Abnormal repetitive behaviour - what's yours

Today we had an invited speaker to the college who spoke about abnormal behaviour in animals.  Videos were shown of small dogs chasing their tail until they became a flying circle of black and white.  A mouse did repeat back summersaults again and again like an acrobat stuck in a loop.  A huge elephant, chained at the leg, swung from side to side continuously.  All of them drew laughter from the audience of young students.  Until the speaker pointed out that all of these behaviours denoted stress in the animals.  These repetitive movements were symptoms of an animal trying to cope with situations far from their normal environment.  Perhaps you have seen it in the zoo where the lion paces up and down the cage wall putting his feet in the exact paw prints that he has been making for months, sometimes years.  It is distressing to watch because once you know what to look for, you can see it is not normal.  The tragic thing is that after a period of around twelve weeks of such activity the animal’s brain becomes hard wired and it is impossible to change the endless routine.  The comfort such activities bring are an end in themselves and no matter how exciting the environment or stimulating only a slight reduction in activity levels in the repetitive activity can be ever achieved.  Abnormal repetitive behaviour is usual exhibited by normal animals in un-natural situations.  If you want to see distressing examples of this behaviour have a look at this link. 

http://www.aps.uoguelph.ca/~gmason/StereotypicAnimalBehaviour/library.shtml

It struck me that we too carry out abnormal repetitive behaviour when stressed and I began looking for signs of it in myself and others.  Overeating, endless shopping, routines at work, gossiping, mobile phones, games, gambling, drinking, smoking, cleaning, reading rubbish and watching rubbish on TV.  Could these be the equivalent of rocking to and fro getting nowhere but longing for actual life to begin?  What a depressing turn of thought.  Mind you I was happy to see how much the students loved the talk and the speaker and how they were all triggered to find ways of making life more enjoyable for the animals in their care.  It reminded me what a lovely bunch of students they are and what an odd creature I am!