Stimming is great for focus. Mod K.A.’s post here lists heaps of options for hand stim toys that can still be used when you need to type or write. I wanted to make a post focusing on stim toys that are made to be used as part of sitting, or that can be used with your feet.

A pedal exerciser is made of just the pedals of an exercise bike and can sit underneath a desk. (AU $33.60, ships from Australia.)

[Image description: Photo of a black pedal exerciser, which has two pedals attached to a thin plastic block about 50cm/1.5 feet tall, with a digital display and several buttons.]

A bouncy band is an elastic band that sits between the front legs of your chair. You can rest your feet on it, behind it, or in front of it, and fidget with it. I think it would be very easy to by a length of elastic from a craft shop to try a DIY option. It may not be as durable, but it could give you an idea of whether this is an option that will work for you. (The one in the link is AU $23.59, shipping from Australia.)

(Note: I’d try the knock-off TheraBands available from K-Mart over elastic - Stretch Bands, $8 AUD for a pack of three bands with different resistances. These are much wider than elastic and will give your foot something to cup against, plus you can fold them over to thicken them up. Be warned that they absolutely reek of chemical plastic odour. I don’t think these are natural latex like proper TheraBands, but wouldn’t recommend them for folks with latex allergies or chemical sensitivities, to be safe. Mine are airing out, but slowly. Also see our TheraBand tag for where to find the real thing. - Mod. K.A.)

If you are able to be barefoot, there’s lots of different ways you can stim with your feet:

There’s a traditional foot massager, made of rolling, wooden beads with spikes. (AU $6.95, ships internationally from China.)

This plastic foot massage mat is made up of lots of really interesting textures. (AU $7.78, ships internationally  from Hong Kong and China.)

Spiky massage balls are interesting for all sorts of stimming, and are often recommended for pain in the arch of your foot. (AU $2 at K-Mart Australia, often found in toy stores, cheap stores and stores that specialise in Occupational Therapy and stim toys.)

You can find interesting textures in plenty of different places for DIY stim toys. Smooth river rocks, a fluffy rug or a wooden bath mat are some of the options that appeal to me. (Bamboo bath mat is AU $39.95, ships from Australia.)

[Image description: Six plastic foot massage mats locked together, in blue, pink, purple, green, red and yellow. A person can be seen standing on them from the knees down. Each mat has about 150 raised plastic hemispheres which are covered in bumps. In the centre is a large bump surrounded by a circle of medium bumps. The ebay listing describes it as 27cm x 28cm.]

You can also consider how you’re sitting. An office chair is an option that’s often already in your environment. You can rock, spin, or twist side to side. Gym balls are often recommended as a replacement for chairs because they’re good for posture, but they’re also good for gently rocking and bouncing on. You also can’t recline into a lazy, slouched position like you can on a chair, so you always have to keep a little bit of focus on staying in the right position. (AU $10 from K-Mart Australia, often available in department stores or for more expensive in sports and fitness stores.)

A less dramatic option is something like this spiky tactile cushion, which inflates and has spikes one side and nubs the other. Like sitting on a gym ball, it encourages you to move around a bit. The texture of the seat also provides tactile input. (US $30.99, ships internationally from the US.)

No question is dumb, anon! You’rewanting to find a way to fidget or stim that fulfills your needs while notantagonising the people around you. It’s an important thing to figure out,since these sorts of compromises are ones we all need to make as stimmers atsome point, be they with other stimmers or the people in our lives.

(I am never here for getting topeople to stop stimming. Sometimes, though, while other people’s responses toour stimming are based in ableism, it is easier and safer to compromise andfind an alternative stim, especially if that means we get to keep onstimming. Of course, our stims can genuinely annoy others, especially otherND/disabled folk. I regularly have to turn my back on the person sitting in theseat beside me on the train because of the constant flickering of theirfingers/hands as they use the touchscreen on their mobile phone. Typing is the worst;it feels like someone driving spikes through my eyeballs to watch, even out ofthe corners of my eyes, yet it’s a common, everyday activity. For the samereasons, I need people to keep flickering hand movements, common in many stims,to a minimum around me. So sometimes we absolutely do have to compromise inorder to keep stimming, and I’m always happy to have more conversations aboutthis.)

The more difficult thing about thisis that there’s a lot of different stims for hands and less for the feetand legs, so this is harder to redirect. You can try to play with a Tangle, forexample, but you might just find yourself twisting a Tangle while continuing tobounce your legs. Mod Rainbow recently wrote a fabulous post on feet and legsdesk stimming, and this is well worth checking out.

I highlight, from their post, two things that might best work for you:

The first is the rolling of a prickle/massage ball under your foot (also see this post). This will allow you to move your leg back and forth while also giving you the tactile stimming of the ball’s texture. It might be less distracting/annoying than the leg bouncing.

The second - although this will only work if you have a chair with legs - is the tying of a bouncy band, or something stretchy like a TheraBand, to the legs, giving you something to swing your foot against. This might control and direct your movements, making them smaller/less obtrusive.

You might also consider something like a massage ball or brush for running down your legs, say if you’re sitting curled up on a couch or armchair while watching TV or reading: the added sensory input might reduce the need to bounce.

You might also consider seeing if a weighted blanket or lap pad works for you, too, because the weight/pressure stimming might (please note that this doesn’t work for everyone) give enough proprioceptive input that you don’t need to swing.

If you think that hand stims and fidgets are an alternative you wish to explore, I’m going to link you to a few previous posts: cheap fidget toys | household fidgets | popular toys | categories of toys | my recs for a stim toy kit | why you should vary your stimming.

I’m a little pressed for time today, anon (I have a guest, @ambiguouspieces, staying with me) so I’m going to ask for folks with good ideas to help me out by commenting away, as my brain isn’t wholly focused on you. I apologise for that, and I’ll add comments to this post as I can. If I come up with any other ideas over the next few days, I’ll also add to this post myself!

I hope this gives you somewhere to start, anon, and I’m sorry for making you wait so long for a response!

Hey, anon! I’m trying to think of things that can be ripped apart and I’m struggling beyond things like slime, dough, or kinetic sand dough, which can be torn and moulded back together (making them reusable). Everything else that crosses my mind is very one-time use. I hope followers can help you out with suggestions, because I’m coming up blank.

I can help with toys that stretch!

First: slime. Not your storebought slimes, because they’re often jelly-like and brittle, but homemade slimes. I can stretch mine as far as I can stretch my arms; the only thing stopping me from stretching my slime further is me. If purchasing, you may want to inquire of the seller how taffy-like their slime is - stickier slimes, in general, have more stretch than those that don’t. (They’re also less likely to snap under pressure.) If making, use as little activator as you can get away with and allow your slime to be as sticky as is reasonable to handle. This means you can stretch it harder under more tension without it snapping.

(@transsliime and @caseydickdanger make a lot of different slimes and are fabulously receptive to chatting with their customers, and you can find their respective stores here and here.)

Second: kinetic sand dough. (The brand name products here in Australia are Spinmaster’s Kinetic Sand Build or - if you want to support a company that doesn’t hate autistics - Irwin Toys’ Skwooshi Dough. The product name in the US is Mad Mattr.) This is basically the love child of kinetic sand and playdough, and under gentle tension it stretches fabulously. Please note the words “gentle tension”: if you pull quickly and hard, it will just snap. (That may be what you’re after, though!)

Third: Thinking Putty. (Available at most places that sell stim toys; here’s the main website!) This is probably the cleanest, most portable option out of the putty/slime/dough offerings. The brand-name putty is incredibly stretchy (especially once it’s been in your hands a few moments) without being oozy and it isn’t fragile. If you pull hard, the putty will just form finer and longer strands.

(Similarly, TheraPutty. It’s a little tougher to stretch than Thinking Putty and is available in several levels of resistance. I have the green one, which is medium, so if you want more force required to stretch it, I’d recommend either green or blue (firm). Available at The Therapy Store for Aussies and The Therapy Shoppe for US folks. By the way, this stuff lasts for years. I’ve had mine for at least five.)

Fourth: TheraBands. These are basically stretchy lengths of latex in colour-coded graded resistance designed for physiotherapy. The weaker ones - yellow and orange - are super, super stretchy. You can hold it under your foot and pull it, tie to furniture and pull it, hold it and stretch it - there’s so many ways you can turn this into a stretchy stim toy. There’s also TheraBand loops, which is what it says on the tin - the stretchy latex as a sealed loop. (Say if you want to put both hands in the loop and stretch sideways.) If you want to stretch hard and you want some resistance, I think these are ideal.

(You can break these … or at least, I broke the yellow one. After five years and the latex had degraded, going thin and tacky. My orange band, which is thicker and stronger, is still perfect, so I’d recommend this one for you. When new, though, the yellow one was just fine to stretch hard.)

For US folks, they’re available at The Therapy Shoppe. You can also get Can Do latex-free bands and Fidgeting Foot bands for attaching to a chair.

The Therapy Shoppe also lists smaller Figure 8 Resistance Bands which look ideal for portable stretching. However, the listing states out of stock, and I’m having trouble finding an alternate stockist for this and not the more conventional exercise resistance bands. Black Mountain on Amazon has a lot of different conventional exercise and resistance bands, if you feel like looking in that direction, but as the TheraBands are a simple sheet of latex, they’re much easier to tuck into a pocket or bag.

Fifth, stretchy strings. It’s a small portable plastic string designed to stretch. Available from Amazon, The Therapy Shoppe and Fidget Club. I don’t know, personally, how much stretch these will take before snapping; perhaps someone can advise us on this?

(In this light, telephone cord bracelets are also stretchy and very portable. These will snap under extreme pressure (at the join where the ends are glued) but they’re not very expensive and you can just keep on stretching the broken bracelet.)