Stims - what's wrong with it?

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I still suck my thumb and i'm 34! I always wondered why I couldn't stop! My family don't even mention it anymore. I've stopped doing it in public now I bite the inside of my cheek alot too.

Biggest risk factor for arthritis (beyond genetics) is repetitive movement, such as that involved in holding a job and making the same movement over and over, like at a factory. But you'd have to be doing the same stim for eight or more hours a day to even match the risk that a factory worker runs.

I remember reading this awhile back:

'One M.D. convincingly put that amateur argument to rest with a study published back in 1998 in the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism entitled “Does Knuckle Cracking Lead to Arthritis of the Fingers?” The work of sole author Donald Unger was back in the news in early October when he was honored as the recipient of this year’s Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine. The Igs, for the uninitiated, are presented annually on the eve of the real Nobel Prizes by the organization Improbable Research for “achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think.” In Unger’s case, I thought about whether his protocol might be evidence that he is obsessive-compulsive. From his publication: “For 50 years, the author cracked the knuckles of his left hand at least twice a day, leaving those on the right as a control. Thus, the knuckles on the left were cracked at least 36,500 times, while those on the right cracked rarely and spontaneously.”'

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... k-research

Of course, an n of 1 doesn't really say much, but at least it's something.

It seems different, and NTs are afraid of what's different.

Well you get that area to yourself then (win-win!)- I don't see anything wrong with humming out loud. When I was in art school there were music majors who walked everywhere singing. People walk around whistling. I don't understand why they would swim away! How stupid! I can understand wanting to hum while you are in water because it is so soothing.

When my daughter was younger she would sing all the time. I would push her in the shopping cart and she would sing away to herself. She would get lost in her little play world and sing away- and her voice was clear like a little angel. It makes me happy when people hum,sing, whistle to themselves because it sounds like a happy thing.

I pop all over my body because I have a connective tissue disease. It isn't a stim for me, and I dont do it on purpose- it often signals my joints going back into their sockets But to reassure you- popping is bot bad for your joints. That is a myth. If you have pain and/or swelling you want to let your doc know about that.

I am an artist and I am on my computer all the time. Loss of mobility in my fingers would devastate me too.

I'm usually twiddling or twirling something unless my hands are fully occupied, and I rock to calm down (although not in front of people). I'm a very tense person, and if I couldn't dissipate stress with these behaviors I'd lose my mind.

I twiddle my thumbs because it relaxes me. I have always done somthing to stim.

Last night I caught myself rocking so I stopped, then I started tapping my chin with my fingers, caught myself and stopped, then I started shaking my foot, and then it dawned on me I was probably stimming so I just let the foot go.

I just try not to do it in public. I don't know why you wouldn't do it at home, except that it could become a "habit," which you then might do in public, which then might open you to ridicule that could hurt your feelings.

The one thing I gotta stop doing is talking to myself at work. I don't do this all the time - maybe 1-3x/week. One day I'm going to say something out loud that will get me in trouble, or worse, fired.