What do you do in terms of stimming?

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The constant posting on WP and the constant music that I have playing in the background are my two happy stims.

the first that come to mind are: I rock, bounce my legs(or feet or arms sometimes), do things with my fingers and hands(and toes sometimes), sway from side to side, tap/drum on things, move my leg back and forth. . . Sometimes more than one at a time. I also do various sensory things on whatever things are in my environment, like rubbing something, clicking something, smelling things, etc. I also do stuff like skin picking that is sensory and somewhat repetitive but not what would be a classic example of stimming.

I think that a lot of things can differentiate autistic stimming from normal fidgeting. It tends to be more repetitive(the exact same movement), last longer, and occur more often. For example, I might rhythmically rock back and forth for over an hour at a time sometimes, and it seems like I'm *usually* stimming in some way. If I stop with one because I'm in a different position or whatever, I'm usually starting with another one. Also...they can sometimes be subtle(and some people may hide them relatively well), but it tends to be more noticeable than normal fidgeting.

Hand flapping, finger tapping or some sort of finger movement, rocking, flicking my tongue over my teeth until they hurt, pacing.

Not stimming: playing with pens (fidgeting), head/arm/leg spasms, facial tics.

Stimming is something you do when nervous that can kind of be controlled. Fidgeting when under stimulated or bored is not the same thing. It's kind of hard to tell with me because I have epileptic twitching too which looks similar to hand flapping but it's uncontrollable. And I do drum my fingers when bored.

I don't know. I often do the exact same stims whether I'm nervous or not. I stim at home and when I'm out. Even if I'm not really nervous it's comforting.

My stimming is a lot of finger flapping stuff including popping my thumbs. If I have a pencil, I like to lighlty run it across my face then wipe off the tickle by rubbing it off. I do other things too, but these two will give you a couple examples of mine.

I have some interesting ones

- I slam the tops of my wrists into each side of my chin repeatedly and very quickly while nodding

- I make fists and punch towards the ground while jumping up and down

- I close my eyes very tightly and make random exaggerated facial expressions.

- I straighten my arms and pull them up to punch my shoulders with force sometimes until they bleed

- I move my whole upper body back and forth violently while scrunching my face up

I already posted on this thread but I just remembered that when I was 12 or 13 years (when I had already stopped the twisting a string in front of my face and other childhood stims) I would do this really weird thing where I would put my open mouth over my bare knees and make a cluck sort of noise going quickly from one knee to the other while sitting and watching t.v.....it looked like i was kissing my knees. I'm doing that in a couple of photos from those years. I didn't think of it as stimming at the time........

I still don't really understand much about stimming/good examples of it. I would say my biggest ones are bouncing my legs and picking at my lips. Like a couple other people have said, sometimes I start organizing random things and I also make noises to myself...I didn't know those would be considered as stimming, though.

When I was a child, I would:

* Wave my hands in the air fast enough so I could feel the air as if it were more solid.
* wave things in front of my face - I liked especially doing it in such a way to create optical illusions, like waving a pencil in such a way as to make it look like it was flexible and perhaps made of rubber
* Deliberately see things double or try to shift my focus so I could see things in unusual ways.
* Stare at things until my vision would smear and I'd see patterns that would not otherwise would be visible. Usually grass or walls or whatever
* Smack my wrists together
* Chew my fingernails
* Rip my fingernails off to the quick
* Peel the skin off my fingers and palms
* Put glue on my hands and then peel the glue off when it dried.
* Various somewhat complicated hand/finger flapping movements
* Stare at incandescent lights
* I loved feeling the textures on my blankets, stuffed animals, etc. Each had something different, but all were soft/comfortable.

Nowadays:

* I flap my hands, mostly in private, but I do it in public a lot before I catch myself (if I care about being seen). I suspect this stepped up because of the whole researching autism thing, as I am sure that while I did flap before, I do not think it was this much. I don't do the additional finger movements so much. I seem to do it most out of anxiety or happiness/excitement, although in different ways. I also do it to decompress after I've been out of the house for awhile.
* I stare at incandescent lights
* I will play with anything within arm's reach
* I have some cheap party favor bracelets that are shiny, have a nice texture (kind of like a twisted helix slinky) that I can use to keep other stimming down
* I still stare at carpets if they have interesting designs. I also stare at the sky, at trees, out windows, at the ceiling, at the walls, etc. I don't stare the way I used to, though.
* I rock
* I snap my fingers
* In private I repeat some stock phrases. This isn't entirely voluntary, although it seems like sometimes I need to do this to clear my brain to come up with intentional words.
* I rub the skin on my wrists
* I rub my feet together
* I flick my fingers
* I wave things in front of my eyes, but not very frequently. Usually when I do this the light's too bright and I really need shade or sunglasses.

I am probably forgetting several things.

I still do these things. I never think to classify them as stimming. I think because people don't talk about visual stimming as much as things like hand flapping and rocking.

Fidget it anyway I can... picking at little loose bits of skin, little bounces, fiddle with zips, tassles etc that are on my clothes, rock, tap, rub my hands, flick/wiggle my fingers, rub my fingernail on the seams of clothes so it sort of catches under the edge, rub the inside of my wrist or hand with my thumb... when I was little I used to close and then press my on eyes so all these crazy, coloured patterns would appears

I did it in in school, I remember doing it by fixing my eyes on the blackboard with grid painted on it. Soon the grids started to jiggle/tilt left-right rapidly, everything else disappeared from my view. Is it a stimming?

I can stare on "nothing", while I loose peripherial view, and stop thinking at the same time. What is this?

For stimming, I do (without completeness):
- Bring my fingers to my lips, touch it with them, and smell them at the same time
- Smell my wrists, touch them with my lips, feel the hair on them
- Touch, rub my face, eyebrow
- Stare at carpets, wallpapers (in school: suspended ceiling). I usually look for patterns reminiscent of cartoon-like animals. I have a number of such patterns at home
- Some nail, nose, ear things
- In my bed I like to relax my eyes on the chandelier

I rock when I'm anxious or upset (sitting down)

I rock from one foot to the other (standing up)

I pace (it has to be a certain amount of steps in a pattern, to calm me down, or when I'm concentrating)

I flap my hands and screw up my eyes to try and push thoughts away if someone is assaulting me with too much information

I cover my ears if someone is assaulting me with too much noise or overwhelming me and I can't deal with it any more

I have this special calming movement with my foot when I'm in bed, that means I am finally shutting dowm my brain and relaxing and soon I will be going to sleep

I jump around and clap my hands when I'm pleased

I hit my head or cover it when I'm unbearably sad and don't want to face up to the sadness

I probably do more things, but can't think of them just now. Until recently I didn't know they were a symptom of autism, I just thought I was being "me."

Interestingly, I sucked two of my fingers until the age of about eight, and my parents were worried and embarrassed by it and kept yelling at me to stop. I am now wondering if this was due to the AS and counts as "stimming" or was merely a childish way of comforting myself.

I think a lot of people don't really talk about visual stimming, and it's harder to identify what's going on because someone else just sees you fixedly staring at things.

I still kind of do these things, but not to the same extent. I caught myself staring at the carpet in my doctor's exam room the other day, while also rocking and flapping... Yeah, my mother tells me I'm not obvious at all. I stim in front of her regularly. Oh, mothers.



I think these both sound like stimming, but then I consider similar things I do to be stimming. I am also not an expert.

There are a lot of things about aspergers that I'm not sure if I have or not, but stimming is not one of them.

-I sucked my thumb until about 13, and still do it sometimes if I'm upset. It is very calming. But only in private.

-I flap my hands a lot, especially if I just put something down

-I bounce my leg when I'm happy or excited

-I rock side to side if I am standing. It is impossible for me to stand still.

-I rubbed two coins together to make it look like there are three

-I'm always staring at carpet and things to find the pattern. If there is a seemingly random animated background on a screen I will stare at it until I figure out when it starts over again.

-I rub my feet against eachother

-I bang my fists against my thighs, but not hard enough to cause harm.

-I sing "nonsense" but only when I'm alone

-I tap my fingers or rub the insides of my fingers

-I hit my palm with my middle finger repeatedly

I'm sure there is more that I do, but I just don't think of them as stims, but as normal behavior for me. I probably seem like a hyperactive mess to most people, or extremely bored, because I almost always stim if I am around other people, especially if I am interested in the conversation.

i stim a lot and enjoy stimming i think stimming is any repeated action that one does to calm down.