Sneaky Stimming
Sneaky Stimming
Discreet stim hacks for neurodivergent people
Emma released a new video on Adults with Overexcitabilities, which you’ll find below the transcript.
How do you stim in the workplace (or school or at home) without annoying the people around you? I share my "sneaky stimming" hacks, which I use at work, to stim without distracting others. Everybody needs to stim sometimes, but neurodivergent people tend to do it more. I talk about what stimming is, why we stim, and why we should consider others when we stim. I then provide my stimming hacks, and some considerations for ND employees and their employers, to make life easier for everyone.
Before we get started, I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. The channel has reached 1,000 subscribers, and I really just want to say I appreciate all the comments and likes that you've left so far.
I also want to mention the Dabrowski Congress 2024. I'll be a keynote speaker there, and there's going to be a bunch of amazing sessions and workshops that you can join in. For more information, visit the Dabrowski Center website, and I'll put a link in the description below.
But on today's topic—stimming.
Sometimes, you just need to stim, but how do you do it at work in a way which doesn't negatively impact your co-workers? All humans stim sometimes, but for overexcitable people and people with other neurotypes and sensitivities, we tend to stim a lot more.
Today I thought I'd do a video sharing some tips and tricks that I've developed for myself which allow me to stim in the workplace in a way which doesn't impact the people around me. It's a practice I call sneaky stimming.
But first of all, we have to answer the question, what is stimming? Stimming is short for self-stimulation (no, not that kind).
Stimming is any physically expressed, repetitive behavior which gives the individual some sort of emotional comfort or emotional regulation. And it does this by engaging the senses. Some examples of stimming in adults that you might be familiar with, even in the workplace, include:
playing with hair
rearranging or moving things on a desk
rocking or swivelling in a chair
walking or pacing (maybe while on a phone call)
scratching, rubbing the skin, cracking the knuckles repeatedly
playing with or squeezing objects like stress balls, fidget spinners, jewelry, or pens
staring at moving or rotating objects like a ceiling fan or staring out the window
flicking or snapping your hands or fingers or drumming the fingers on the desktop,
chewing on either gum or pens or other things
jiggling the legs or feet, or
doodling aimlessly in a notebook.
There are a few reasons why people might stim.
First of all, it's to induce calm. That's by blocking external stimulation, particularly when the external stimuli is less predictable or overwhelming, or the individual has a heightened sensitivity to it. So, the stim either distracts you from external sources, which provides some sort of dampening effect, or else it directly blocks out the external stimulus altogether.
The second reason people stim is to relieve anxiety or stress or regulate emotions. It's kind of like a stress release valve. Thank you. And that's exactly why they make stress squeezes. Many people engage in this kind of stimming, whether they're neurodivergent or neurotypical.
The third reason why people stim is to alleviate some kind of boredom or under-stimulation. Rather than distract us, it's a way to help us stay on track. This is a big one for me, particularly in meetings where if I don't stim, my imagination just tries to run away with me into a daydream and I'm not listening to what's being said.
But some of these common stims aren't always appropriate in the workplace. If you look at that list of stims again, a lot of them are either visually distracting, or sometimes they're noisy, and they can also give off the air of not paying attention.
There's a lot of people that would advocate that neurodivergent people should just be able to stim freely at work. And I agree with this in one way. I also agree that workplaces should make safe spaces to have conversations about this stuff, make accommodations, and be accepting of neurodivergence.
But there is one caveat: when we stim, we can't do it at the expense of the rest of the team. If we want our teams to be considerate of us, we also have to be considerate of them. Imagine I'm in a meeting room and I just start clicking my pen. Might make me happier, but it's going to distract everybody else. Hell, I find it annoying.
Sometimes, we're just not conscious of the fact that our stim could be driving other people nuts. Have you ever been at a dinner table and the whole table starts shaking and all of a sudden you think you're in that scene from Jurassic Park, but really it's just one person jiggling their leg under the table?
Our preferred stims, the ones we naturally want to lean into, aren't always appropriate in all settings. So, how do I stim in ways which don't annoy my colleagues or put people off who are speaking or listening in a meeting?
Well, I've taken my cue from isometric exercise. Isometric exercises are those where you tense your muscles in a static way. So, squeezing or contracting muscles and sometimes holding that contraction without actually moving your limbs. Planking is an example where you hold a pose with muscles contracted for a certain amount of time without actually moving.
Conference Style Meetings
Let's start with those situations where you're completely exposed. So if you're sitting in one of those theater style arrangements.
Let's start with the hands. I like to put my hands into fists and just clench them. I can rest my hands on my knees and just clench and contract my hands. I can also put my hands together, clasp them in my lap and push and squeeze and that will contract all the muscles in my arms and chest. I can also put my hands on my knees and squeeze my knees or I can cross my arms and squeeze my elbows. And in a meeting that's about an hour long, I tend to rotate between those. So, you know, fidget every few minutes, change your position and do a new stim.
When it comes to my feet, I can wiggle my toes in my shoes or I can push my feet down hard on the floor. But my favorite one is to put both my feet against the legs of the chair and squeeze out with my legs.
When it comes to the legs, you can contract your thigh muscles or you can clench your butt cheeks. But if you're like me and you've got a bit of a big butt, if you do that rapidly and all together, you will get this bouncing kind of motion going on. So what I like to do is squeeze them very slowly, one at a time in a rolling motion. And as you can see, you can't see me moving in my chair all that much.
Other stims you can do in a conference style are clench your abs, you can chew gum as long as you keep your mouth shut, or look away if you need something visual.
Meeting Rooms
So now let's talk about some additional stims that you can do when you're in a meeting room that has a table.
I like to raise and lower my legs under the table, assuming I've got enough distance between me and the person opposite me, and I'm not going to kick them. So you can raise them both together or alternate them like a swimmer kicking.
If you keep your hands below the table, you can use a stress toy or a fidget spinner as long as it's quiet. This also works really well on Zoom calls because you can do it out of sight of the camera. You can drum your fingers if that's your thing and do it on your knees because it's a lot more quieter than doing it on the desk.
Speaking of Zoom calls, you can always watch a video on mute while you're in a meeting, something like an ASMR video. But my hint for young players is if you're using two screens, put the video on the screen with the camera so it at least looks like you're paying attention to the meeting. Put your Zoom meeting over on the second screen, because if your video is over here and you're sat like this, people are definitely going to wonder what you're watching.
Back to in-person meetings, I want to cover one last point: taking notes.
Sometimes, taking notes can help you concentrate. It's going to keep your hands busy. But there is a caveat. If your team knows that you always take notes, that might create an expectation that you're always going to do it. So just be aware of that. But if you're happy to take notes and it keeps you focused, that might be a really good way to be involved. It's particularly good for introverts who don't always feel that they can contribute verbally to a meeting. But again, it's your choice. Just be aware of the expectations it might create, but it's a really good stim replacement because it's a productive one.
At Your Desk
And the last set of stims I want to talk about is what to do when you're at a desk, particularly in an open plan office. Now, in this situation, you might not need to stim as much because you're busy, maybe you're typing or you're on a phone call.
But again, if you're in an open plan office, there might be things like swiveling in your chair, which are highly distracting and the rest of the team might find annoying.
You can safely chew gum, you can probably squeeze a squeezy toy just at your desk, or even have something at your desk that you like to touch or smell.
Another thing I like to do is not be at my desk. So if you have the option, get up and walk away. If you don't need to be at your computer for a phone call or a meeting, Take your phone and go for a walk.
If you have quiet areas that allow you to do focus work away from the noise and the stimulation of the office, use them. And if your workplace is open to the idea of standing or walking meetings, utilize those as well.
One of the biggest tips I can give you is to try and manage your time, your tasks, and your environment so you don't need to stim as much. schedule short breaks, have a few short standing meetings, utilise those quiet areas to do focus work, and if possible have this aligned to your own rhythms.
When it comes to choosing a desk, particularly in a hot desk setting, try and get a position that limits those environmental stresses. If you are at an allocated desk, maybe have a chat to your manager and see if you can move somewhere else.
Which brings me to my next point, is if you are comfortable in doing so, it's really important to talk to your team and your team leader about this.
And be open to other methods of stimming, like sneaky stims. I know they're probably not your preferred methods, and they're certainly not mine. If I had my way, I would pace like a maniac, continuously. But again, this is about working as a team and compromising. Trying to just sit there and mask and suppress all the time for me is super stressful. So these sneaky stims get me through the day much better than not stimming at all.
Tips For Employers
Here's the thing, the onus should not just be on the individual to manage their stimming. Workplaces should create an environment which is inclusive and embraces the scope of human diversity.
If you're an employer or a people leader, here's a few tips on how you can make it more comfortable for neurodivergent people in your workplace.
First one, provide a safe space for conversations. That is really critical. And secondly, be aware that some behaviours may not be what they seem. Someone wearing noise-cancelling headphones may not be anti-social. Having the camera off in Zoom meetings doesn't mean a lack of care or someone's not listening. What you can do as a people leader is normalise some of these behaviours that may not have been before. having shorter meetings, having standing meetings, or having the camera off during Zoom calls.
Another thing we can do to support our teams is be conscious of the environment. Have collaborative and quiet spaces. Everyone gets the benefit of having somewhere to focus. Everyone gets the benefit of having somewhere to collaborate.
You can also encourage flexible working arrangements. Sometimes it's really hard to get working from home arrangements if you don't have small children or a family, but when you offer these things to all your employees, again, it helps everyone live their best life.
And another area to think about is the policies. Things like the dress policy, if you're asking your people to wear business wear when they're not customer facing, that might be really hard for people with tactile sensitivity who are sensitive to fabrics and clothing tags and may feel uncomfortable getting dressed up to come to the office. It's good to take a pause and think about what messages our corporate policies actually send to our people. You may say that you value diversity at work and you want people to be their best selves, but are your practices really embracing diversity, including neurodiversity, or are you still expecting people to conform to a one-size-fits-all approach?
The change in mindset will have flow-on effects.
The more flexibility and inclusion and diversity that you have in your workplace culture, the more it becomes part of everybody's thinking and the more that will have flow-on effects to people like your customers in the way that you deal with them and how you design solutions for them.
Final Thoughts
But before I go, I have one last message. And this is to my neurodivergent fellows who have not yet told their colleagues that they're neurodivergent. For those of you who are still hiding in the brain closet. it's really important to accept yourself.
And believe me, it's much better to have sneaky stims and compromises and those difficult conversations, which might make you really nervous, rather than keeping up that exhausting charade of continually masking day in, day out. If you can drop the mask even just a little bit, it might help you accept yourself. And it's also important to give your colleagues a chance to embrace and accept you too. Because you never know, maybe the judgment that you fear from them is really just a projection. Which means the judgment isn't really theirs at all. It's yours.
To everyone, whether you're a neurodivergent person, a neurotypical colleague, or a workplace leader, I just want to encourage you to embrace - Embrace diversity. Embrace inclusion. Embrace acceptance. Embrace working together. Embrace compromise and collaboration. Embrace authenticity in the workplace. And embrace each other.
See you later.