How your little quirks help you deal with stress
Do you find yourself drumming your fingers on the desk when you’re thinking through a problem? Humming to yourself when you’re doing your budget? Or twirling your hair around your finger when you’re in a crowded room?
Your family, friends and colleagues may even have teased you about this and, when you become aware of what you’re doing, you feel embarrassed and stop immediately.
Repetitive behaviours like these are often associated with neurodivergent conditions such as autism or ADD, but there isn’t always a link: far more people than you’d think unconsciously do something repetitive when they’re under stress. It’s a way of managing their anxiety, regulating their emotions and helping them to focus.
It’s a natural coping mechanism — and there’s even a name for it. It’s called stimming, which is short for ‘self-stimulatory behaviour’.
Stimming is often misunderstood and is sometimes viewed as a pathology, but unless it’s harmful in any way, it’s a healthy, adaptive strategy for coping with complex sensory input or emotions.
How does it work?
Stimming behaviour, such as pacing, rocking in your chair or squeezing a rubber ball, helps you to manage stress by creating a distraction when you’re experiencing sensory overload.
In overwhelming situations, where there are perhaps bright lights, loud noises or the buzz of people talking, stimming helps block out sensations of unease and reduce anxiety.
How does a simple foot-tap or hair-twirl help you to do that? This type of movement helps you to become more aware of your body and to feel more grounded (even when you’re not conscious of what you’re doing).
Self-soothing rituals actually reduce cortisol — the hormone your body releases when you’re under stress — and regulate dopamine, the ‘feel-good’ neurotransmitter that improves critical thinking.
So simple “stims”, as these actions are sometimes called, can help you to concentrate on what you’re doing by calming you down or counteracting excessive mental energy.
That’s why many people click their pens when they’re thinking through something that really requires their attention. The repetitive motion also helps to create a rhythm for thinking, supporting the cognitive functioning necessary when doing complex tasks.
What do the professionals say?
Doctors and psychologists say that almost everyone stims from time to time, but that both children and adults learn to mask their more obvious stims, suppressing them because they feel it’s not a socially acceptable thing to do. But this fairly common behaviour is a helpful way of coping.
“Stimming is the nervous system’s way of finding balance,” says Brenton Thornton, a Joburg-based psychologist who specialises in neurodiversity. “It provides predictable sensory feedback, helping to balance internal states and manage overwhelming emotions.”
If you were a child who instinctively performed repetitive behaviours that made a noise or caught an adult’s eye, you were likely told to stop it. The concern for your behaviour came from how it made the adult feel rather than what it was doing for you, and you’re likely to have internalised the message that your behaviour was not acceptable, polite or ‘normal’.
Whether or not your behaviour is linked to a neurodivergent condition, it was probably addressed with a concern that was genuine, but which may have caused you harm in the long run.
Suppressing or masking stims, Brenton says, often comes at a cost and can result in burnout, heightened anxiety or feelings of not being accepted for who you are.
A new perspective
Stimming has now been reframed as a universal human behaviour and a valid form of self-expression. There has been a shift towards greater social acceptance of stimming by emphasising the value of individual coping strategies and emotional autonomy.
“Rather than seeing stimming as something to fix,” says Brenton, “it’s time we see it for what it truly is: a brilliant human adaptation.” Stims, he points out, help us to thrive rather than just to survive.
“So, flick the pen, bounce the knee, spin in your chair if that’s your jam,” he says. “Accepting your stims is about giving yourself permission to be fully you, quirks and all!”
Words: Lee Cahill
Photography: Gallo/Getty Images
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