Developing New Stims?

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I am thirty years old, and am a fully functional Aspie with a family and a job. I deal with people and life fairly well. But I have noticed in the last few months, I seem to have developed a new stim. I have always rocked and jerked my foot (endlessly, generally as long as I'm sitting still. But now, when I am acutely stressed (someone asks me something and I can't form words, I lose my ipod, I am scared, my son, husband, and the dog are making noise all at once or trying to talk to me all at once) I open and close my hands rapidly, often with enough force to cut my nails into my palm if I don't trim them. I thought stims were programmed into the brain, and didn't know we could pick up new ones. Has anyone else had this happen?

I do both of those and notice first when I see the nailmarks in my palm.
It's possible to pick up new stims, I think. But it's more important to figure out if they're a reaction to some new stressor.

I fell on the steps at work in October and hurt my right wrist badly. I went through several doctors before finally having surgery to fix it last month. I have been completely unable to use my dominant hand for 7 months. That has been incredibly stressful. Maybe that's it. That opens the question of whether the new stim will go away when I get back to work and things go back to normal...

That explains it. I'm sorry, I can't give any reassurance it will go back to normal But I know I stim way less when I'm not under stress or in pain so that will probably happen when you get better and/or find other ways to cope.