What is your best method you use to calm yourself?

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Let's say excluding medications, alcohol or drugs of any kind -

It seems to be the case that most people on the Spectrum find that certain repetitious routines, rituals, stims or activities will help self-sooth them when they are a bit stressed.

For me I discovered that I will find a couple of movies that I really, really identify with. I find that after I have seen that particular movie enough times that I know it pretty well - when I put one of my favorite movies on my DVD player when I am feeling a bit nervous and a bit stressed - I will calm down and fall asleep halfway into the movie.

Do you have any particular activities, rituals, routines or even physical movement stims that you can usually rely on to calm your nerves?

Rubbing my wrists together slowly, screaming, pacing, being in pressure (hugs, weighted blanket, underwater, ECT), drawing, music, and Isolation.

Pacing, a whole lot of pacing. I also touch all my fingers with my thumbs and repetitively tense my feet.

If I can, I take a hot shower and go to bed. While in bed may watch a familiar movie or tv show on dvd, and/or eat a snack.

I definitely find that a hot shower helps a lot. I wish I had a bath tub - because a hot bath - for me - helps even more. if I can after the hot shower or bath make my room nice and cold and curl up in a much of comforter blankets - that helps a lot too.

My weighted blanket, rocking in my rocking chair, pulling on my hair (not 'good' but oh well), watching MST3K (specific episodes), eating cinnamon Altoids. Only Altoids though.

I lock my room door and keep walking around the room listening to music while I'm thinking/fantasizing for 20 mins or more I nearly do it everyday more than once

Go into the forest.

Engaging in my special interests.

Listening to bird song and bird calls. Watching native forest birds feed, perch, nest and fly in the trees near my place.

If I am just trying to calm down after a long day, I read. If I am trying to calm down after some kind of sensory overload or meltdown (rare), I alternate my thoughts between anger (or whatever other emotion I feel) and remembering the last time something similar happened and what I did to calm down. This intentional alternating allows me to be angry in steps, but keeps me from obsessing about it and making myself angrier. It also forces me to use tried-and-true ways to calm as quickly as I can. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts.

I do that, too - Chicken Run, Finding Nemo, Where the Wild Things Are and Cars are the movies that do it for me.

I also find that holding, squeezing, fidgeting, and manipulating things with my hands helps me a lot, too - whether it's my Tangle Jr. toy, a plushie, or these two stones I carry around. It keeps me from panicking and getting too anxious, and also from biting my nails and pulling out my eyelashes and eyebrows (I have dermatillomania and trich tendencies).

The Squid enjoys a very cold, very dark room and some of his favorite music. This is convenient since our current place of employment has a walk-in freezer, and we own an MP3 player.

Playing Solitaire or Mahjong on PC or DS. It's very relaxing for me. This is my most used method.

Listening to rain is also very soothing (but weather dependent). I have a CD called "Ocean surf" and another called "Gentle rain", both of which have sounds that are exactly that, and they are both very relaxing, as is the ticking of clocks.
Watching a running stream, like a little brooklet or the ocean is also relaxing, but seldom practical. It's just something to enjoy if I already happen to be there.

I usually calm myself by snuggling my plushies, listening to music or play pokemon. It depends on what I'm going through though. If I'm angry, it's harder for me to calm down because not a lot can help me. D: I do watch movies I like or maybe look at pictures of Tom Hiddleston. >w<

varying combinations of stimming (rocking) and meditation.