Instead of biting my nails or playing with a fidget toy, is there a skill I can learn/practice?

Like rolling a pen/coin through my fingers or something like that.

  • nnullzz@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Lockpicking maybe? Just recently got into it as a bucket list hobbies but it’s actually really entertaining. They sell practice cutaway locks that fit easily in one hand as you fidget about with the lock picks.

    • Riskable@programming.dev
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      7 months ago

      This is a great idea! Lock picking is fun and super impressive to laymen (haha).

      Just don’t tell anyone but your closest, most trusted friends (haha). Also, tell them to keep it a secret! Why? So your neighbor doesn’t knock on your door at 2AM because they locked themselves out of their apartment.

      Also, you don’t need cutaway locks! They’re neat toys but nothing more. What you really need is a variety of locks to play with.

      Head to your local hardware store and pick up a bunch of cheap locks. Or just ask friends if they have any old padlocks they’re not using (most people will have one or two).

    • perviouslyiner@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      You can get training locks where the back of each cylinder unscrews so you can put in as many or as few pins as you want, and try it again with different pinning each time.

    • bl_r@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 months ago

      Whenever I have my lockpicks and a few padlocks available, I end up picking nonstop while doing things like watching youtube

  • LucasWaffyWaf@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    My most frequent stim for YEARS involves me playing along doing saxophone fingerings to whatever music I’m listening to or is stuck in my head. So, maybe a wind instrument!

  • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    That’s what stimming is for, kid!

    Stimming is a natural source of the “try mind” zen practitioners speak of. Do a perfect impression of Jon Stewart. Why? Why?? Hell no there’s no why.

    I drum with my fingers. The first time I picked up a tabla someone was pissed that I got it “immediately”. No! That’s the result of hundreds of hours of practice.

    Stimming is a fusion reactor in the autistic mind, just waiting to be hooked up to something useful. We can practice a task orders of magnitude more than most people can, because we literally can’t get tired of it.

    If nothing else, go play some music. Stimming with music is how culture began. Somebody’s gotta drag these numbskulls through their passivity to new levels of beauty. Stimming is the hacksaw that cuts the prison bars shoddy workmanship.

  • WatTyler@lemmy.zip
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    7 months ago

    ADHD here. Speedcubing. It’s a wonderful hobby for me. When I’m interested in it, I can learn some new things and time myself to see how I’m doing. When I’m not interested in it, I can solve it and it helps me to focus on watching TV. Even if I’m not solving it, it feels great just to twist in your hands.

    Look up a good budget speedcube (not Rubik’s branded) and invest yourself as much or as little as you fancy.

  • karashta@kbin.melroy.org
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    7 months ago

    Coin tricks. Especially knuckle rolling coins and learning how to change the position of the coin between various palming techniques.

  • bobagem@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    Chisanbop or chisenbop (from Korean chi (ji) finger + sanpŏp (sanbeop) calculation 지산법/指算法), sometimes called Fingermath, is a finger counting method used to perform basic mathematical operations.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chisanbop

    You might be already doing this. If you strum your fingers of your right hand by pressing your index, middle, ring, and pinky to your desktop, and then do the same thing again starting with your thumb, you’ve just counted from 0 to 9. Do the same on your left hand and you’ve gone from 00 to 90. It’s really easy to do simple math this way by counting on your fingers.

    For stimming purposes, you might just start by counting up or counting down, then maybe counting up by twos or counting down by threes.

    This is the approach that I’ve known for many decades now. I’ve seen YouTube videos of kids doing amazing fast calculations like multiplying large numbers using what looks like a different method in that their hands are in the air. I’ll leave it to you to Google the other approaches if this direction interests you.

    • JackFrostNCola@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I second knitting, and its 100% something you can do while watching tv without needing to devote much concentration, its almost subconscious once your going.

  • schmorp@slrpnk.net
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    7 months ago

    Drawing. I set myself the strict rule to be completely unambitious about my coloured pencil drawings. I do them only for myself, and the enjoyment while doing it is the main purpose. So sometimes I just draw some squiggles and then I fill them with colours, one layer over another. One drawing can take weeks, I do a bit every evening and it is so relaxing. Now with time they start looking really neat as a cool side effect, so I have been thinking about framing them.

  • lurch@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    While I’m unfamiliar with your condition, it seems simple magic tricks, like having a playing card appear in your hand from thin air (when it was actually just well hidden) and making it disappear again.

  • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I’ve gotten pretty good at rolling a pen through my fingers just through fidgeting over the past twenty years. So it’s definitely possible!

  • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
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    7 months ago

    What do you mean by “stimming”? Being on stimulants?

    Edit: In case it was not clear, I am literally asking what this word means as I have not heard it before.

  • adam_y@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Think you just answered your own question.

    Seriously though, coin rolling is great for dexterity and you can move on to some simple slight of hand magic

    • weariedfae@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Also for those who don’t feel like Googling it: flow arts include juggling, spinning, baton/staff/whatever spinning, fan dance (?), and more.

      TIL there’s a general term for that.

      Wouldn’t the coin on the knuckles thing count?

      • 𝕱𝖎𝖗𝖊𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖈𝖍@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Coin on the knuckles is tangential but not usually considered flowarts, which is usually more of a whole body activity. However it’s close enough that I wouldn’t be surprised if I saw someone showing off at a gathering. Similar to like hackeysack or balisong (butterfly knife).

        Flow is also a gateway to fire performance, aerials, acrobatics, and other circus arts