Stimming in Adults: What It Is, Why It Helps, and How to Stop Feeling Ashamed

You might catch yourself rocking in your chair during long meetings, tapping your fingers in a very specific pattern, chewing sleeves, playing with your hair, or pacing circles around the kitchen and think:

“Why can’t I just sit still?”
“Why am I like this?”
“Do other adults do this too, or is it just me?”

If you’re autistic, ADHD, AuDHD or otherwise neurodivergent, chances are high that you stim. Maybe you always have. Maybe you stopped for years because people shamed or punished it, and now your body is quietly asking to move again.

Understanding the concept of Stimming in Adults can provide valuable insights into emotional regulation and self-care strategies. Stimming (self-stimulatory behaviour) is not childish, weird or broken. It is your nervous system regulating itself. It is your brain trying to cope with input, emotion, and energy in the best way it knows how.

This article explores what stimming is in adults, specifically focusing on Stimming in Adults, why your brain does it, how it shows up in daily life, and how to move from shame to a more compassionate, intentional relationship with your stims.

🧠 What Stimming Actually Is (Beyond Stereotypes)

Many people only hear about stimming in the context of autistic children flapping their hands. The reality is much broader and much more human.

Stimming is any repetitive movement, sound, or sensory action that your brain uses to regulate itself. It can help you:

🌿 Calm down when overwhelmed
🌿 Stay alert when under-stimulated or bored
🌿 Process big emotions
🌿 Organise your thoughts
🌿 Feel grounded in your body and in the present moment

Some common adult stims include:

🖐️ Rocking, leg bouncing, pacing, spinning on desk chairs
🧵 Rubbing fabrics, twisting hair, picking at skin or cuticles, playing with jewellery
🎧 Repeating favorite phrases, humming, making small sounds under your breath
🧊 Holding cold drinks, pressing hands on cool surfaces, touching specific textures
✏️ Tapping pens, clicking buttons, opening and closing apps, arranging items on a desk

Many of these are considered “normal fidgets” in everyday life. The difference for ND adults is often:

🌿 Intensity (you really need them, not just “like” them)
🌿 Frequency (they happen a lot)
🌿 Function (your nervous system depends on them to cope)

From the outside, stimming might look random. From the inside, it’s your brain trying to manage a world that feels too loud, too bright, too much, or sometimes not enough.

🌊 How Stimming Feels from the Inside

To understand why stimming matters, it helps to describe what it actually feels like.

For many neurodivergent adults, stimming is:

💗 A pressure release
💗 A way to “let out” nervous energy, big feelings, or sensory overload
💗 A tiny slice of control in environments that feel unpredictable

You might notice:

🌿 A build-up feeling in your body that is hard to describe
🌿 An internal “itch” to move, repeat, tap, or chew
🌿 A sense that if you don’t stim, you will snap, cry, shout, or shut down

When you do stim, you might feel:

🧃 Slightly more regulated, like someone turned the volume down on your inner chaos
🧃 More able to focus on what’s in front of you
🧃 Less likely to explode or implode emotionally
🧃 Brief, satisfying “clicks” of relief or comfort in your nervous system

On the outside, it may look like “fidgeting”. On the inside, it can be the difference between:

💭 “I can stay in this conversation / classroom / meeting.”
and
💭 “I’m about to disappear mentally, cry, or walk out.”

If you’ve learned to suppress your stims, you might recognise a different pattern:

🌪️ You hold everything in
🌪️ You sit very still, over-control your body, keep your hands “polite”
🌪️ Your internal stress climbs higher and higher
🌪️ You end up with headaches, muscle tension, exhaustion, or meltdown later

Your nervous system still has needs. It just has fewer outlets.

🔌 Why ND Brains Need Stimming (Regulation & Processing)

From a brain and nervous-system perspective, stimming is a self-regulation tool.

In autism and ADHD, the usual systems that filter and balance sensory and emotional input often work differently. That can mean:

🌿 More raw data gets through
🌿 The brain flags neutral things as “high alert”
🌿 The system swings between over-stimulated and under-stimulated
🌿 Emotions and sensory input stick around longer and feel more intense

Stimming can help by:

🧠 Providing predictable, safe input
🧠 Giving your body a rhythm to latch onto (like rocking or tapping)
🧠 Creating a “background pattern” that helps your brain focus on other tasks
🧠 Releasing excess energy that has nowhere else to go

In ADHD, stimming often shows up as:

⚡ Leg bouncing, constant movement, pen tapping, phone fiddling
⚡ Hair twirling, doodling, touching everything
⚡ Needing to move in order to listen or think

In autism and AuDHD, stimming can also include:

🎡 Rocking, hand-flapping, spinning, repeating words or sounds
🎡 Focusing on specific textures, lights, patterns or objects
🎡 Repeating phrases from shows or songs (echolalia)

Instead of seeing these as “bad habits,” it helps to reframe them as:

🌱 “My nervous system uses this to stay functional. If I remove it, I need to replace it with something else, not just demand that I cope.”

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🕶️ Stimming in Adults, Masking and Shame

Most ND adults did not grow up in environments that understood stimming as healthy self-regulation. Instead, many received messages like:

🌿 “Stop that, it’s annoying.”
🌿 “Sit still and pay attention.”
🌿 “Don’t be weird in public.”

Over years, this can lead to masking: you suppress visible stims, hold your body rigid, copy neurotypical body language, and try to appear “normal”.

Masking can feel safer socially, but it has a cost:

🧱 Your tension builds internally
🧱 You lose an important regulation tool
🧱 You may feel disconnected from your own body
🧱 You might only stim in secret, and feel ashamed even then

Shame might sound like:

💭 “I’m an adult, I shouldn’t need this.”
💭 “If anyone sees me, they’ll think I’m broken or childish.”
💭 “I only stim when I’m really failing at coping.”

But the truth is:

🌱 Your nervous system did not choose the environment it grew up in.
🌱 You adapted to survive social expectations.
🌱 Stimming is one of the ways your brain tried to stay afloat.

Feeling ashamed doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with the stimming. It means you’ve been taught to see an essential self-care tool as something unacceptable.

🧱 When Stimming Collides with the World (Misunderstandings & Practical Issues)

Even when you understand that stimming is helpful, there are some real-world challenges:

🌿 Other people may misread your stims as boredom, rudeness or distraction.
🌿 Some stims might be loud, disruptive, or not safe in certain spaces.
🌿 Some stims, like skin-picking or head-banging, can be physically harmful.

This doesn’t make stimming bad. It just means you might need a mix of:

🧠 Self-understanding (why you stim, what it does for you)
🧠 Practical adjustments (what stims are safer or quieter in specific settings)
🧠 Communication strategies when you feel safe enough to share

For example, you might notice:

🌱 At work, loud vocal stims are not practical in meetings
🌱 In crowded transport, big movements feel risky or draw unwanted attention
🌱 During burnout, your stims intensify and become more urgent, which can scare you or others

You can respond to this not by stopping stimming, but by:

🌿 Finding alternative stims that meet the same need with less risk
🌿 Planning where and how you can stim more freely
🌿 Giving yourself permission to stim more openly with trusted people

If a particular stim is actively harming you (for example, causing injury, infections, or significant pain), that’s a signal that your nervous system needs more support, not more criticism. In those cases, it can help to:

🧃 Work on swapping to safer stims that give a similar sensation
🧃 Involve professionals who understand neurodivergence (e.g. OT, therapist)
🧃 Explore whether underlying stress, burnout, or trauma is pushing your system into crisis-mode

You deserve support, not punishment, for having a nervous system in distress.

🌿 Building a Shame-Free Relationship with Your Stims

Moving away from shame is a gradual process. You don’t have to suddenly love all your stims. You can start by being curious about them.

You might explore:

🌿 What stims do I remember from childhood or adolescence?
🌿 Which ones did I stop because I was shamed or punished?
🌿 Which ones feel comforting, satisfying, or regulating now?
🌿 Which ones feel more like compulsion or distress?

You can treat this as gentle research, not a performance review.

Some small mindset shifts that may help:

🧠 “My stims are information.”
🧠 “If I need to stim more, something in my environment or stress level is too much.”
🧠 “Stimming is my nervous system trying to protect me, not sabotage me.”

If it feels safe, you might even experiment with reclaiming one or two stims you pushed down for years:

🌱 Rocking at home again while watching TV
🌱 Letting your hands flap or shake in private after a stressful event
🌱 Allowing yourself to pace or fidget openly when alone

You don’t need to share this with anyone else for it to be valid. This is about rebuilding trust between you and your own body.

🛠️ Creating a “Stim-Friendly” Life (Low-Energy Strategies)

You don’t need a perfect environment to make stimming easier. Small adjustments can create more space for your nervous system to self-regulate.

Here are some low-energy, realistic options.

🧤 1. Build a Stim Toolkit

A stim toolkit is simply a small collection of objects or strategies you can reach for when your system needs them.

You might include:

🧸 Textured objects: fidget rings, worry stones, fabric pieces, squishy items
🎧 Sound tools: headphones, a favourite stim playlist, soothing loops
🧃 Oral stims: chewing gum, crunchy snacks, straws, safe chewable items
🪑 Movement options: a rocking chair, wobble cushion, footrest, room to pace

You don’t have to carry everything everywhere. You can build:

🌿 A work toolkit (discreet, quiet, small)
🌿 A home toolkit (bigger, more obvious, fully “you”)
🌿 A travel toolkit (earplugs, chewy snacks, one small tactile object)

🪟 2. Make Micro-Stimming Easier in Daily Contexts

Micro-stims are small, often less noticeable stims that you can use in more public or structured environments.

For example:

🖐️ Under the desk leg bouncing instead of large movements
🧵 Rubbing a stim ring or bracelet during meetings
📎 Using a small clicker or discreet fidget in your pocket
👟 Pressing toes into shoes or shifting weight rhythmically while standing

The goal is not to hide yourself, but to give your nervous system something rather than nothing in situations where bigger stims feel impossible.

🗣️ 3. Communicate When Safe (Optional, Not Required)

You do not owe anyone an explanation of your stims. But sometimes, a small sentence can reduce misunderstandings.

If you feel safe, you might say to a colleague, friend or partner:

💬 “I move a lot when I’m listening. It actually helps me focus.”
💬 “If I’m rocking or fiddling with something, it’s just how my brain regulates. I’m not upset with you.”
💬 “I might pace while we talk. It’s easier for me to think that way.”

This can:

🌿 Reduce social anxiety about “looking weird”
🌿 Help others understand that your stims are functional, not disrespectful
🌿 Create space for you to be more yourself without constant self-monitoring

You get to choose when, where and with whom you share this.

🧃 4. Pair Stimming with Recovery, Not Just Crisis

Many ND adults only allow themselves to stim when they are at breaking point. You can experiment with using stims as preventive regulation, not just emergency relief.

For example:

🌱 Rock gently or use a fidget for a few minutes after work, before you crash
🌱 Use a favourite sensory stim (texture, sound, movement) after social events
🌱 Build tiny “stim breaks” into long tasks, rather than pushing through

This tells your nervous system:

💭 “You don’t have to scream to get my attention. I will support you earlier.”

🌱 How Stimming Fits into Your Bigger ND Self-Care Picture

Stimming is one piece of a much larger puzzle: your sensory needs, your emotional world, your energy, your history of masking, and your current level of burnout or stress.

Instead of seeing it as:

❌ “A weird quirk I should grow out of.”

You can start to view it as:

🌿 “A built-in regulation system my brain uses to cope.”
🌿 “A clue that tells me how overloaded or under-stimulated I am.”
🌿 “A self-care tool I can shape, not something to be ashamed of.”

As you work on broader self-care — understanding your sensory needs, setting boundaries, pacing your energy, and unmasking where possible — your relationship to stimming can become softer and more accepting.

You may never love all your stims. Some might stay private. Some might change over time. Some might need safer alternatives. All of that is okay.

What matters is this:

💛 Your need to stim is not a failure of maturity, willpower, or character.
💛 It is a sign of a nervous system doing its best in a world that rarely meets it halfway.
💛 You are allowed to support that nervous system, not fight it.

Moving from shame to acceptance is a process, not a single mindset shift. Every time you let yourself stim a little more freely, swap a harmful stim for a safer one, or speak about it with less apology, you’re building a life that fits your actual brain — not the version you were pressured to perform.

Your stims are part of you. They are not the enemy. They are a language your nervous system uses to say, “This is too much,” or “This helps me stay here.” Learning to listen to that language is one of the most powerful forms of ND-informed self-care you can give yourself.