Stimming question

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What constitutes stimming? Is it merely rocking, flapping hands, and making noises or is there other activities involved? I, on rare occasions, begin rocking a little but quit when I become aware of what I'm doing It seems like a lot of the time my legs are moving around. If I'm sitting indian-style my foot starts shaking involunarily. My foot-shaking has often earned me the rebuke of many people. Sometimes, I get up and start jumping around, singing, and speaking in gibberish. Some "non-shaking" things I have done are when I have been in a stressful situation are sucking and chewing on anything from a pen cap to a pencil to my shirt, when I try to quit, I find myself regressing back to the chewing and sucking again. There have been other times where I have been walking near power lines or substations, or have been using an electric appliance such as a vacuum cleaner and I find myself humming in tune with the electric current. Is that stimming, or am I mentally off-key in some way and imaging things that aren't there?

Stimming is involuntary, voluntary, or semi-voluntary activity, which could be viewed as unusual, and which generally works in releasing agitation.

Tapping your feet and talking gibberish could count as stimming, certainly. (As for me, I do the gibberish thing, although just a little of the feet tapping.)

humming for me. i remember being 7 years old driving my teacher nuts. but i never knew i did it. all i remember is her asking me to stop humming which i did when i replied, that i was not humming, it would start again because i would get into trouble and sent to the principal.

I love stimming, I'd miss it if I were to become NT (*gasp!*).

I do leg bouncing, plus I like having smooth cool objects touch my skin because it feels nice (simple reason, eh?).

You would be SURPRISED at things listed in wikipedia as stims. They range from NORMAL/NORMAL to NORMAL for a much younger person, to things people wouldn't want to do in public to just little quirks. HECK, it seems almost every movement I involuntarily start is a stim, whether almost petting my arm, playing with a pen or something similar, talking out loud, pacing, or the rocking you mention. Those are some of the things I do that are actually mentioned! WOW!

Frankly, from what I understand, they always may start unconciously, but are voluntary movements.

Steve

Whenever I think about something in the past that embarrassed me, I start singing outloud. No particular tune, although I've recently taken a liking to The Halls of Montezuma. I don't know why I do this, and it's entirely involuntary for me. It's really the only thing I do that I consider stimming. While I have tendencies to chew my fingernails, tap my foot, et cetera, I simply consider these to be habits.

You could just be bored. Then again, I like to try and attribute things such as this to something other than a tick/mental problem.

stimming, like autism, is a spectrum. It ranges from rocking back and forth and hand flapping, to picking at body hairs, excessive pacing, and rubbing arms. I'm stimming right now. I keep stopping in writing this to pick at my chin. It kinda annoys me that I keep doing this (and its not good for the chin!) but I can't stop doing it. I also tuck my hands under my neck and pace around when I am actively thinking about something, especially when I'm contemplating the next scene in my screenplay or coming up with a sketch for a poster.

Chewing/sucking is my big stim. I also pace up and down a lot.

Tapping my feet and fingers is a big one for me - often in complex rhythmical patterns (curse you, musical training!), also fluttering my index and middle fingers in a sort of 'mini-flap'.
When I'm very distressed, I do rock back and forth. I don't know why I do this because it makes me feel sick (this is usually when I notice that I'm doing it), but I can't seem to stop.

I heard that talking to oneself is a stim, and I do this all of the time. I also heard that walking on one's toes, which I constantly do, is a stim. My biggest stims that I do while upset are rocking (I do both back-and-forth and side-to side; it changes), wringing my hands, "petting" my arms (that was a good description, SteveK!), moving my thumbs in-and-out of my palms, digging my fingernails into my hands, stroking a piece of fabric over-and-over, tracing a pattern with my finger over-and-over, and bending over to squeeze my temples with my palms (I sometimes do this while rocking, if I'm really bad off). I actually did the temples thing about 30 minutes ago. Usually, besides rocking, all of my stims consist of doing something repetitive with my hands. They change from each breakdown or anxiety-provoking situation, though, whatever seems natural at the time. I don't have a "set" stim that I always do while upset.
-OddDuckNash99-