This week I was thinking how easy it is to feel that people are not being supportive. The mind can fancy a journey of its own. Simply not hearing from someone can do it. Finding that some significant life event occurred and they did not tell you, perhaps. It is not surprising therefore, that the mind can go on a restive journey just as you’re trying to get some sleep.
Those with mental discipline instruct the mind to obedience, no doubt. The less self-controlled do well to distract it with something restful. For such a purpose did the Procrastination Pen first start reviewing restful videos, many moons ago now.
This week, for the first time, a Calm track that is dedicated to getting you off to sleep which has some possibility of doing that:
https://www.calm.com/app/player/pBsp3Sb6MT
Yours, Finn
Andrew Scott reads a series of letters from a writer to his long-distance lover — pondering place and time, longing and belonging, and the meaning of home.
NARRATOR
Andrew Scott
AUTHOR
Florence Skelton
It is calm, the voice has a great tone, there is an absence of music (God be praised). I’d say this one is well worth a review on the assumption that you can. Calm is a paid-for offering and I’m not about to recommend that you shell out for it, if you haven’t already.
Each week, I check out an offering from a professional ASMR artist to see if it is a big improvement on the inadvertent ASMR videos that I set up the blog to review; goodness knows how long ago now.
This week I thought I’d review the following:
POV assessing your spinal function, flexibility assessment & neurological exam | cranial nerve test
It is from the channel asmr august. That channel has 252K subscribers, two hundred and eighty-seven videos, eighteen playlists. Quite a few subscribers, so I, for one, have very high expectations.
The video is a little over thirty-two and a half minutes long. Given it is a professional ASMR video you will be unsurprised to realise that it has notes:
“506,222 views 7 Apr 2025 #asmr #sleep
soft spoken assessing as you sit still
• palpation of the cervical, thoracic, lumbar spine
• testing your nerves
• checking for slipped discs
• ligament and muscle touching
• movement camera tilting
• reflexes testing
• cranial nerve exam
• neurological exam
• video to sleep
*My content is for entertainment purposes and should not be taken as actual medical/beauty advice. I am acting and not a professional.
#asmr #sleep”
Fortunately, not the great long tortuous notes which we sometimes come across.
Comments are permitted and given this is a professional ASMR artist, it is unsurprising that they are predominantly positive. That just seems to be how it goes with professional ASMR artists.
There is no startup music, thankfully. There are however equipment noises, paper noises, clothing rustling noises, scribbling noises, noises from the donning of gloves, noises from spraying, quite loud blood pressure cuff sounds.
It is not the most whispery presentation I have heard and as we would expect, the voice is excellent. It occasionally descends into breathy. None of this is obtrusive or excessive. In fact, I think asmr august is worthy of a future visit.
Recently, I have been finding that the playlist just is not working for me at all. In fact, several nights I find that I sit in front of the television until finally sleep comes and then it does not seem to last long.
For this reason, I am thinking of waging war on the playlist to ensure that only the highest quality items remain in there.
Today’s blog item comes from an area that is well-established in this blog now, that of eye-related examinations.
Qpercom presents Observe in Action: Eye Exam OSCE Station
It is five and a quarter minutes long and bravely supports comments, a number of which (as we have come to expect) are critical. The Internet, and more particularly YouTube, generating a number of experts who know much more than the ones who actually create content.
It’s a professional video and so, as we would expect, it has notes: “24,624 views 23 May 2013
Homepage
This video demonstrates how examiners use Qpercom Observe to assess medical students during an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). For further information or to schedule a demonstration at your institution please visit http://www.qpercom.com
Contact:
Tel: +353 91395416
info@qpercom.com
What is an OSCE exam?: https://www.qpercom.com/what-is-an-os…”
In case you are interested that final URL is: https://www.qpercom.com/what-is-an-osce-exam/ which should help clarify an OSCE for those (like me) who have not been exposed to one.
It starts without music, which is fantastic., However there is a sound like a football whistle at the start which is most disconcerting. The medical professional announces herself as “Elaine” (possibly misspelled). The patient is “Francis”. Both participants appear to have Irish accents. In fact, the voices here are the true highlight. Both are very relaxing to listen to.
People wander across the camera. Hopefully no one will actually be watching though but lying there listening and trying to get some rest. There is the constant background hum (almost certainly air conditioning) – we’re getting used to this. There is then a further whistle sound after the initial examination concludes (about 3:35 on the playing time).
I often complain that a bit of editing would make some videos perfect and so again here. Eliminating that damn whistle would be a true asset.
The second part of the video is intended to be a contrast with Dr Macdonald the medical professional (again, this may well be misspelled).
Despite the fact that this is supposed to be a bad exam, it is equally good sound wise. Immediately afterwards, there is yet another whistle sound.
I have a feeling despite the great presentation this extra whistle noises are going to consign this to the archive list at some point in the future.
The participants are documented. The “Patient” who announces himself as Francis is in fact Michael Browne. Elain Loughlin is the first medical professional and Niamh Mc Donnell the second.
The channel is Qpercom and it has thirty eight videos, and most of these do not appear to be that useful from our perspective.
There is one playlist QPC https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy-XOfRwSfY6II-w_4sDlCl4kPmWEgFMu
Which seems to focus on videos that are not useful for ASMR (eight of them). It appears to be a collection of videos to sell the Qpercom product. Good for them, not so useful for us (particularly as it seems to feature a great deal of enlivening music, the last thing that you want when trying to get to sleep).
Therefore, in this case I think it best to restrict myself to videos in which there is actually some kind of medical examination taking place. This restricts those that are available (and those available are short, in terms of duration).
Of these, we have:
Qpercom Basic Life support
One- and three-quarter minutes and sadly it starts up with that whistle noise again. Otherwise, there is an ongoing background noise (a low hum which could well be air conditioning). However, if it were not for that whistle noise it would be great for our purposes. Then they commit the offence of repeating the whistle noise – twice at the end. I will trial it in the Procrastination Pen playlist but I’m pretty clear that if it becomes irritating, it is going in the archive.
Qpercom Basic Life Support- Short
Only forty-five seconds surely this time they cannot be including a blasted whistle noise. Oh but they do. It is basically a cut down of the one featured just previously and all of the comments above for that one apply here as well. Although at least there is only one whistle noise in this one.
Qpercom presents Observe in Action: Breaking Bad News OSCE Station
A little over nine minutes, but that gives time for the initial whistle noise again. There is a small background noise (a hiss). It is quite muted, the voices of both participants are excellent. Without the whistle this would probably be premier class.
There are further whistles as there is a transition between participants. And just to round it off a further whistle noise.
Qpercom presents Observe in Action: Handwashing OSCE Station
Just less than two and a half minutes. The whistle noise as expected, and a lot of noise which I think is the sound of running water hitting the bottom of a stainless-steel sink. There are equipment noises and a whistle noise as there is a transition between presenters. To conclude another whistle noise.
I notice the credits refer to NUI Galway, as expected this has a YouTube channel it has 1.2K videos and 5.51K subscribers, but history tells us that the videos will be about promoting the University (quite rightly) so I will not be investigating that any further.
Qpercom presents Observe in Action: BMI OSCE Station
A bit less than seven and a half minutes. Comments are of course critical. There is that whistle noise again but otherwise it is calm. Again, the voices of the participants are excellent, if only the whistle wasn’t included. There is another whistle as we transition between presenters (roughly half way through the video). A further whistle noise at the end.
Really the whistle noises ruin what is otherwise a good experience.
Qpercom presents Observe in Action: An electronic OSCE Solution
A little less than five and three quarter minutes and the last possible candidate on the site I can currently find. None of these have been ideal, with the whistle noises, and this one has additional noises from a slamming door and a very echoey track. Presumably the action was filmed in a large space with minimal sound deadening in place.
I’m going to run them in the Procrastination Pen playlist but only because the voices of the participants are great. The additional noises distract from the experience and, to be fair, it will probably result in all of them hitting the archive list before too long. However, you will get the time to review them before it does so…
The Qpercom playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:
I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.
The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:
I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.
I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.
Photo by DeepAI
The Procrastination Pen 