ages coming from different roles and career paths that fidget toys are an extremely beneficial tool. We highly recommend taking a look into purchasing your own fidget toy for your overall benefit as a person.
