Is this stimming?

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I was looking for information for my daughter and I stumbled into the conversations on stimming and was wondering if I do that. I have a habit that I've had as long as I can remember that involves wiggling my fingers in front of my eyes and grinding my teeth. All I can say is that when I do it I can kind of hyperfocus, or visualize things. It kind of lets me daydream very intensely. I learned very young not to do it in front of people, but I still do it privately and I don't really think about when I do it.

Yep.

Ah, excellent. Another member for the finger-wiggling club!
It seems to be a fairly common one, along with rocking, pacing and hand-flapping.

I would appreciate a good description. All I ever really see is hand flapping and I visualize a whole hand flapping around wildly. I learned a long time ago to hide most of my symptoms. I certainly don't do anything like that - nothing that obvious anyway. But I have no idea if I do this on a smaller scale.

Search YouTube for "hand flapping". Lots of examples, lots of variations on a theme.

My personal favourite is drumming fingers. Think of someone bored, drumming their fingers a few times on a table surface - now picture me doing it for an hour or more at a time, and with some really complex rhythms going on. Where possible I use both hands for better rhythms.
Also finger tapping, where the fingers on each hand are tapped or brushed lightly against the opposing thumb in a rapid sequential motion. Preferably using both hands, but I can 'get by' with just one hand. I don't normally need to hold up my hands in front of my face to do this, but I have done in the past.

Sometimes I'll rock back & forward, and the chair in my study is actually a rocking chair. Not the typical wooden sort: it's a modern office chair with a spring-loaded centering mechanism giving a very satisfying damped rocking movement. I'll also do it occasionally on non-rocking chairs - but generally only when people aren't around because it freaks them out!
When much younger I'd bunch my knees up under my chin while sitting and wrap my arms around them, then rock back & forth as I watched TV.

I rarely hand-flap but when I do it's usually because I'm lost for words while explaining something. The action is all in the wrist and my hands quickly flap up & down to the natural extent of their travel. When I do flap, my hands are brought up to my chest level to do it.
Other forms will vary. I've seen videos where hands do flap about wildly as you visualise.

Pacing is just that. Sometimes in a circle, sometimes back and forth, sometimes figure-of-eight. I was playing around with this a few days ago and a figure-of-eight seemed best.

Those above are not exclusive. There are many variations and forms but I guess they're probably amongst the most common stims.

A stim is a repetitive motion that occurs in response to stress - does it help alleviate your stress, or distract you from it? Keep in mind that 'repetitive' in this case means something done over and over and over for long periods of time, like hours on end. There are tons of little fidgety habits that humans have, like nail biting or playing with their hair that generally do not constitute 'stims.' Just because it creates a momentary sensory stimuli does not make it a neurological tic.

Not necessarily. I usually do it because I'm happy about something or just for fun, although I also find myself doing it for stress-related reasons when I'm in a supermarket.
Somewhere on YouTube is a great video of an Autistic girl doing what she called her "happy dance", and the text overlaying the video explains that she's not going to stop doing it as her doctor advises, because she's happy.

Alleviates more than distracts, when I do it through stress, and accentuates existing pleasure when I do it and I'm not stressed.

I think it's more context-dependent than simply being a mindless repetitive action done for hours, although I have drummed away for hours. I'm always 'secretly' finger-tapping when I'm out and about.
I don't always rock when busy, but sometimes when I'm busy I'll rock. I've never rocked while on a bus or train. Well, not since I was 4 years or so old.
Many of the hand-flapping videos on YouTube are clearly a context-related stim, but I think very few - if any - would be doing it continually for hours at a time, irrespective of their surroundings or situations.

Oh sure, I appreciate that.

Thank you. Much clearer now.

I am a hand flapper, and toe wiggler. I try to keep from stimming as much in public. Mom hates the hand flapping thing...she says I look "ret*d"
She says I wiggle my feet in my sleep too. Some times my muscles get sore from stimming all the time, but if I stay still for more than a few seconds, I feel like I am going to explode.

The fingers wiggling in front of eyes stim would make me dizzy as I am very far sighted.

I stim mostly because if I dont I will nut up. When I am nervous I have a messing with my hair stim that I do only when I am bothered. When I am happy...I am bouncy.

I am a toe wriggler too, I don't finger tap anymore because I got told off for it too many times in school, although I can and do slip back into it when not paying attention to what I'm doing, i.e watching t.v, reading a book etc.
When I get really irate I can't stop myself pushing my palms together and biting my tongue, this normally happens right before I explode, so not very often.
But for the most part, I am a toe wriggler, all day everyday.

I don't do this for hours, but I definitely do it most everyday. Like I said, I learned very early on that this was thought of as very weird and not to do it in front of people. I do have a milder version I occasionally catch myself doing in front of people where I zone out for a brief period. I don't think I could ever completely stop doing it and I'm often not totally aware of doing it. I know that it is definitely something more than a simple nervous habit.

I kind of feel a bit relieved to find something that sounds like what I do (I'm 50 now). I think it is something I feel compelled to do to cope and it is just very ingrained in who I am.

My primary obstacle to stimming is all the typing I do every day. I'm not sure if my stimming qualifies for diagnostic criteria, but I do spend a lot of time doing it.

Does anyone have different stims for different moods and scenarios? I tend to rock back and forth when stressed or impatient, and side to side when I feel more content. I have had people tell me I pace too when bored, even though this would be normal for anyone, I've had people make a big deal about it when I do it. They seem to find it quite annoying. Like Cornflake said, figure of eight is usually best, also staight lines with a sharp 180% turn at the end.

Also, does picking the skin in-between my fingers count? I've been doing that for years and I can get quite focused on it, and I've noticed the subject has come up in 1 or 2 of the autism related tests I've taken online.

I'm not sure if what I do counts as stims or as nervous tics, but whatever they are, they are different in different situations.

When I'm inpatient or frustrated I shake my foot. This is one that I try to avoid, because it really annoys a lot of people, but it relaxes me a lot. If I'm driving, I repetitively slap my fingers against something. I think that it's the same thing, but a bit safer while driving.

If I'm distracted or trying to focus on something, I like to chew on something. It feels good.

If I need to think, I walk. This is technically not a stim, but it serves the same purpose for me. I don't pace in a circle, because it looks strange to people, but if nobody is around, I will pace.

If I'm angry, I will walk or pace, a little more aggressively than when I'm trying to think.

Rocking is my "good feeling" stim, always forwards & backwards, and happens when I'm happy or busy. Happy can include just being peacefully zoned out, looking at the empty space 50' away.
Finger-tapping/drumming is my "busy thinking" stim, or my "calming" stim if I'm being stressed by the environment.
Pacing is my "impatient/frustrated/waiting" stim. I think people might make a big deal out of this (as they have done with me) when it's confined to a space about 5' square, and I've only been waiting for a couple of minutes.
One I'd forgotten is my "annoyed" stim, which appears if I'm pushed about something or get a little angry. Fingers pressed together, making a 'snapping lobster claw' action against the thumb, with arms held straight down.

It's bizarre, seeing them listed like that.

Yep, the 180 deg. turn I've done just for the fun aspect as a distraction from the reason why I'm pacing. The figure-of-eight is more of a "thinking" version and always feels more satisfying.

I think it's the context and focus aspects (as opposed to any random, absent-minded aspects) which separates a small tic from a stim.

I'm wondering if petting animals are a way to "hide" this behavior from family and friends.

Also, I think I'm very good at hiding my quirks. I don't wiggle my toes, instead I push my big toe against the next toe. Likewise, I do small muscle movements of my fingers. Things that are generally so small no one notices. Like at the therapist office I had my hands together (right hand in a fist, left thumb inside the fist with the left hand/fingers covering my right hand). Then very rapidly I'd clutch my right hand, relax it, clutch, relax, etc.