Mental Times - What is body doubling?

This month we’re discussing body doubling, heard of it? Far from a new concept, it has however gained recent traction over on TikTok where Lindsey Bee – whose account, brainsandspoons, is dedicated to ADHD – has been utilising body doubling to stay motivated. And that’s not all, influencers are now using the phenomenon to encourage virtual co-working spaces to boost productivity.

From the most mundane jobs, such as ironing and cleaning to working from home, body doubling is giving people the boost they need to get motivated. The result? A massive high in productivity. But how?

The whole TikTok/body doubling trend was reported on the Washington Post, as a flourishing online tool. In the report, Lindsey, who learned she has ADHD as an adult, said: “Everybody was so encouraging. It made it [live-streaming herself sorting the clothes aka the laundry pile of doom] really feel like a group project, not just me by myself on camera. It definitely made the time go by faster.”

There’s no doubt that body doubling is a helpful tool for organisations to adopt as a premise of working. Even discounting ADHD, it’s proven to be a very useful tool to increase productivity – 2 heads are better than one, so what would 6 or 10 put together accomplish?

As we’ve mentioned, body doubling isn’t a new ‘thing’. We usually do it without even realising, for example when we go to a café or hot desking to work alongside others or harnessing other people’s energy at the gym. Even in our daily tasks, working in an office perhaps, we body double without noticing.

It makes us accountable, but in a socially interactive environment. Within the Washington Post article, Will Canu, a psychology professor who researches attention-deficit disorders at Appalachian State University, says: “We have a little extra motivation to work when we publicly make a commitment to someone else,” he said. There is an “implicit social reward”. Much like saying you’ll go a fitness class with a friend, you don’t want to let them down and so are more likely to attend.

Of course, during the pandemic, this shared aspect of our lives was removed. Taken away from us. We were told to socially distance when we should have been physically distancing. It harks back to the premise that we are social beings, we were designed to be social and benefit from community and shared experiences.

With that in mind it’s easy to understand why virtual body doubling has become such a popular and powerful thing to do. Even when ‘work’ itself isn’t in question. Outside of virtual meetings, online coffee mornings with colleagues were something we attended a lot of during each lockdown to try to maintain that social interaction we so crave.

When it comes to ADHD, this common neurobiological condition affects 5-8 percent of school age children with symptoms persisting into adulthood in as many as 60 percent of cases. Just imagine how that statistic transcribes to the number of adults in UK workplaces with ADHD. There’s no doubt that body doubling is a helpful tool for organisations to adopt as a premise of working. Even discounting ADHD, it’s proven to be a very useful tool to increase productivity – 2 heads are better than one, so what would 6 or 10 put together accomplish? So many times, we’ve heard ‘I need someone to hold me to account’, when what we know people really need is a more nurturing working environment. Allowing colleagues to work closely together breeds creativity, confidence and ultimately a bigger output.

Whether in person or online, having peers who understand this is vital. It’s why social media is growing so rapidly – we’re all finding peers who make us feel that we aren’t alone, that we’re with ‘our people’, when in-person, it can be very hard to achieve that level of connection on your doorstep.

There are of course risk factors. Body double without knowing the person on the other side, for younger audiences, could create the potential for exploitation, vulnerability, safeguarding, but also for adults as well. Are we opening ourselves up to vulnerability in online spaces?

From our point of view, when working with clients virtually one of our biggest priorities is keeping that vulnerability under wraps. Whether we’re working with referrals, schools or business, we have done outdoor virtual and telephone sessions – managing where and what is spoken about remains totally confidential.

Alongside managing confidentiality, we’ve found that doing something that includes movement or being out and about as part of the work we’re doing, for some people, can be really helpful and motivational. To be doing something while we’re talking, doing two things at once means we are literally moving forward while they’re thinking. It’s a really helpful process.