Stimming is a way of regulating one’s experience of the sensory world. It can be conscious and unconscious and people stim in different ways. For example; physical stims, such as hand flapping, knuckle cracking, picking; vocal stims, such as repeating words, humming and/or whistling or even visual stims, such as looking at certain colours or patterns.

Everyone stims in one way or another. However, autistic people stim more due to differences in the sensory world being more overwhelming. Stimming is therefore a way to reduce anxiety and stress and increase a person’s ability to cope.

Sadly, stims are often suppressed in the neurotypical world causing more overwhelm, distress. It is therefore important to practice mindful stimming, to experience the joy of stims, rather than harmful stims, such as skin picking and nail biting.