Stimming
Stimming is short for self-stimulatory behavior. Everyone does it, but it's especially common in autistic people and people with ADHD.
It includes hand flapping, spinning and staring at shiny things.
Here is a thread for the appreciation of stimming and sharing of stimming ideas!
@Tiny_leaf wrote:Stimming is short for self-stimulatory behavior. Everyone does it, but it's especially common in autistic people and people with ADHD.
It includes hand flapping, spinning and staring at shiny toys.
Here is a thread for the appreciation of stimming and sharing of stimming ideas!
That is really cool. Haven't seen something like that before
Hey everyone just wanted to swing by to let you know that we are going to be doing some activities for our neurodivergent community! This month we are chatting with an awesome organisation called Reframing Autism. The AMAA thread is live here and it will be taking place on the 20th. Hope to see you all there 🙂
I'll get the ball rolling by talking about chewellry!
A lot of people chew on things to help self regulate, including clothes, pencils/ pens and other stuff that should not be chewed on. Fortunately, these things exist;
They're made of food safe silicon, and are so much fun to chew! You can get jewelry, pencil toppers and other cool stuff, in pretty much any shape and colour you can think of!!
Thanks for creating this thread @Tiny_leaf!
@Tiny_leaf I only just heard of this the other day, my friend at work does this by chewing on little plastic bugs/chewing all their legs off. I know that a lot of people use fidget spinners and those little cubes with all the sides having different clickers/spinners etc - are these resources to engage in stimming behaviour?
Sorry if this is wrong, I don't know a lot about this but I am very interested to learn more!
@lennycat2017 yep!!
Fidget spinners and fidget cubes were designed for stimming/ fidgeting. Some of the fidget cubes look like so much fun!!
This is really cool. I know there are some kids at a school I used to work at who had stuff like this. It was a comfort item too and really helped.
I have strong Autism traits, but haven't been diagnosed. I don't wanna be, so I probably never will.
I have a Pencil Topper, that's pink and looks like a chess piece. I haven't used it for a while, but I'll probably get into it again soon!
Maybe if my mum gets me a necklace to chew on, I'll find it easy to stop chewing on my pens and pencils.
You should have see one of my pens last year... I chewed the entire end of it out of shape............
@xXLexi_Lou122Xx I am a guilty pen chewer! I used to chew the rubber out of the end of pencils in school!
Thanks so much for sharing how you use stimming!
I have this weird sensory problem, which I think is linked to the way I stim...
I don't have pencils with erasers, but I always chew the end and the middle. Obviously not the lead part....
@xXLexi_Lou122Xx that sounds like it'd be one of your autistic traits, it's a fairly common thing in autistic people.
I usually have a lot of hypersensitivity, so everything's really intense for me and I'll stim to bring my focus back to one thing, but occasionally I'll be hyposensitive, or not much'll be going on and it't too quite, so I stim as a way to kinda balance out the lack of feedback from my surroundings.
One of my favorite stims is from this key-chain I made from wooden beads. They're fun to roll around in my fingers and they make soft clicking noises that I love.
Absolutely loving this thread- the chewable jewelry is a fantastic idea!
I always found stims really grounding, so I used to have a box where I would put all the distractions I could use to ground myself when I felt overwhelmed. Having something to play with in my hand helped a lot! I had a mini hand massage ball which was great, and lots of playdough/or really hard slime- anything that kept my hands busy 
Would love to hear more stims community members use
@Jess1-RO play dough's great!
When I was in hospital a while ago we made this weird aromatherapy play dough.
It had essential oils to make it smell good, plus (dry) rice for texture.
I need to make myself that at some point now
Slime is the same, except that I hate slimy things.
Another thing I do, is make fish lips. It's really fun, and I do it generally when I have nothing to chew.
@xXLexi_Lou122Xx I can't do slime.. there's something about it that's just nope for me...
But I'm pretty good with dough-y stuff, and I love clay.
Especially when the clay hardens, if it's hardening clay......
Lately I've been having trouble with chewing fabrics (clothes, pillow cases, etc) - something which I used to do as a kid but stopped until a few months ago. I don't tend to do it so much in public, but at home I do it a lot. Will need to look into some "chewllry". Does anyone know of any that isn't intrusive?
This is a great thread @Tiny_leaf - thanks so much for starting it! 🙂
@mrmusic I think I know what it means, do you mean like discreet/ not standing out?
If so I know of some and can get pictures.
You present as male I think..?
@N1ghtW1ng flappy hands are nearly as good as Stimtastic!!!
I have one of their necklaces plus the squishy sheep! Plus a very long wishlist... so much cool stuff..
I know what you mean about the price though.. I've taken to diy-ing most of my stim toys, which is actually really fun!!
I can't take many good photos..
I can do a couple of quick sketches though.
My favorite it is small plastic tube filled with glitter and water, it's almost like a tiny sparkly snow globe!!
For me, visual stims just don't do it for me but they can look so pretty!
