This week I discovered a possible resource which may assist those of my readers who seek other resources for sleep outside of The Procrastination Pen. In this case I have come across a podcast dedicated to the kind of material that Procrastination Pen readers should be able to make use of i.e. a podcast dedicated to sleep:
The title is ” Bedtime stories to help grown-ups fall asleep in the deep, dark night.”
It is a person reading a story that is designed to help someone fall asleep. I have not listened end to end (the episode I was listening to was in excess of two hours in length). The voice isn’t the most restful I have ever heard and the introduction was on the long side of rambly. However, one thing I have discovered with all of my reviewing activity is that people have as many opinions as there are people. So, I am certain that some people will just lap this up.
I did say that I would try to find resources that did not rely on YouTube. I’m time constrained in terms of finding new content. However, I do remember that on the long drives in to a college some years ago, I used to listen to a person called Diana Winston. How I found her is lost in the mists of my failing memory. However, I do recall that I very much liked her voice. Diana is the director of mindfulness education at UCLA. At one stage I seem to remember there was a podcast, a website where I could download MP3s, and so on.
There are, of course, numerous YouTube videos. For example:
However, I am supposed to be getting away from YouTube so what else can we make use of.
Well, there are a very large number of downloads available here: https://www.uclahealth.org/uclamindful/guided-meditations
(including many in different languages).
There are also a set of the weekly mindfulness sessions available for download here: https://www.uclahealth.org/uclamindful/weekly-meditations-talks
I hope that you, like me, find Diana to have an excellent voice.
At this point, I tend to look at a Calm track. This week let’s go with Jeff Warren, a voice which I rather like and who often has interesting subjects in his material as well:
Daily Trip
A Secret to Better Boundaries
https://www.calm.com/player/Z0HEmm1mXV
NARRATOR
Jeff Warren
AUTHOR
Jeff Warren
It’s just nine minutes so not enough sleep-time material by itself. Perhaps you could listen before cracking open the full fat Procrastination Pen playlist.
This is about trying to survive being around other humans. Part of that is maintaining boundaries. I hope that you find Jeff’s stuff as interesting as I do (assuming that you have a Calm subscription, in any case). In the assumption that is a minor subset of anyone who might wander onto this site, I’ll move swiftly along.
At this stage, for some months now, I have been reviewing a single video from a professional ASMR artist. These have ranged from the near silent to the blinking loud. I have not yet though found an artist that I consistently like. That’s a bit sad, as with videos purportedly at this quality, I would have expected to do so.
This week’s one is a bit of a different video for us in that it is a professional ASMR channel posting an inadvertent ASMR video. Grist to our mill in fact…
This is from the channel ASMR Beauty Treatments https://www.youtube.com/@asmr_beauty, it has four hundred and seven videos 145k subscribers, seventy playlists a great number of these playlists are on a medical theme such as:
and
and
and
and
and probably a fair few more that I didn’t spot.
This is another hard-working channel.
Today’s video is this one:
Real ASMR Eye Exam in Leicester (Unintentional, Real Person ASMR)
Because it is a professional ASMR artist, of course, it has notes:
” 1,039,383 views 1 Nov 2022 #asmreyeexam #unintentionalasmr #medicalasmr
This week’s ASMR video is an eye exam! Christian’s eye exam was so detailed and precise and I really hope you all enjoy watching it! So much was checked in this session including my vision, eye health, peripheral vision, retinal photographs and even my general health! I really hope this video can work as both an educational tool and also a tool for relaxation!
👁Details are as follows: 👁
Website: https://consultingoptometrist.co.uk
Location: 60 Main Street, Kibworth Harcourt, Leicester, LE8 0NQ
Treatment: Comprehensive eye exam
Email: christian@consultingoptometrist.co.uk
If you’d like to support my work, please consider donating to my Ko-fi! (https://ko-fi.com/asmrbeauty) Any amount is much appreciated! ❤️
‼️All of my unintentional ASMR content is footage of real sessions and experiences I have had in London or in other parts of the UK. I upload these real person ASMR sessions with the intention to help people destress, relax and learn‼️
#asmr #asmreyeexam #medicalasmr #unintentionalasmr #asmrbeauty”
Which are refreshingly short, as professional ASMR artist video notes go. Comments are permitted and as usual they’re pretty nigh universally positive.
The video is one hour and seventeen minutes in length. This is whopping, for a video of this type. The voices are great as we would expect. Background noise is muted. However, at the beginning, the video does dot about a bit as if the best bits of the examination have been sampled and then stapled together. Then it settles down into examination proper. There is no whispery presentation. The person receiving the exam is more your classic ASMR voice. In many ways though, I preferred the voice of the person giving the eye test. I am probably massively out of step with most people viewing the video.
For me, at intervals, the video does feel a little long. Although as a mechanism for promoting sleep this may very well work in our favour. There are occasional noises from moving around on a chair which are surprisingly loud, and probably emphasises how quiet the rest of it is. There are some louder equipment noises following the eye chart section – I didn’t find them excessively distracting but your mileage may vary. There are some louder clicking noises towards the tail end of the video, which is a shame.
I found it surprising that, despite the fact I have had innumerable eye tests myself, I still learned a few things from watching this one. However, that is not why we are here.
I think this one is well worth a review, why not give it a try for yourself.
The inadvertent ASMR video this week is this one:
Head to toe physical assessment
It has zero notes, (which goes some way to show it is not a professional ASMR video). The comments are suitably various and occasionally off-the-wall, which also seems to fit with a non-professional ASMR video.
However, there are 1.3 million views, which is something extraordinary.
Immediately, you get the impression that this is another student assessment video. It comes from the site Emma Weekly, this has forty five videos, two shorts, no playlists. A number of the videos would appear to be on a medical theme and connected with a course. Medical-themed videos apparently commencing in 2021. There are 9.63K subscribers which seems a lot for an amateur channel connected with a medical student.
This week’s video starts very quietly – no startup music here. It is quite a long one, at in excess of fifty-one minutes. Emma seems to have a fairly good voice, not ASMR-y I would say, but at least quiet and level in intonation.
The video itself is rather quiet which I think is a limitation of the recording equipment, because background noises are rather pronounced on this one. It is typical of student assessment videos we have seen, in that it seems students have to get as many medical terms as feasible crammed into the video presentation.
There is no indication as to the medical establishment and the “patient” is also not introduced. At least we are not subjected to strange illusory knocking or “privacy” acts that often are the commencement to such videos.
Emma seems to find the process somewhat tiring as, no doubt, it is and the “patient” seems properly bored, which given the person is just sitting there, she most probably is. There are other people in the background – various conversational noises can just be heard above the background drone (presumably air conditioning).
At intervals the delivery is a little hesitant and I got the impression it is either highly stressful or a little too much effort, as a great deal of sighing is going on. There are also the more expected student related pauses as Emma mentally searches for the relevant medical content (presumably to satisfy the requirements of the course).
There are noises from moving the chair around but, compared to background, these are hardly loud. Emma suffers from the typical student issue of a lack of equipment; in this case there is no reflex hammer. I can remember one medical video where the student employed a fork from the cafeteria rather than a tuning fork. As expected, it did not really work. Here, the absence of a reflex hammer means that testing reflexes is just as ineffective.
This, I think, is suitable for the Procrastination Pen playlist.
On that basis, just one video on this occasion.
That’s it on this occasion, more next time.
See you again next week.
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 