Does flapping *make* you happy?

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My mom always told me that if you smile enough then you'll become happy. This never worked for me even when I could control my face in that way.

But a few times I have found that if I flap the way that I naturally tend to flap when happy, then that makes me incredibly happy, even if I wasn't to start with. It puts me in a mood I don't know the words for but it's a good one.

Wondering if this is true of anyone else or if I'm just weird.

In your other thread about stimming I mentioned wanting to spin. I suspect it would leave me feeling giddy and smiling. But I would be so embarrassed if I got caught doing it that I religiously suppress it.. Maybe I need to find some young nieces and nephews that I could do that with under the guise of playing their games. I'm already an inhabitant of 'weird uncle' land so maybe it would slip past.

My stim may not exactly make me happy but it puts me into a calmer state than if I couldn't.
And if someone draws attention to it and tells me to stop, I'll get internally irritated in an anxious sort of way.

when i was a kid i flapped and that made me happy but i was brutally broken of that in elementary school. now as an adult, i don't flap but i mostly rock and it makes me less unhappy.

I don't flap but I tried it to see how it felt and I thought it felt wonderful. I just don't think about doing it. I press my lips together almost continually though.

I don't flap very often, but when I do it is usually out of happiness and it tends to increase the happiness... so it just turns into a sort of cycle.

Somewhat but when I'm sad I don't feel the energy to do that.

Yeah, flapping is mostly when I'm really happy/excited about a vacation or something. Just my weird way of expressing it, I guess.

i really like stimming i used to stim for hours when i was a kid. now i like the rythmic action of biking and crew.

I think so. Though I don't flap much everyday. One of my mental exercises I do regularly is to imagine being a bird and flap my wings and fly all over the places. That makes me happy and relaxed.

My son does.

It can make me happy, and I also do it when I'm anxious and for whatever reason can't rock, and it helps calm me down.

Yes, extremely happy. I find I can't control my flapping when listening to music. Music make me happy and flapping makes me happy.
I do use it as a way to calm down but I can just do it when on on my own too.
That's why I don't suppressing stims because it can be much more stressful without them.

Any type of movement makes me feel better. Sometimes when the hyper ADHD kicks in if I don't move I will feel physically uncomfortable and just wrong in my head. The big indicator that I want to move around is my complete lack of focus and perhaps my sudden insensitivity to other people and not taking anything seriously.

Does this ever happen to you when overstimulated (among other things)?

I find that it usually happens if I've gone too long without caffeine or I'm getting a certain amount of overstimulation. Like, not a lot, but enough to make it hard to think. I may not be explaining this correctly.

When I'm overstimulated I'm sensory seeking, usually textures and just one object to focus on. Sometimes I try to focus on just one sound too but usually in those moments sounds can sound grating or course. But that it more of a defensive mechanism than something that I automatically do. Although there is that whole 'vroom' thing I do in the supermarket. That actually doesn't happen when I'm medicated so maybe it also an ADHD thing. I act the same in my hyper moods. Or maybe the overlap is closer than I thought.
I think it can be an understimualtion thing too. It hasn't happened in awhile so I'm not sure.

^^ This, and I also get those spinning urges Wavefreak mentioned.
Maybe if I combined the two, I'd take off? Or at least hover a bit.