What are stimming behaviors?

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But everyone does stuff like that. Why do people talk about it so much in relation to autism? Everyone I know twitches around and fiddles with things in their hand and chews on bookmarks and bounces their leg and stuff like that.

Yes true but also it is more common in aspies/auties and we do it more often. But yeah you are right many NTS do that stuff too.

I'm actually in the process of being diagnosed, but wow. I never, EVER thought I'd find someone else who cleaned their ears as many times a day as I do or someone who likes running things through their fingernails.

Normally in public, I sit with my arms crossed (hands underneath) so that I can run my clothes underneath my fingernails or even run the fabric folds through my fingers making sure to touch the base of my fingers with the fabric. That way, with the arms folded, other people don't notice that I CONSTANTLY do this. I also pick at my own skin any where there is an abnormality or a rough spot so I'm almost constantly touching my face/scalp or manipulating fabrics with my fingers. I flap my hands when excited (only away from others) and pace, which is usually acceptable in public to some extent. I'm pretty much constantly moving some part of my body repetitively. It never ends.

I also listen to the same things repetitively, like songs, until they get old. This can take weeks. I can also do this with my favorite movie whenever I feel like crap, but I'm not sure it's stimming.

Two that I noticed:
rapid foot tapping.
micro finger movements.
But I also play and fidget with things. Pens are a particular favorite, but i used to like spinning coins too.

I do a lot of foot rubbing when I am trying to relax by either sitting on the couch or laying in bed.

i 'crack' my neck often... listen to the same song over and over... flap my left hand against m chest when I am thinking and especially if I am stressing and trying to get something done. Bounce my knees often, when I am either stressing, or excited...

used to do repetitive things like walk and step on cracks of the sidealk in patterns in symmetric order.... L,R,R,L then R,L,L,R then do the reverse, RLLRLRRL, the do another.... if I tripped or the squares of the sidewalk changed size or direction, it would agitate me... put things in lines and in order... have an object I would always carry with me... the most recent was a TI-85 calculator, a knitted winter hat which I wore a good part of last summer, and a camo jacket I had since 1991 and a key chain rubber thingie I had since 1984.

I pace only when I am on the verge of a meltdown from intense emotions i can not or can barely throttle.

I do think some of your behaviors are stemming... I am still learning about my own, never - until recently, identified some things I do as stemming.... read about others that stem and wondered why I don't... read what others do and identified that I do the same things or similar in nature... I had a lot of things when I was younger... not as many or not as often these days...

going on 10 days now that I listen to lithum by evanscence wwhenever I reply to posts, otherwise I just cant post because it is too hard to try to translate what is in my mind into written format in english...

YES!

pick nails, scratch scabs, flap hands, rock, bounce leg up and down, bite cheek, lots of different finger fidgets like, crack knuckles, pace, make humming or other strange noises, blink eyes fast, pick head, feel soft things ( even peoples clothes )

my stimming is a bit odd i guess.
one stimulation method i use is to look up with my eyeballs (not moving my head) so far that it kind of hurts. i can not see anything clearly, but it feels like i am yawning in a strange way.

another one that i use is grimacing. i try hard not to do that in public.
i do not think i have done it in public, but i am not sure.

when i "stim grimace", i pull a face like i have been electrically shocked in my face.
it is also like a yawning sensation.

when you yawn (think about it) you become dimly aware that you have not used your facial muscles in quite a while, and you have also not breathed very deeply for a while.
when you become aware of this (sub-consciously) you stretch your facial muscles to fritter out the feeling of stored electricity (neural muscular) that you have not spent for a while that has built up and is subconsciously annoying. (you also breathe deeply for the obvious reason)

that is why people also stretch their arms and legs after spells of inactivity.

my face hardly ever has expression on it, and every now and then i get a desire to stretch it into a grimace that is very extreme and hard to pull. it is very stress relieving like it is frittering away stored electricity quickly.

(it is not an ugly grimace i think ( i filmed it). it looks like someone screwing up their face about to listen to a nuclear bomb).

lately i have been compelled to pull that expression when i feel like it, but thankfully i have not done it at the supermarket yet (i hope)

As a child, I used to have a weird tendency to touch things around me that were brown- I hated that color. So when I saw something on people or anywhere around me of that color, I would touch it to try to "vanquish" it. Yes, even in public, like when taking public transit or when standing in a crowd, and I could even stray off my course just so that I could touch everything in my sight that is brown. I guess it's more of a routine thing than of a stimming thing.

NTs do that too. They call it smalltalk.

Oh wow, I'm learning a lot about myself! Things I now recognize as stims:

* The weird ones: I imagine a cube boxing the tip of my finger. I take my thumb and, rubbing the tip of my finger with it, touch each side of the box in its center, and then go to the center of the cube itself. It makes a sort of 7-pointed, 3D star shape. I do the exact same pattern with my tongue across the tip of my teeth, or to keep my tongue from getting raw, the roof of my mouth where it angles upward behind my gums. I also sometimes touch the backs my gums between my teeth in a sort of zig-zagging pattern, homing in towards the center in a 7-step process. And finally, I drum with my teeth. This means rocking my jaw back and forth and making my teeth clack together in a rhythm, usually in sync with whatever song is currently stuck in my head. All of these are compulsive and repetitive; even if I make myself stop, I'll catch myself doing it again in a few minutes. They're also specifically chosen to be invisible to other people, for the most part.

* The ordinary ones: Leg bouncing (when I'm on the computer), pacing (when I'm on the phone or thinking really hard), snapping rhythmically (while I'm walking), rubbing my eyes, tapping my fingers on the desk or steering wheel, singing/humming/whistling, biting my nails, shifting from foot to foot, etc.

* The classic ones: Only when I'm extremely upset, I rock front to back.