What is stimming, examples?

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I usually rock my left arm up and down, flap my hands, tap my foot or pull at my eyebrows...

Leg and foot shaking is a big one for me. I like tapping (the Lone Ranger theme taps out nicely on the edge of my desk), and also the plastic bottle against my head thing that someone else mentioned. Twirling the knob on my wrist watch in a clockwise motion (I believe it's called a crown?). Playing with the "silence" button on my iPhone where it vibrates when enabled.

I got the best present ever from a colleague at my old company: a gadget that sits on my access card, that can be opened and closed repeatedly, with a satisfying clicking noise. Ah, bliss.

And when I'm really in the mood to relax, ear-bleeding trance music on my iPod (which is why I set the maximum volume to 89dB because I'd damage my hearing otherwise).

Going off-topic, I always maintained that my fiddling and repetitive movements could be used for good, i.e. endurance testing for new products.

I'm almost constantly doing things, even if it's just leg shaking or fingernail picking and biting. I sway from side to side when standing, rock, pace, hand wring, etc....

I didn't realize hitting yourself was a stim, I do it when mad, I used to always hit my right hand against my thigh a lot.

What other conditions cause stimming really?

I brought it up before and the doctors have said I'm just fidgety or they brush it off.

I think some ADHD people do it.. But i wouldn't think it would be as much as you described. My mom is basically NT and she rocks quite a bit, though... and my grandfather, also NT, does this thing where he taps his fingers together.... I guess everyone's different, so it doesn't necessarily mean anything in particular. It's just more common with autistics.

Could cracking nuckels be considered a stim? its something I seem to do all the time, and is something that I ALWAYS do when I am stressed or bored.

Adding my examples, for what it's worth:
I rotate my hip or ankle constantly, I smell my arms, I stare at bright lights. (To feel my iris stretch.)
From what I understand, these are stims as well because I do them for sensory stimulation.

lol TonyTheTiger, yeah, I can't sit still either. My friends don't like to sit on the couch with me because I don't stop wiggling/twitching/shifting.;;;;

I love crackly popping sounds. I found myself walking around a parking lot today just to crack the ice that had formed here and there. My son and I have a bag of bubble wrap for just this purpose.

Any repetative stimulatioin of nerve endings can become a stim I reckon, just depends how relentlessly you do it.

Definiton of stim: fun fun fun fun fun fun
I have too many to list, some are done more often than others.

Rocking or leaning back and ballancing on chairs, I had a special chair at a friends house because i broke so many.

Picking

Moving ancles esp at night in bed to relax
Talking to myself making sound effects repeating random lists of things, usually animals

Scrolling my screen up and down on the same page for over an hour or so
Joint compression
Tapping my fingures eg on a desk
Spinning around
Nail biting, stopped that though.
Hitting myself or stamping on my foot
Cleaning my finger nails, this started when I stopped bighting them
Closing my eyes and pushing my thumbs into them
Rubbing my tongue on the back of my teeth
Pacing
That's about it really and I do all of these anywhere I'm proud to be autistic and don't care if I look or sound a bit mad

This is a good list of some common forms of stimming (I do many of the ones listed):

http://insideperspectives.wordpress.com ... /stimming/

Incessantly touching objects is a stim common among tactile learners on the spectrum.