Is this stimming?

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I wonder about the prevalence of stimming among autistics because I thought I don't do a lot of it, or very often, especially not where others can see/judge. No rocking or hand flapping for me. I was at a meditation class recently though that employed the alexander technique of body awareness, and I realised I constantly rub the tip of my tongue along the backs of my bottom front teeth. It is a conscious effort to stop doing this, and the moment my awareness is off it, I unconsciously start doing it again. If I'm not eating or talking, I'm doing this all the time.
Does this sound like a stimming behaviour? It just seems so subtle, no one would ever know I was doing it.

Possibly.
I do it sometimes as well. And the back of my bottom front teeth is rough, so the tongue gets to feel them a lot.

Rocking and hand flapping are not the definition of stimming. They are common examples of stimming. It is any repetitive body motion used self stimulation.

Pretty much all of my stims are invisible to the outside world; it's how I was trained growing up. And possibly like you, I only recently learned that any of those things that I did to balance internal stimulus levels (ie in the brain*) with sensory-nerve signal levels (by upping the latter) are indeed, stimming. And stimming doesn't necessarily have to be highly repetitive, it's just that most physical stimulus is one-shot, like a hand clap. It ends and you have to do it again. Imperfectly constant pressure and vocal stimming would be examples of non-repetative stims.

*and this includes, frustratingly enough, brain levels that are induced by external stimulus not under the person's control, like auditory stimulus from a room full of talking people.

I do this a lot, some patches of my gums are quite worn. I certainly consider it a stim, although I don't consider it a good stim for in public because it can make your face look a bit contorted. It's subtle people seem to notice.

Wanna see someone stim? Check this kid out.



He really know how to stim.

^ HA! I love this kid. It may be un-PC of me but I sometimes envy "low functioning" autistics that they can just do what many of us would like to. He looks like he's having a great time. I think for "high functioning" people, those things are only in certain "autistic moments." Like me being given a raisin-less hot cross bun and thinking this was so awesome that I have to shove my whole face in it. Earned me a few surprised looks, but that was exactly what I wanted to do with the warm, dense, sweet smelling stuff all raisin-free.
I've watched a few of Amethyst's 'ask an autistic' before, and she has some good points. Actually one of her videos made me realise my hand-clapping thing when pleased was actually an autistic trait.
Interesting about the stimming, though. If my tongue-rubbing is a stim activity then I have gone from thinking of myself as someone who hardly ever stims to someone who does so constantly.

I think it is a stim for you. But like Milksnake stated, be careful not to damage your gums with it. Perhaps you can replace it with another stim if you are doing it enough to damage your gumline.

Re. the 8 year old laughing. I´m highfunc. (if we can use the term about aspies), but I did that too - even as a teen.

Is clapping an autistic thing?
I often rub palms and clap "out of the blue" - or shake my hands vividly to get rid of a stressfull energy rising up my back. It makes me rock sometimes too to calm down.
Anyone know that feeling?