Advice needed for a frustrated autistic.

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I have an AS friend (am in the UK so Asperger's still exists here) who I get along well with. He's one of the few people that truly understand me.

However he gets very frustrated about something. He gets hyperactive when anxious. As in really hyperactive at times. Whenever he goes out and interacts with anyone (often me included), he gets intermittently really hyper. He has social anxiety to a degree, but atypically.

When he gets hyper, he talks all the time, really fast, and gets psychomotor agitation. I sometimes say "can we have some quiet time now?" and he starts self-loathing for the embarrassment he experiences when he realises how hyper he got.

He hates getting hyper. He just wants to be serious and calm all the time. He finds being hyper overloading and when he gets back to his living alone flat, he often blows up and has a huge meltdown. Because of how overloading his "hyper attacks" are.

He keeps trying to stop them using reminders and willpower. Now he's turning to meds, taking anything sedating he can find before going out. But he metabolises drugs really fast and if they wear off halfway through while being with people, he gets hyper.

He is really desperate to delete hyper and stay calm, serious and logical all the time, or at least 90% of the time.

Can you offer any advice to him? He doesn't want to sign up to WP unfortunately. I haven't told him I'm asking you all yet.

Meditative breathing exercises help me with this sort of thing. When going to bed, I practice the cycle: inhale for eight seconds, hold it gently for four seconds, then exhale for eight seconds, and start the next cycle less than a second after, for the half-hour or so it takes me to fall asleep.

This drops my tempo and enhances my patience, and once it became a habit (which took me a couple of months of regular practice), it's something I can do anywhere and at any time to put me back into a slow tempo mode immediately.

I was advised to start with a 4-2-4 cycle, then bump it up to 6-3-6 when that became comfortable, and then to 8-4-8, but I ended up skipping 6-3-6 and jumping straight from 4-2-4 to 8-4-8.

It's something one can do just before social situations, or even while listening to someone else speak.

I tend to get hyper in a social context too. I don't see my friends often because I need half a day or a whole day to wind down after it (and I get very anxious for several hours before as well). What has helped me the most so far is to meet my friends outside, where we can walk or at least move a bit. Moving helps me process the anxiety and I feel less trapped. For the time being, I can't even imagine spending hours sitting down and chatting with a friend, like most people do.

Yeah, I often (usually?) get hyper like that. Then part of my post-socializing processing is to get down on myself about it, though gratefully not as harshly as your friend does.

All the things others have mentioned are great. The additional things I can do is limit the number and duration of my social interactions, and be cautious about introducing or jumping into topics that can set me off.

He seems to have two main issues, though, that can be addressed separately. First is avoiding becoming hyper. The second, and I think perhaps more troubling, is beating himself up afterwards. When I get down on myself like that I have to do cognitive reframing, thought redirection, and, if possible, something physical.

I do hope he finds some things that can help.

Epsom salt baths to keep his levels of magnesium and sulfate up.
It helps me, anyways.

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