I am getting the opportunity recently to converse with people who are a generation older than I am, and the news for people reading this blog is not very settling. I’m afraid the interruptions to sleep get worse. The length of sleep gets shorter. The feelings of tiredness persist. It therefore seems to me that there is some value in The Procrastination Pen, in that this blog keeps pursuing restful sounds that can assist a person into sleep.
I have been exploring audiobooks of late (there seems a rather vast amount of Agatha Christie on CD, for instance). Those so disposed can probably get something similar from Spotify or some similar subscription service. I am actually finding that a story droning away in the background can be quite restful. However, it is a good idea to miss out on books that might include elevated, dramatic noises. A sudden loud noise probably having completely the opposite effect to that which one desired, by listening to such a thing at bedtime, in any case.
I notice that Calm is pushing its sleep app. I have found the material in the Calm App dedicated to sleep a bit variable. I find much of the material dedicated to sleep actually has no such effect on me. Regular readers will have noted that where I do make recommendations from Calm, it tends to be the Daily Calm meditations that I draw from. I find these superior in sound content, but sadly they are designed to be around ten minutes in length. That is probably an insufficient length to drop off to and, so far, I have not found a method to chunk then together into a vast long playlist.
I have now subscribed to the regular Calm email in the hope that it will produce great material, and I notice that this one has been in this email of late:
Rainy Day on the Farm
https://www.calm.com/app/player/NMJNYgZbbi
This is thirty minutes in length but on a loop, so it appears everlasting. No artist is given. I do not really find rainy backdrops to be that restful. However, a number of people seem to do so. There are a number of offerings on YouTube in the same vein.
For example, this one:
It is all a bit noisy and stressful in my opinion to be really conducive to sleep. However, if this is your thing, by all means, fill your boots.
I have been trying to find material that does not depend upon YouTube (because I’ve decided that I do not like the adverts). This is purely an addition to the YouTube-based material because, for the moment, there is little else that is free and has a ready supply of sound-based material which you can use to distract the mind addicted to wakefulness.
I remember that during lockdown I used to receive emails from a site called Mindful on which a number of people published meditations. Sadly, this does not line up into a playlist and, from memory, they did not offer a download option. So, it may be of only passing interest. I also know that I followed specific artists at the time and one of these was Elaine Smookler. It turns out that Elaine does a few twelve-minute meditations such as this one:
https://www.mindful.org/a-12-minute-meditation-for-embracing-your-inner-mountain/
and this one:
https://www.mindful.org/a-12-minute-meditation-for-navigating-grief-anniversaries/
and of course there is a great deal of material on YouTube:
and I also see that MP3s can be obtained from here:
As expected, if you choose that route you will need to download the MP3s and assemble into some kind of playlist yourself. The advantage being that you can normalise the inter-MP3 volume so you don’t get any mid-sleep nasty surprises.
At this point, for some weeks, I have been reviewing professional ASMR videos. Akin to the mindful material I can remember, some videos that I have listened to in the distant past including this one:
🌿 Relaxing Naturopath Visit 🌿 ASMR 🌿 Doctor RP
Gentle Whispering ASMR
2.41m subscribers
Gentle Whispering ASMR is one of those powerhouses of professional ASMR artists. there are 2.41m subscribers and eight hundred and twenty six videos, there are fourteen playlists of which the odd one is on theme for material we have been covering of late. For example:
and
This week’s video is an oldie as you can tell by the notes:
“8,059,900 views 16 Jan 2018
Hello sweetheart! 🙂 Today I welcome you to my naturopathic medicine practice 🌿 I will shortly give you an overview of your visit then at 03:00 I will perform a check-up of your hair, your ears 06:30 , I’ll put on my gloves and examine your skin 08:50 , your sinuses 11:25 , your lymph nodes 13:03 , neck muscles check 14:10 , I’ll gently test your eyes reflexes with a flashlight 16:56 , I’ll tell you about Eyeology 19:29 and check your eyes 22:26 , then I will perform a check of your tongue 29:55 after I explain how you can read your health by your tongue 27:47 , I’ll tell you a bit about tension headache that you’ve been experiencing and how to deal with it 32:32 , I’ll recommend you some essential oils 34:34 , and herbal supplements 36:16 that even sound good and at the end I will relax you deeper with gentle hand movements to help you doze off 38:29 . Enjoy ♥ Thank you for watching! 🙂
Email: MariaGentlewhispering@gmail.com
Gentle Whispering ASMR
2.41m subscribers”
So the standard professional ASMR huge set of notes then. As usual I have trincated these a whole lot as they really are very long. In this case comments are not only permitted the first comment is also from GentleWhisperingASMR:
However this comment simply replicates a good deal of the notes so I will not repeat it here.
There are literally thousands of comments and a number of these are the standard YouTube level of strange. A number of them are the standard professional ASMR artist level of sycophantic. We are on familiar ground here.
The video is forty-one and a half minutes long, so of a reasonable length. There is no startup music and the presentation is the now familiar professional ASMR artist level of whispery. I would not say this was my favourite voice, but it is restful. There are of course extraneous noises, rustling, equipment noises, writing noises, keyboard noises, clothes brushing against other clothes, breath across the microphone noises, mouth clicking noises, glove-related noises, paper-related noises, rattling noises.
It gets a bit breathy and there are those mouth-clicking noises I have noticed some similar videos using before. I don’t find a need for them but you may love this sort of thing (close to two and a half million people obviously do so). I would say that this one requires a small increase in the volume, when listening. Another one where the disgruntled listener is rolling over and thumbing the volume up button. I’m also not that certain how well it works without the video content. Obviously, you don’t want to be watching if you’re also trying to close your eyes. There are also a few close-to-microphone moments where the sound seems more abrupt and louder and I would think that might not be a pleasant surprise if you are already snoozing.
I’d say that this one is certainly worthy of a review.
This week’s inadvertent ASMR video is this one:
HEENT Assessment Part 1: Head, Face, and Neck
Straight away we can see that this forms part of a series. Even though this blog post is already on the long side, I therefore feel I’d better review all four of the videos in this series.
It comes from the channel NursingYOU 2.0 this has 3.7K subscribers nineteen videos zero playlists. It is not the hugest channel we have ever reviewed. The channel description is: “NursingYOU 2.0
Description
This is a nursing education channel led by a Masters prepared Nurse Educator. This channel offers videos on health assessment, skills, lecture series, and NCLEX test taking strategy. The videos presented by NursingYOU 2.0 are intended only for education of healthcare professionals. Previously called Nursing YOUniversity. See the updates!! Enjoy.
More info
http://www.youtube.com/@nursingyou2.073
Joined 5 Jul 2017
3.7k subscribers
19 videos
1,126,488 views”
A quick scan indicates that all of these videos were posted eight years ago. So, it also appears to be a channel that is no longer maintained. Grab your video views while ye may.
The video itself has notes: “319,367 views 5 Jul 2017
In this video, the head, face, and neck are assessed on an adult client. This video is part 1 of 4 for the Head Ears Eyes Nose and Throat (HEENT) system of a complete health assessment.”
The comments are, as usual, of various types including the off-the-wall. Some ASMR fans are here way before me, though I notice.
The video is just slightly less than six minutes in length. It starts with no startup music but an absolute ton of background noise. Also, the presentation is pretty loud as well. Currently I am less than clear why ASMR fans have been listening to this. I would say that this is not classically ASMR. For example, there is a fair amount of background chatter going on. Simply turning down the volume is not going to eliminate that. There is also the sound of paper being rustled throughout (although I know this is a sound that some ASMR fans go in search of). There are sounds from motion – the participants moving around. There is, at one point, the sound of a prop driven aircraft passing over head. For me this is all a bit busy to be that relaxing.
Onto part 2:
HEENT Assessment Part 2: Nose, Mouth, and Throat
The notes are similar to the last set of notes so I won’t go into them here. The comments are the usual level of unhelpful and no ASMR-related comments this time, which is not uncommonly a bad sign. It is five minutes in length and starts without music. The background noise remains but at least the background conversations seem to have abated. Again, it is a bit loud for me. The voice of the medical professional isn’t ASMR-y from my perspective. However, I would say that this one is a slight improvement on the previous video in this series. Part way through the background noise gets substantially worse, as if the air conditioning has been switched into turbo mode, this obscures the voice to some extent and is moderately distracting.
HEENT Assessment Part 3: Ears
Three and a third minutes so quite a bit shorter than the two previous ones. This one starts with the level of background noise where the previous one left off i.e. quite substantial. The medical professional now sounds to be at some distance from the microphone as if the entire video was shot in a tube station. In fact, I think it is an open area within a hospital, a hospital with very powerful air conditioning.
The noise is now getting quite distracting. This one has minor and brief equipment noises.
HEENT Assessment Part 4: Eyes
The last one in the series and, at just less than six and a half minutes, the longest video as well. The voice is now quite subdued and distant in relation to the background noise. This really does sound like the medical professional is at the end of a long tunnel. If you get your feeling of restfulness from air conditioning noises this is definitely the video for you. This time you can hear background chatter at a reasonably elevated level. This is quite distracting as well. There are equipment noises as the “patient” moves around. Due to the muting of the entire soundtrack these are not excessively loud.
That’s it on this occasion, more next time.
See you again next week.
The Nursing You 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.
If you liked this blog article, why not follow this blog.
Until next time.
Photo by DeepAI
The Procrastination Pen 