WHY does movement/fidgeting help sensory processing?

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Question in title.

Maybe our brain is somehow downclocked if it isn't doing anything (complex/repetitive) and if it gets confronted with sensory input, it is quickly overloaded because it wasn't prepared to process the huge amount of "data" and is getting too much for its current capacity, while stimming/fidgeting/movement eases that by keeping the brain busy and avoiding downclocking by keeping it on a "steady" level?

I know, I know, a very silly and stupid explanation. But hey, brains and modern computers/hardware can be quite similar in some regards and it doesn't sound all too illogical to me either.

Alternatively, it could be that our brains are just too aware of our surroundings and process pretty much everything, and to avoid that, we keep it busy with routinized movements and actions that proved to be distracting enough to lessen the amount of processing it does since it has to invest its "power" into that stim but not being too distracting so we can still think/act/interact with our environment?

Their sense of filtering probably works better than ours, so they filter out what has to be processed and what not so they don't have to move in any way. A nervous NT on a presentation/speech will also fidget around and move in some way (tapping leg for example) to cope with the stress and getting too much of an input could be considered to be a form of stress I think.

I like to think of movement as a sort of "rebooting" thing, if that makes any sense...it helps to sort of give the body small bursts of energy, serves as a brief distraction from whatever sensory issues we are currently experiencing. I tend to move around/shift my position whenever I happen to be experiencing lethargy or boredom. Playing with a Tangle toy or stroking my stones serves the same purpose, more or less....those latter stims help me to be more focused and "present."

For me it's an extra form of stimulation that helps me focus on a task better. When I watch TV and can't concentrate I have to eat a small bowl of chips. Then when I get anxious stimming makes me focus more on the stim than my anxiety.

There are times when I feel 'numb' in my body and mental processing and this is when I'll make huge flapping motions and even beat my legs with my fist.

Since your stimming is something that you've done a million times before it can shift your focus away from the (often overwhelming) outside world, without actually requiring any of your focus in itself, allowing you to focus inwards instead of outwards. This gives you time to process things without having to recieve lots of new information at the same time, and when you're done processing you can stop/reduce the stimming, and thereby shift your focus back to the outside world.

Although of course it is also a question of degree. Different people, and different kinds of stimming, will clear away different amounts of outside stimuli, etc.

Edit: And to be clear regarding terminology, in this case, I would consider movement/fidgeting a form of stimming, although others might not.

It's an interesting question and I have no idea what the answer is. Maybe it's like deep-brain-stimulation for things like Parkinson's and OCD, where putting repetitive blips of electricity into the 'core' of the brain somehow makes things better. (And, the part they put the electrodes in is connected to the parts that relay sensory information to our conscious awareness, IIRC.)