This week I have been giving thought to the technique of worry time. The idea being that you’re lying awake at night consumed by innumerable worries, including the worry that the clock is ticking round and, very soon, you will have to rise and shine and be there all bright and ready to take a grip on the world in the office. However, fortunately some time in advance of this happening, you have made a mental arrangement with yourself that you are only going to allow yourself to have any worries during your shower time. Let’s say fifteen minutes during the cold and dark moments of the morning.
The upshot is that you cannot worry now, and you’re just going to have to shelve those worries and pick them up again at your allotted time. Hey presto, you’re off in snozz land. The miracle of the technique apparently being that, by the time worry time does turn around, more often than not you forget what it was that you were supposed to worry about. The outcome is an instantaneous reduction in worries.
I have to confess that I have attempted most techniques that require a modicum of mental discipline, and realised that I have the mental discipline of a runaway train more often than not. If this technique is for you, then grab it firmly with both hands and enjoy the quieter night times that it brings.
For those of you that find it to be a great idea but just at this moment you cannot summon the sleep daemon to rush you off to snooze-snooze land, I have found that providing a distraction can work.
In fact, it can work if you have a noise you cannot dismiss (maybe someone snoring nearby, for example). It can work if your mind is buzzing and will not shut down. It can work if you seem amazingly wide awake and that very fact is annoying you.
I like to try this with sound. Sometimes it even works. Where sound is not fully effective, I try the television. There are some truly unmemorable offerings on television in the early hours of the morning that can properly assist in summoning the zzzs I find.
I have tried for many months now to make part of the solution the Procrastination Pen, where I review all kinds of calming videos, look at alternative sources of sound files (i.e. sources not involving YouTube), and give feedback on some recent listening to Calm that I have been doing.
I thought this week I would look for any content by Tamara Levitt (perhaps my favourite voice on Calm) that does not involve having to listen to adverts on YouTube. I also realise that a number of people are not going to want to buy a subscription to Calm either. It turns out that one video exists in the Internet Archive here:
For those of you that do not have a Calm subscription it gives you the chance to hear Tamara’s voice and to get a better idea of the kind of content that Calm subscribers are getting.
Talking of which, how about some Tamara content on Calm itself?
https://www.calm.com/app/player/4xcp92NKYa
Silence
NARRATOR
Tamara Levitt
AUTHOR
This is ten minutes and so probably not enough to go off to sleep to, unless you have a sleep trigger like a light switch. In which case I am privileged that you are taking the time to read the Procrastination Pen.
This is about the importance of silence in a world dominated by noises.
At this stage in the blog article (and for several weeks now), I tend to look at the offerings of a professional ASMR artist.
This one is a little bit borderline for the medical theme but still not completely off-topic, I think.
ASMR Victorian Medical Roleplay 🩺 Medical Exam
It has a refreshingly short set of notes for a professional ASMR artist: “2,185,073 views 13 Sept 2022 #asmr #asmrroleplay #asmrmale
Meet with the remarkable Doctor Cosmos and his scientific cures! An incredibly realistic (ha!) Victorian ASMR Roleplay Doctor Exam for your enjoyment!
My videos tend not to be recommended so if you could hit the bell and choose all notifications, I would be most grateful!
#asmrroleplay #asmrmale #asmr
I sell art on redbubble!
https://www.redbubble.com/people/Ting…
Any follows on my social media would be greatly appreciated 😃I also have a Patreon as a sort of tip jar 🙂
/ tinglesmith
/ tinglesmith
/ tingle_smith
What is ASMR? #ASMR Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), sometimes auto sensory meridian response is a tingling sensation that typically begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. It is often driven by soft-spoken scripts, audio triggers and whispering. ASMR is also a major genre in itself where ASMRtists use triggers, storytelling and world-building asmr roleplays to help people experience relaxation and tingles! Disclaimer – These videos are for relaxation purposes. Any commentary is purely for the purpose of entertainment and to give you ASMR tingles! These videos are not a substitute for medical or therapeutic treatment. I do hope you enjoy them though 🙂
How this was made
Auto-dubbed
Audio tracks for some languages were automatically generated. Learn more”
There are comments, of course, and a fair number of those and these are the range we expect from YouTube including the odd one that makes you wonder…
The video itself is a mere twenty-six minutes or so. All in all, it is a bijou little offering. It comes from the channel Tinglesmith ASMR with 167k subscribers, one hundred and five videos ten playlists. None of these playlists are even close to a medical theme however. There are several medical-themed videos including today’s one on the channel though. So, I may come back dependent upon the quality of the sound. For some reason the posting of videos to this channel seems to let up about a year ago. Grab your listening while ye may.
The video starts with prompts for likes, not brilliant but not unknown. There is no startup music – hurrah.
I like the voice, I would not say it is classically ASMR, to be honest, but it is calm, upbeat, even humorous. The layout of the background is detailed (but I assume you will only be listening to this video as an aid to sleep).
There are, of course, noises other than the voice in this as in many reviewed previously. There are paper noises, writing noises, clothing related noises, equipment noises, blowing noises, hairbrush noises, Tibetan singing bowl noises, triangle (instrument) noises, tuning fork (apparently 256hz) noises.
One thing I rather like is that this does not descend into a whisper. This makes a very nice change from the habitual kind of video which we are more used to listening to.
Definitely worthy of a review, I think.
This week’s inadvertent ASMR video appears to feature the most uninterested “patient” I have thus far encountered:
Head to Toe assessment
There are zero notes (pretty good clue that this is not a professional ASMR artist).
Comments are permitted and there are not a huge number. However, of those, a great many do focus on the fact that the “patient” really does not wish to participate.
It is from the channel Madison Schneider this has six hundred and fifty-one subscribers, ten videos, zero playlists. Well, that is a pretty good level of subscribers for that very low quantity of videos.
The video itself is a little over thirty-five and a half minutes. Straight away you can hear that the air conditioning has a starring role. The medical professional (presumably Madison) has a very good voice. The patient (possibly Jenna Wolf but it is not enunciated well enough for my old ears to make out) actually has a fairly good voice as well, but is quite obviously unimpressed by proceedings.
There are various (quite loud) equipment noises including the loudest blood pressure cuff I can recall thus far. The motor for adjusting the bed also seems to want a full speaking part. There is the normal student assessment video fictional privacy at the beginning. The “patient” has some kind of a cold in that she coughs repeatedly during the video. In fact, there are occasional coughs from both participants. There is the normal student level of hesitancy in the presentation, presumably as the medical professional attempts to recall what comes next.
There is also the usual student level of preoccupation – there is obviously a checklist (if even only in the medical professional’s head). This seems to ensure that the medical professional has the appearance of going through the motions rather than being attentive even, dare I say it, empathic.
I would say that the extraneous noises do not make this the most restful video I have thus far reviewed. (This despite the fact that many of the video’s comments are from ASMR devotees). I’ll trial this in the Procrastination Pen playlist but it is one that is more likely than not to become archived with time.
On that basis, just one video today.
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 