Things you do to take care of your aspergers/autism

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So glad i stumbled upon this thread...

I've had way too many "zig zag" days in a row and I'm folding in on myself.

Right... sleep, eat, avoid too much stimulation...

Can't wait for classes to start up again in a month, I've had no schedule to help me keep things straight.

sleep, take my vitamins, go to the doctor about my medication(take said medication), take showers every day after 15 minutes of exercise, a daily routine, get my monthly IVIG, and take care of my kids.

I've discovered a new one recently - not forcing myself to seem like an NT to others, when they really don't care. I've discovered that most store clerks don't give a care if you actually make eye contact with them or not. So why have I been making myself do so, wearing myself out, and making myself feel badly?

I'm looking for other things I've been doing like this, too, that just don't provide enough return for the effort I put in.

I've got a book about learning mindfulness just for Autistic people, but haven't been able to stick to it.
Going to do a group training on Mindfulness in a few months (at the Autism center)...
Which excercises help you the most?


I used to lie on the carpet under my desk (in my room at home) in the fetal position, slowly rolling around.

OT: Take my Seroquel, work on my PTSS via EMDR therapy (which is awesome in that it actually works!! !), constantly listen to my MP3 collection (via headphones the second I leave the house), sleep tons of hours, talk to my social worker (tell everything that happened to process it a second time, and then handle practical difficult stuff together), ask advice from my Autism-specialized psychologist on how to cope... etc.

I'm not so good at dealing with meltdowns. I've been on stress overload, emotional over-stimulation like crazy (slow, agonizing death of my husband's grandmother) and I'm just totally short circuiting. Right now I'm just clinging to my dog for dear life.

Hang in there

Would you mind giving the title for that book, I'd be interested.

I'd say the most useful mindfulness exercises for me are ones that can be done quickly with switching full attention to something just briefly.

Examples might be:-
mindfulness of eating - you concentrate on the exact look, texture, feel and finally taste of each mouthful of what you eat, if you get distracted you just gently and kindly bring back your attention to what you are eating. A common exercise is to eat a raisin or nut and really concentrate on all the sensations of eating it, but you can do this with any food.

mindfulness of sound - you concentrate on all the sounds you can currently hear, the ones near to you, the ones far away, you just concentrate on the sound itself not what you think about it or how it makes you feel, just the sound; you can do this for just a few seconds if you wish.

mindfulness of breathing - you concentrate on your breath coming in and out of a point of your body, this might be your nose, filling your lungs or whatever you choose; you can expand this by following the breath in and out your body if you wish, again if you are distracted you just kindly and non-critically bring your attention back to the breath.

mindfulness of walking - concentrating just on how your body moves at it walks, how you're foot connects with the pavement (sidewalk) and how it lifts off again, again you can do this for just a short moment in time (also note it is not advisable to do this while you're doing something possibly risky like crossing a road ).

A longer exercise is something called a body scan where you breath into and out of parts of your body in turn, this usually takes at least 10 to 20 minutes though and whilst I find it very calming I can find it difficult to do when feeling anxious.

The other exercises can be done for just a 10 seconds (or even less) if you want, though if you can do them for at least 1 minute that can be better; doing just these short exercises can give me little moments of calm through the day and be soothing; it temporarily can get me out of my head from 'thinking' to 'just being' mode which I find calming.

If you Google the above terms you should be able to find various free audio versions of these to download.

When I was first learning to do this I found it easier to listen to a recording that talked me through it, rather than just reading through the exercise and then trying to do it.

There are also some nice self-compassion based versions of breathing and body-scan exercises that are free to download here (these around 20 minutes in length per exercise I think though - and the self-compassion approach may not be for everyone):-

http://www.self-compassion.org/guided-self-compassion-meditations-mp3.html

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Additional free downloads can be found here including minfulness of sound and a compassionate walking exercise

http://www.mindfulselfcompassion.org/meditations_downloads.php

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With practice I have found I can bring midnfulness to all sorts of daily activities for a series of brief moments, for example I often try to wash-up or shower mindfully, concentrating on the sensations of water on my skin, I always get distracted by my thoughts but can then often bring my attention to the sensation only.

My experience has been that learning how to things mindfully is a useful skill for me, though I have a long way to go in practising getting better at doing it more frequently and for longer periods of time.

[Note: I'm not yet sure if I am on the autism spectrum or not, but suspect I am - am currently seeking diagnosis]

1) Making sure that I sleep and eat on a regular schedule.
This is a problem for me when I'm working on something I'm very focused on, and don't have any outside interactions/distractions/interruptions. I can go 14 hours straight, and then suddenly the sun's coming up, my blood sugar has crashed, and I'm so over-tired I can't sleep. That messes me up for DAYS.

2) Allow myself alone time.
I like people, and I work well with others, but interacting with them is exhausting. I'm careful now to give myself built-in down-time, whether it's saying, "Sorry, nothing personal, but I need some time to myself," to colleagues who invite me to lunch during a conference, taking a break where I listen to music in bed before going out to dinner, turning down most invitations to social events, or letting my partner know that I really just need to spend tonight curled up with a good book.

3) Recognize when I'm getting over-stimulated, and GTFO before I melt-down.
I was trying to buy some clothes last week, and had to stop. Between the loud music, the lighting, the bright colors, and the intense perfume other shoppers were wearing, it was just too much. In the past I would have "toughed it out" until I was done buying something or completely lost it. Now I just leave as soon as I realize. I scout out single person bathrooms where ever I go so that, if I need a little break, I can go hide out in there with the lights off for a bit.

4) Meditate.
I have a visualization activity where I sit in a quiet space. I imagine I'm like a tree, with roots in the earth and branches in the air. When I breathe in, I imagine myself pulling energy from the earth and moving it up through my body. When I breathe out, I imagine myself lettign that energy go out into the air though my branches. It helkps relax and center me.

Very helpful to me, as I have all these issues as well.