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You are listening to the Navigating Adult ADHD Podcast with your ADHD coach and expert, Xena. Hello, my friend. Welcome back. Today we are Navigating Adult ADHD together. Yes, we are. And I'm actually quite excited for this topic. Had to do a bit of research on this one to understand it. And in the process, of course, understood myself a lot more too. So that is my goal today, is to help you to understand yourself even better. Because today we're talking about stimming. Stimming behaviors. Before we get into that, though, this has bugged me ever since I recorded last week's episode. So in last week's episode, I talked about the sensory differences that we experience being a neurodivergent human. And in that, I don't know how it tied in, but I shared a story. Story of doing this dance class and how uncoordinated I was. And I could not for the life of me think of the word, the name for this class. And it was Zumba. This dance class, like 10 plus years ago that I did. And I was absolutely shocking at, like, so uncoordinated. It was hilarious. I was banging into people left, right and center because of course, we were, like, crammed in this little room like sardines. It was a Zumba class. I just remember being so bothered by the fact that I could not think of that name. And of course, it came to me like a few days later at about 3:00am in the morning, you know, as you do. So there you go, Zumba. You're probably like, what on earth are you talking about? But if you listen to last week's episode, you might get it. You might get it, my friend. All right, so stimming. Do you bounce your leg up and down, maybe without even noticing that you do it? Do you maybe chew the inside of your cheek? Twirl your hair, pick your skin, tap a pen, crack your knuckles, hum rock, pace, or replay that same song 15 times, my friend. That could be stimming. And no, it's not just an autism thing. Plenty of ADHD stim too. Right before hitting record on this episode, I actually noticed that I was wiggling my toes. And it's so funny because I've probably done this for years, but I was completely unaware that I was doing it. And one day I was sitting on the bed, and my partner, who was facing me, sitting at the other end of the bed, said to me, do you know you're wiggling your toes right now? And I had no idea I was doing it, like, just constantly like wiggling my toes all the time. Just lying there on the bed, wiggling my toes. I had no clue I was doing it. And since he's pointed it out, I noticed that I do this almost constantly. So funny to me. So what is stimming, my friends? Stimming stands for self stimulatory behaviour. So basically, it's a repetitive movement or sound or sensory behaviour that your brain or nervous system uses as a way to regulate itself. And when I say regulate, I mean as a way to calm or soothe or possibly even stimulate. So just like you might rock a baby to help it settle, we can use stimming behaviours to help ourselves to sort of calm or soothe or settle down. So basically, stimming is just repetitive actions or body movements, and that can also include making noises. So some examples of this could be hair twirling, it could be nail biting. It might be rocking back and forward. It could be that you click your fingers or your nails. I know my partner does that. He, like, flicks his nail up and down all the time. Gets to me. Could be chewing or mouthing things as well, like making certain sounds over and over repetitively with your mouth. Could be spinning, it could be opening and closing objects. It might be watching something visually on repeat because it's really satisfying to you. It can also look like, you know, having your leg or your foot tapping under a desk, as I was just telling you. Right? That's me and my toes all the time. It could be clicking pins, pacing while you're on the phone, chewing gum, constantly doodling. If you're somebody who likes to doodle while you're listening, that's me. I'm always drawing little things. Little houses, little trees, little, you know, flowers. It might be rubbing fabrics. So running certain fabrics through your hands. We talked about that a little bit in the last episode. It could be listening to a certain song on repeat, skin picking or cuticle picking, maybe even, like repeating phrases or sounds to yourself. It actually reminds me of one night, my partner and I were in bed and I don't know how it came up in conversation, but he said the words, einstein protege. Yeah, protege. Einstein protege. And the way he said it was like this instant, like, tickle and massage to my brain. And I just started going, oh, my God. Einstein protege. Einstein protege. And I was like, repeating it over and over and over and over again. I got so excited by these words and just repeating them over and over and over again. It was honestly like a massage to my brain. And it's never felt the Same since, like, I couldn't give a shit about those words now. But at the time, it just tickled me in the specific way. That was like a massage for my brain. It was hilarious. But again, that was a stimming behavior. And at the time, I had no idea. We were just cracking up laughing at how taken I was with this phrase. But that my friends can be stimming. So why do we as adhders, why might we stim? Why do we do this? And it's not just because your body's being totally random. It's your body trying to help you. Okay, so stimming actually serves a purpose. It might be that it's helping you to regulate sensory inputs. So we talked a lot about sensory inputs in last week's episode. It could be that the stimming behavior is helping you to calm down, to sort of soothe yourself, settle yourself. Could be that it's helping you to handle stress or overwhelm. It could be a way of helping to express strong feelings. Again, it might be something that feels enjoyable to you and therefore is helping to stimulate you or provide that dopamine that you are needing. So again, it could be used to help you with focus. Okay. Stimming, sometimes, like, a small amount of movement helps the brain stay engaged. I definitely find that that is true for me. Fidgeting, like, I will often use. I've got a couple of stress balls here, or I've got this little, like, ring that you can slide on and off your finger. It's like a pressurized ring. Those sorts of things can act as almost a side quest that helps the main quest to stay alive. So that gives you, like, this other sort of thing to occupy your brain or your body whilst helping you to focus and pay attention. Okay. Again, it's just something that helps us. The stimming behavior can help us to be attentive or engaged in whatever we're doing. And it's so funny because as I was actually drafting this episode and doing the research for it, I found myself drumming my fingers on my desk over and over and over again. I was like, oh, how funny I'm doing that. And I'm noticing it. Like, normally I wouldn't even notice I'm doing these things necessarily. But it was so obvious to me as I was, of course, like, researching and drafting an episode about stimming behaviors, just drumming my fingers over and over again. But that too was helping me stay engaged and focused in what I was doing. So why do we stim? It can also be to regulate As I said, regulate our emotions, it might be helping to regulate overwhelm. So when our nervous system is like overactive, like too activated, stimming can help us to discharge some of the stress of the tension or that sensory overload. So Cleveland Clinic describes stimming as a way of self regulating and coping with emotions. So again, this is, it has a purpose and it does serve a very positive purpose. We can also use it to help wake up our brain. Right. Again, sometimes we need that additional stimulation. If you're bored and you're under stimulated, having some sort of stimming behavior can help you to provide that extra bit of dopamine that you need, therefore, so you can stay alert, wake your brain up a little bit, right? We know as ADHD is, we often seek novelty and dopamine and interest because we are lacking that, we often have less dopamine. So that helps us to get our brain on board. So we can also use stimming to express our emotion. So that's, you know, the joy, like joy stimming is real, but also stress stimming is real. So sometimes stimming is less about keeping still or, you know, looking calm, you know, but it's more about your nervous system saying, hey, this feels really, really good, or this feels huge, or this feels too much. I need to move this through my body. So stimming can be a way our emotions come through our body, how we help to sort of process them, move them through our body. So for joy stimming it can be, you know, we're bubbling up with excitement and so that comes out as movement, as dancing around or sounds or, you know, repeating over and over. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, that again can be a sort of stim that we're doing now. Some stims say if we were looking at stress stims where the body's trying to discharge tension or fear or frustration or overwhelm. So in other words, sometimes the feeling is so big that it doesn't just want to stay in your head, it spills out of your hands and your legs and your voice and your body. Okay? So if we were to dive a little more into the joys sort of stimming, right? When your body's like, I'm so excited, I've got to do something with all of this energy. The example of what that could look like is like clapping your hands over and over and over and over again, or bouncing up and down, right, Flapping your hands. We've got a kid who does that Just flaps his hands. Flaps his hands. Just like, shaking his hands, basically over and over, squealing or making happy noises. But often it goes beyond just doing it sort of once it becomes a more repetitive thing that happens, you know, over and over again. Right. It could be, you know, kicking your legs while you're sitting, sitting down. Those sorts of things can become, like I said, a stimming behavior. Well, there might be a way that you're releasing this energy that you have, these emotions that you have. Okay, so if we were to talk about stress stims for a moment, let's say you are waiting for a text back and you're feeling kind of stressed about this. Your chest is tight, and suddenly you find yourself picking your cuticles and biting your nail without kind of noticing that that's what you're doing. That might be your nervous system trying to regulate the stress through that movement, through something that is familiar and somewhat comforting to you. Right. Making sense. Yeah, I thought so. So what's the difference when we talk about, like, stimming versus fidgeting versus habits? Right. Fidgeting is often a type of stimming. Okay. Now, habits can for sure overlap with stimming, But I think the most important thing to understand here is the question is not what do we call it? The question is, what is it doing for me? What is this behavior, this movement, this thing? What is it doing for me? So I want to offer you four questions that can be really helpful when you're wanting to understand yourself and your stimming or your habits a little bit better. Okay, so the first one is, is this helping me focus? Sometimes the body is doing a side job so that the brain can stay on the main job. Right. So, for example, let's say you're in a zoom meeting, and you keep clicking your pen over and over again, and then you're doodling and you're bouncing your leg. If you stop doing that, you actually find it harder to listen, harder to focus and pay attention, and your brain starts to drift off. So when you're doodling, you're clicking, you're bouncing your leg. It's helping you to focus, to pay attention. The second question is, is this calming me down? So sometimes that repetitive action is less about stimulation, but it's more about soothing, calming. So, for example, let's just say you've had a really difficult conversation with your boss. And afterwards, after this conversation, you find yourself rocking back and forward, rubbing your hands together, and then you GR a soft blanket, and you start sort of stroking that Blanket. Those sorts of things are helping you to calm, to soothe, to feel somewhat safe. Third question, is this giving my body sensory input? So sometimes our body, like we talked about last week with the sensory episode, sometimes the body is craving certain types of input. Like it might be craving movement or pressure or texture or sound, or some sort of like oral stimulation. Okay, so examples of this could be chewing a pen. Right. Crunching ice. Some people love to crunch on ice. I am not one of those people. I get the shivers just talking about it. Right. It could be rubbing certain fabrics or textures, listening to that same song over and over on repeat. Right. Needing to jiggle your foot. Or for me, it's needing to wiggle my toes. Your body could be looking for input that helps you to feel more regulated or awake. Okay? So it's getting that sensory input that it needs. And the fourth question, is this happening more when I'm anxious, when I'm bored, when I'm excited, when I'm overwhelmed? Being able to sort of spot the patterns can be really quite useful because that same stim, that same behaviour might do different jobs in different situations. Okay, so for example, if you notice that you pick your cuticles when you are anxious, so you start sort of skin picking and picking your cuticles when you're anxious. But then maybe you notice that you pace around when you're excited, or you start to bounce your leg when you're bored, or you rock on, repeat and, you know, say certain phrases over and over again when you're really overwhelmed. Right. So how you might explain this is the behavior itself might stay the same. So maybe you pick your cuticles in all of those instances, but the reason behind it can change depending on, on what's going on. Right. I hope that makes sense. But again, it really helps to ask, you know, when does this show up most? Because that context really does give us clues to better understanding ourself and our behaviours. So let's talk about helpful versus unhelpful stimming behaviours. So there are some things that we might do that could be harmful to ourself or other people. Okay, so helpful or, you know, neutral stimming behaviors are things like tapping, bouncing your leg, doodling, humming, chewing gum, using a fidget toy. Right, Those sorts of things. But then there are some stims that maybe need a little extra support. So if you are somebody who picks your skin until you bleed, you know, chewing your nails down to the point where you're bleeding, biting inside, it's quite common to bite the inside of Your lips or cheeks sort of inside of your mouth until it becomes quite painful. Pulling hair out is another one. Head banging, right? Banging your head against something, right? Anything that's causing injury to you or somebody else. Shame. If you're feeling a lot of shame, if it's creating this major disruption, I want to be really clear, because the goal isn't to stop stimming at all. The goal is to support stimming behaviors. If that's what you're navigating. If you're navigating some stimming that might be harming yourself or someone else, right? Supporting that so that you have some stimming behaviors in place to help regulate yourself and soothe yourself still. So we do need to talk about the shame piece, okay. Because this is something that I can for sure relate to. And I'm sure many of you, you listening right now might as well, my friend, because so many of us, we grew up hearing things like, stop fidgeting, stay still, right? Be normal. Don't do that. Why are you so weird? All that kind of shit people have said to us. And when you hear those messages, you kind of internalize, well, there's something wrong with you. You're not enough. You shouldn't do that. So, of course it makes sense that we would start to believe that the way our body tries to regulate, the way our body wants to move and do these behaviors is wrong and we shouldn't do it. So I want to invite you to ask if this is you, if this is something that you struggle with, is allowing yourself to stim, right? Instead of asking, you know, what's wrong with me? Why do I do this? How do I stop? Or, you know, how do I make it less visible? It's, how is this helping me? What purpose is this serving? Because so often these sorts of comments and these messages that we've heard can lead us to masking, to try and hiding our stims, to try and, you know, force ourselves to sit still, to force ourselves to make eye contact and not doodle or click our pen, right? Or constantly monitor how we're coming across to other people. Now, let's be honest, that's really fucking exhausting. That takes it out of us, right? That will steal our spoons like nothing else. And when I think about this, it's kind of like trying to hold a beach ball underwater. You can do it for a while, but it's going to take effort. There's going to be a lot of tension. And, you know, you've got to pay constant attention to what you're doing, eventually you're going to get tired and that ball's going to come flying back up, probably take it, hit you in the face on the way, right? A lot of ADHDers have spent years using the energy not just to manage life and everyday, you know, adulting tasks, but we've had to use our energy to manage how acceptable we are while we do all of that, trying to force ourselves not to, you know, shake our leg, not to click our pen, not to doodle and all of these things. And I think there's, you know, something really compassionate, I think that's the best word, compassionate to remember here. Moving your body is not a bad thing. And stimming is morally neutral. It's not, you know, you're not a good person or a bad person because you stimulate, okay? Stimming is always serving a purpose, okay? If you are one of these people, this is me, right? Somebody who stims. It's not rude, you are not broken, it's not childish and it's definitely nothing that we should be ashamed of just because someone else does not understand it, okay? So sometimes what we've internalised as bad behaviour is actually just our nervous system doing its best to help us to regulate, to focus, to soothe, to cope with life. So again, it can be worth gently asking yourself, do I really want to stop doing this? Do I really want to try and hide it? Or is it just that I was taught that I should by people who didn't understand, right? Is this harming me or anyone else? Or is it simply not fitting in? You know, am I simply not fitting into someone else's idea of what normal, AKA should look like, right? Because that idea of normal often comes from people who do not have the same brain as us, the same wiring or the same lived experience as us, right? And maybe they were not trying to be cruel when they said, sit still, stop doing that. Maybe they just didn't understand. But again, misunderstanding leaves a mark. It can sometimes leave a scar on us. So, my friend, if you have ever felt embarrassed about bouncing your leg up and down, doodling, rocking, humming, skin picking, right? Needing to move in order to pay attention. You're not weird, okay? You're not failing at being a human. Your body has just been trying to help you all along. Your body has been trying to regulate and get what it needs all along, right? Welcome to the team. I am just like you, I do this all the time. So I want to run through a couple of things that can be quite helpful to Better understand your stimming behaviors. If you're somebody who is recognizing yourself in this episode, I want to give you just a few steps to help you better understand this. Okay? To better notice it and use it effectively. So step one is to notice your patterns. Start looking for, you know, the toe. The toe, what is it? It's not clicking. It's like toe wiggling. That's one of my wiggling. Right. What do you do repetitively? When does it happen? I notice it happens a lot for me when I'm trying to focus and pay attention. So much of it happens then, right? Also, when I'm anxious, I will seek out certain things like soft blankets that I will, like, run through my hands and what is going on right before you notice the behaviour and what happens after. Right. Again, this is all about step one, noticing your patterns. What are these things that you do all of the time? When are they happening? And also pay attention to anything you try to minimize. I find that quite interesting. I remember at my toastmasters, I go every Thursday to this public speaking group, right? I've been going for years now, and I always take a piece of paper because often I'm making notes and I used to try not to doodle on my piece of paper and really pay attention to the person speaking and give them, like, my full attention, my eyes and all of that. And now I know I can give them more attention and better hear what they're saying. When I doodle and I look down and I draw things on my piece of paper and I will still look up at times, but being able to doodle and not stopping myself from doing that actually helps me to give them more of my attention and also helps me to feel more comfortable and at ease in that situation. Okay? So step two. Sorry, Step one was notice your pattern. Step two, look for the function, okay? And that's just what I was talking about. Is it helping you with focus? Is it helping when you're feeling stressed or bored or overwhelmed or emotional in some way? Look for the function. What's it supporting you with? Step three, keep the ones that help give yourself permission to use those supportive stims without making yourself bad or wrong, even if other people don't understand. Okay? So again, coming back to that example I just gave you, I had to get to that place where I was like, no, I can actually see how this is really helping me pay attention and I'm giving that person, you know, more of my attention. I'm better absorbing what they're saying without forcing myself to stare. At them or put my pen down. And if I am looking at people, sometimes I will, you know, because they say they're acting and they've got lots of movements and gestures and, or there might be a presentation I want to look at, right. I will use fidget items. I will have my fidget spinner. I will have, you know, the ring that I put pull on and off my finger. I keep these items in my bag because that way when I'm doing that again, I'm helping to pay better attention to this thing that I'm wanting to give my attention to. Right? So step three, keep the ones that help you and give yourself permission to use those supportive stims. Remember, they always serve a purpose. Step four, swap out the ones that hurt. Right? For example, if it's skin picking to the point where you start bleeding, maybe get, you can get these like little picky stones. I got one once off temu and it was like a little silicon type of like a round silicon disc, kind of like a coaster. And then it had all of these tiny little beads in it. And the idea was, and the skin's kind of broken on this, on this coaster looking thing, the silicon skin. The idea is that you kind of pop or squeeze the beads out and that was so satisfying. So if you're a skin picker, that's a great thing. You can get them like for a few dollars off places like temu, I'm sure Amazon, wherever else. Things like fidget rings or textured objects, putty even can be really, really helpful if you are a skin picker. So it's not about stopping the behavior completely. It's about giving yourself other options that are equally as enjoyable, soothing, et cetera. If you're a cheek biter, can you switch to chewing gum to crunchy snacks to. I was actually thinking about before I recorded this, you know those baby chew toys, like, I'm thinking of those like rings that you can get and you literally just chew on them. Like maybe you wouldn't want to do that in public. But I'm just saying if you're at home on the sofa and you're cheek biting, that could be something super useful to have. Okay? So again, it's more about substitution rather than suppression, right, my friend? So I want to give you a couple takeaways if you haven't already heard it. Stimming is normal and it always serves a purpose, okay? It always serves a positive purpose for us as ADHDers. We stim to focus, to help regulate our emotions, our nervous system to help soothe, to express our emotions, to help ourselves cope. Again. Totally normal, Always serving a purpose, right? Stimming is our nervous system's way of giving us something that we are needing. Okay? So if it helps, if it's not hurting yourself or anyone else, remember, it's keeping you regulated. And that matters. All right, my friend, I hope this episode has helped you to better understand yourself and other people when it comes to to stimming. Huge, huge love. Take care. I'll speak to you soon. Hey friend, if you want some more help navigating and thriving with ADHD, and some help applying everything that you're learning here on the podcast, then head over to our website, navigating adult adhd.com.