When it comes to treating autism, most people consider medical treatment and maintaining proper communication to be the best approaches. However, that’s not true.
Besides these, you’ll need to follow a proper dietary plan and include vitamin supplements in it. Otherwise, it’ll be impossible for you to take care of the nutritional deficiencies, gastrointestinal distress, and other issues.
In addition, autism supplements can also help you control the issue of stimming. Here’s what you need to know regarding this context.
What Is Stimming?
Stimming, medically known as self-stimulatory behavior, refers to an unusual or repetitive noise or movement. The issues regarding the same might include –
- Finger and hand movements (hand-flapping, finger-flipping, etc.)
- Posturing (holding fingers and hands at an awkward angle or arching the backside while sitting)
- Unusual movements of the body (swaying back and forth while standing or sitting)
- Visual stimulation (looking at an object or another human being sideways)
- Mouthing or chewing objects repetitively
- Listening to the same noise or song again and again
- Repetitious behavior (closing or opening doors, flicking switches ceaselessly)
As you can guess, many children with autism tend to stim. Nonetheless, the way they do it can vary from one individual to another. For instance, some toddlers will do some mild hand mannerisms while others will keep doing the same until they are tired.
Sometimes, stimming depends on the situation or stress level of the child too. For example, some people tend to stim a lot more than usual when they are stressed about something.
Why Does Stimming Occur?
According to physicians, stimming helps people with ASD manage various emotions like fear, anger, excitement, and anxiety. It also lets them cope with overwhelming sensory information. It may also stimulate “underactive” senses in some individuals.
However, while it might help them in taking care of their mood swings, it also shifts their focus from something more substantial. Therefore, if someone is too involved in stimming, they might stop attending to the outer world.
Stimming can also affect one’s ability to communicate with others due to the shift of attention. For example, if an autistic child is flicking their fingers near their eyes, they will not answer to anyone, even to their parents.
Best Supplements For Stimming
Although it might not sound believable at first, stimming can be controlled through vitamin supplements. Here’s what you need to know about it.
Melatonin
Melatonin usually helps in improving the quality of sleep in an individual with autism. However, it can also reduce the issue of anxiety and stress in the patient. This, in turn, helps the person manage their emotional difficulties without having to stim all the time.
Besides, melatonin is also ideal for treating hyperactivity, which can indirectly decrease the issue of stimming to some extent.
Vitamin D
Like melatonin, vitamin D, too, focuses more on treating the behavioral symptoms in an autism patient. For instance, it helps people with their issues regarding irritability, hyperactivity, speech problems, etc.
By intaking vitamin D supplements, you can improve the aforesaid symptoms pretty quickly. Therefore, you won’t experience the sense or feeling of restlessness, which, sequentially, might take care of your habit of stimming to some extent.
Magnesium
Magnesium, in essence, improves your cognitive skills massively if you take it regularly. Therefore, unlike the previous ones, it will reduce your stimming habit directly.
Besides, it also takes care of other symptoms related to autism, such as impulse control. This can help you control your instinct of stimming or doing something similar.
Concluding Thoughts
Autism can cause various self-harming stimming issues, such as biting hands during stressful moments. Hence, taking care of this issue as soon as possible should be your top priority. You could obviously follow the suggestions that we have conveyed throughout this article.
However, as it’s a serious matter, we’d ask you to visit a doctor and let them know about the escalation of issues properly. They can treat your problem accordingly through the usage of medication or therapy sessions.
Also, if you have any queries regarding the article, be sure to tell us all about it in the comment section below. We will try to answer everything as soon as possible.
