a cool calm-down trick my therapist taught me last week

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It might be for some people. For me personally (and sensory overload is one of my biggest problems with AS), it makes me concentrate on one thing at a time as opposed to all the stuff at once. It's like I'm breaking it down into more manageable pieces. "...I see a person..." as opposed to "AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHH TOO MANY PEOPLE AAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!! !!"

It is a grounding technique, aka distraction. I have heard that these techniques do not always work well for people with autism because it is a distractive tool and not a way of calming. As soon as some autistics feel they are "grounded" enough and they return to their activity they are overwhelmed almost immediately again because they are no longer distracted and the situation hasn't changed. Apparently breathing techniques work best for autistic people because they geniunely relax the body and mind through regulated breathing, resulting in calm, not just tricking/distracting your mind into thinking the situation isn't really happening for a few moments.

I never found that effective for some reason and I don't know that you can do that one in public! But I have heard it works for some people - I think the more techniques people know, the better because then then can find one that really helps them

It's a pretty nice trick. Keeps you mentally occupied and stimulated.

I’ve read a bit about this.

It’s also called “mindfulness”, “living in the present moment”, “silent observation” and “quieting the mind chatter”. It’s an Eastern Philosophy idea.

I think it’s quite useful for focussing the mind before a test. That’s until your quiet contemplation and concentration is shattered by someone wanting to have a natter with you before an exam and asking why you’re “so quiet”. People have the insatiable urge to chatter before tests. It’s distracting. I think they find mind and social chatter comforting. They are afraid of silence. The think that silence is like a boring and frightening vacuum that needs to be filled with constant “chatter” to keep themselves sane. Their minds can be all over the place with no clear mental focus.

It was sobering for me to observe my own thoughts silently and realise just how much garbage goes through my head everyday. Keeping calm, grounded and peaceful is often like trying to dodge an express train that’s racing towards me at a hundred miles an hour.

I think that lots of people have a lot of repetitive garbage racing through their minds too: adverts, jingles, songs from the radio, soap operas... They have busy lives and regurgitate a lot of this media related junk to their friends to stop themselves getting bored. Lots of people seem to be able to talk about these things freely. I tend to bottle it all up and analyse it all to death in a desperate attempt to make sense of it all. I wonder what psychological effect all of this fast repetitive garbage is having on people. It can’t be that healthy to be constantly bombarded by all that stuff.

I think that lots of people don’t live in the present moment.
They are all desperately trying to plan rapidly ahead before the “next moment” arrives. They’re all too busy to slow down.

The media immersion is now almost 360 degrees and on demand. It only takes someone to turn on a radio for me to become completely absorbed in the radio and have difficulty paying attention and responding to what the other person is saying. My mind switches to a silent analysis of the content on the radio. In contrast, most other people use the radio as comforting background noise and chat over it. Most “normal” people aren’t mesmerised by the radio.

What makes this phenomenon worse for me is that I was forced to cram a lot of information into my brain from an early age, as part of my education. I was encouraged to develop critical thinking and analyse the information. This is great in moderation. However, it’s now getting to the point where I’m analysing every logo I see and the meaning every song I hear. It all whirls around in my head.

In an over stimulating environment, it’s like being forced to stare at a garishly coloured stained glass window…that’s swirling like a kaleidoscope…that’s annotated with explanations while your ears are being blasted with concert sized amplifiers…while people whisper to you to get your attention. This is why shopping centres are hell for me. I can’t concentrate on the shopping because my mind is going into overdrive analysing all of the complimentary colours and imagery on the shop fronts. At the same time, I’m counting the number of beats in the bar in the Muzak and analysing the structure/emotional content of the song. I can’t seem to help this: all of this media content seems to be in the foreground, the people are in the background. It becomes very difficult to concentrate on shopping or calculating the change when there are hundreds of people babbling away in the background and you’re trying to avoid being stampeded by the crowd. My mental arithmetic and conversation skills seem to decrease in direct proportion to the number of people/media distractions present. My anxiety seems to increase proportionally too.

I find that it’s very difficult to stay calm “in the present moment” in situations like this. It requires a lot of mental strength and effort.

There’s another kind of “grounding”, where you look at details of an object in order to calm yourself in a stressful situation. I realise that I look at details of objects in this way all the time. Also, this method of calming tends to backfire when someone’s trying to communicate with you, but you’re analysing the patterns in the carpet. People might get the wrong impression: that you’re trying to avoid talking to them. The reality is that you are trying desperately to talk to them and remain attentive, but the details of the objects are pulling your gaze away.

When I see something now, I try to stop my mind from going off at a tangent.

It doesn’t always work.
When I see a cup for example, my mind doesn’t say:
“Oh that’s a cup.”

It says (silently):
“Oh, that’s a cup that’s topologically equivalent to a Torus which is sort of like a doughnut…that’s sort of like a ring…that’s like a Polo mint that’s white…which reminds me that this cup is made out of China clay that comes actually weathered Potassium feldspar which comes from granite…that I saw on holiday which reminds me that the Greek key style pattern on the rim of the crockery…while I was eating bacon for breakfast…”

What’s even “sadder” is that I actually read the manufacturer’s mark on the base of the cup. No wonder people find it difficult to talk with me. Sometimes chatting over a cup of coffee is hard work when my mind has all of that irrelevant junk going through it.

When I saw a therapist for a while, she taught me that as well because I was having trouble sleeping. I'm very glad it works for you, and for other people, but for me it just brought negative thoughts. For instance, sitting here right now, when I think about what I see, I realise that my eyes are blurry. When I think about what I hear, I notice the high pitched computer noise and noisy cars driving past the house. When I think about what I feel, I notice that my back hurts and so does my head, and my hands and feet are cold.

I don't have a problem with mindfulness though, just as long as I don't bring specific sensations to mind I can be present in the moment (unless I'm experiencing DP at the time, that makes it heaps more difficult to be mindful, although in a way it's also like being too mindful).