Autistic Hedgehog

That’s sort of a tricky question, because sometimes stims intersect with other things, and there are a lot of things that count as stims.

Simplified, a stim is a repetitive motion or action (it might be making a sound rather than moving) and it can be an expression of a number of emotions: fear, happiness, contentment, anxiety. It can also be a way to calm fear or anxiety, or to ground one’s happiness.  I don’t think a long period of repetition is necessary for something to be a stim (I sometimes make a small string of sounds along the lines of “nif nif nif” which I tend to do in stim-like situations) but over all it’s something that repeats. 

Using my own as an example:

• I rock when agitated, hurt (as in injured) or in other ways upset, though sometimes this only makes me more agitated.
• I sway (which is more rhythmic than rocking) when happy, content, tired or some mixture thereof. 
• I flap, but very little. Usually I flap my entire arms, and the motion is connected to a very particular anxiety, like when I’m asking for permission for something. 
• I rub on smooth textures (like satin ribbon) for comfort in situations where I’m anxious or want to feel extra content.
• I make small chains of sounds, like the “nif nif nif” I mentioned earlier, often as an expression of feeling good or feeling silly.

You can see there’s sort of a pattern of how those connect. There’s another thing I do that I don’t consider a stim, though. I bite the skin around my fingernails. While I do it more in times of increased anxiety, I always do it regardless, I have a tendency to hurt myself doing it, and it doesn’t really make me feel better in any way. I just can’t help it. That’s where I draw the line.

Some things are unquestionably not stims, but for the most part, you need to find your own personal guidelines for what a stim is to you. If something falls outside those guidelines, then odds are good you’re not doing it for stimming purposes.