Category: Age

Sleeping With ASMR

I recently came across a question that seems straightforward, but, in the manner of such questions, swiftly becomes a rabbit hole for the mind. I mention it only on the reflection that the things that affect your sleep may not be as intrinsically you as at first sight.

The question was how much of you is actually you and how much comes from others. Initially, on thinking about this, I concluded that actually I am all me. But on breaking it down further, I understand the influence over time of parents, teachers, lecturers, employers, work colleagues, friends, famous figures, intellectuals and so on.

Taking aside people for a while, I find the influence of the media, the television, the newspapers, social media, the Internet. Until, in the end, I reach the conclusion that nothing is really me at all. There is zero of me that is intrinsic.

That being the case, the aspects of life that have negative connotations one would think are optional. If one cannot sleep worrying over something or other. In fact, this is outside of one’s self. Socialising to ensure that behaviour was in line with society norms. Expectations of others. Influences absorbed over the years from all communication mechanisms to which one has been exposed.

Similarly, expectations about appropriate times to sleep. The manner in which one sleeps. The things that one wears for bed. The chemicals one should take to assist with sleep and those that one should avoid. Every single one of these (and more I have not thought of) have come from outside of oneself. They must, all, therefore, be optional.

On some level one can decide to reject each and every one of them (in some cases, it would require a lot of work admittedly). I believe that a thought exercise like this is highly valuable. If you are struggling to sleep, perhaps, one of the aspects that you regard as critical is, in fact, up for debate.

Do you actually need to sleep when other people say that you do? Do you actually need to eat, exercise, drink, behave in the fashions that have been laid out for you? Is it worthwhile experimenting to find something that works for you in a better way? Even where such experimentation takes you into areas that others would find peculiar or at the least “different”.

The process requires more work than I have given it, but perhaps expanding ones thinking to embrace options that normally one would disregard without thought, may contain the seeds of a practical solution.

I notice that it is now established (as I had already concluded on this blog) that sleep gets more difficult as we age. Whenever I read articles like this, I always find the explanation of the problem to be far more compelling than the solutions. In fact, after a while, if you spend time reading a number of sleep articles, the solutions seem to come down to the same things.

One would never tend to find any solutions that would require changes that affect the ability to make money. (In fact, solutions like that tend not to occur in any media-based article I notice). For example, if you found that you could get a great amount of sleep by getting up at 3AM and going back to bed again at 11AM this would not be recommended. It would require a restructure to the way that the day tends to operate in the current working world. As far as I can tell it would be feasible to reorientate a day to fit around how a person’s body clock actually works and get the same amount of work done.

However, it would be difficult. Difficult equates to costly, and costly is an option that will never be suggested. I am not suggesting it is the correct approach. However, when you are considering how much of you is you and how much is the influence of others take into account the solutions that are never mentioned. Some of them maybe as powerful as the ones that you consistently see. There will be very good reasons that you do not see them. Some of those reasons may not be a good fit for you.

Of course, if you have found your way to the Procrastination Pen, it is probably because you have got used to using sound to distract you from all the whirring, buzzing and grinding that happens between your temples whenever you try to lay down your head. I have tried for many-many months to lay out auditory solutions. Many of these have derived from publicly available sources. I review one, I determine if it is suitably relaxing, I put it up for you to consider. Some of these have been more successful than others.

Of late, I have looked for sources outside of YouTube and out of sheer laziness, no doubt, I have found that the Internet Archive delivers a resource to which I continue to return. However, it is variable to say the least and today’s offering is no different.

Martin & Ryan (unintentional ASMR)

https://archive.org/details/MartinRyan

Blink and you will miss it. The video is less than ten minutes in length and it starts off immediately with strong background noise, which could be air conditioning. The participants are so quiet that noises from adjacent cubicles can be equally clearly heard (this is a definite “turn the volume up” video).

I would say that the patient describes himself as “Ryan Parnell” but the sound track for vocals is so indistinct I cannot be certain (even with the volume turned up to eleven). Turning it up in this way made the drawing of curtains for privacy frankly deafening and I needed the modern version of a graphic equaliser to amplify the vocal track whilst muting everything else (I do not have such a device).

The extraneous noises are very distracting; I would make a guess that the recording equipment (such as it is) was really not up to the job.

At this volume the use of a blood pressure cuff is enough to cause you to tear off the headphones in self-defence. At one point, the sound of the person breathing is actually louder than the sound of the person talking. That is, to say the least, unusual. It is a shame because the pace of the examination is well measured and what I can hear of the participants’ voices sounds very calming. The sad thing is that the intrusive noises are louder than the voices here. Not a video I would review again, but as I constantly comment, there are so many varieties of ASMR fan out there. I’m pretty certain there is at least one who will rate this highly.

I tend to spend a little while each day listening to some content from Calm. Today I thought I would recommend one that I heard some time ago:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/ZG8utTdTSd

Daily Trip

The Unchanging I

NARRATOR

Jeff Warren

AUTHOR

Jeff Warren

Calm is not free. If you want to listen to this material you are going to need a subscription. I feel suitably guilty about mentioning a paid-for option that I linger for only the briefest moment on this section and move swiftly on – to the section where I review a professional ASMR artist.

Today I am looking at one which is something of a cheat, given that it is peripheral to the core medical theme that I have focused on for a great many months.

British Doctor Hand Examination | Real Medical ASMR for Sleep

Firstly, it is unintentional ASMR content so is not specifically from a professional ASMR artist, as such. Secondly, it is from a channel dedicated to Unintentional ASMR, the clue is in the name: Unintentional ASMR Sketches. This channel has one hundred and thirty six videos, five playlists, of which the odd one seems on theme for us:

and

and

Here, therefore, we have a video originally created for one purpose, now employed to kick off some ASMR triggers. (More or less the kind of thing I try to find but here curated into ready-to-wear easy to consume packages).

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

The video is in excess of thirty-three minutes and so not the shortest we have seen. It has notes: “136,639 views 19 Aug 2024

Welcome everybody! Everyone reading this will share a common love of ASMR, specifically Unintentional ASMR. So, this channel is dedicated to finding the best unintentional ASMR videos around, from medical exams, clinical demonstrations, soft spoken instructionals, psychics, spiritual healers and all other unintentional ASMR triggers to help give the tingles.

Simply put this channel is unintentional ASMR. Plain and simple.

Each video takes time; I do significantly edit these videos both the visual parts and audio in order to maximise their ASMR effects so if you enjoy this content then please give the video a like and consider subscribing for more unintentional ASMR content.

One of the best things about the ASMR community is the comments section, so please WRITE A COMMENT (especially if it’s humorous)

Hope you enjoy the ASMR!”

The notes indicate that comments will be permitted and, boy, are there a few of those. Mostly they appear to be ASMR afficionados trying to prove how in the know they are about ASMR. This is rather sad. Rather than a community of people loving calm voices, this is something more of a clique. No matter, we can ignore such things and draw conclusions about the quality of this video for sleep purposes.

It starts loud, with pronounced background noise. The professional’s title is across the screen: Mr Steve Turner, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon and College Examiner …

Although the video is loud, Steve has a great voice. He introduces the patient as John. John does not get to say anything. The video quality is poor, hazy in fact, and appearing out of focus. I assume it has been captured from somewhere and along the way some quality has been lost. Perhaps that also explains the hiss in the background.

I turned the volume down and everything was much more palatable (rather the opposite to the volume needed for that first video).

The pace is excellent, methodical, measured in approach. Just the sort of thing that we want to hear. There is relatively little extraneous noise. Such equipment as is employed is introduced without excessive noise. However, at 10:20, music commences. It is loud, louder than the vocal track; it is distracting. Given the person providing the channel purports to be editing the videos for palatability why is it included at all? Fortunately, it lasts for a mere moment and we are back to the voice again. At 20:13 we see a University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire banner in the video (possibly a clue as to where we might find the full version of this video). Fortunately, this is not an excuse to introduce yet more music. It is at this point that we recognise that very likely this video is an assemblage of many shorter videos punctuated by those banners.

I executed a search after reviewing this and found that the original video(s) have been taken down. So it is highly likely that this is the only version that you will ever see/hear. In which case it is well worthy of a review.

The inadvertent ASMR video this week is this one:

Cardiovascular examination demonstration

It has notes: ” 1,274,509 views 2 Feb 2019

MRCPCH Clinical Revision – more videos at http://mrcpch.paediatrics.co.uk

Demonstration of a paediatric cardiovascular examination by Professor Alastair Sutcliffe. Filmed and edited by James Diviney.

Revise for your MRCPCH Clinical exam, with videos and high-quality content created by the London Paediatrics Trainees Committee. “

Which are blissfully brief. Comments are denied – which might be for the best.

The channel is Pass MRCPCH – London Paediatrics Trainees Committee this has sixty-one videos, ten playlists (not surprisingly many of these look appropriate for the theme of this blog.

Todays’ video is a little less than seven minutes, so it will not keep us long. It will be interesting to see if it fits in with a theory I had some time back in this blog i.e. that adults speak much more quietly and empathetically when dealing with children than they do when dealing with adults. I wonder if that says something about the origins of ASMR itself.

This video, thankfully, starts without music. However, it commences quite loudly with a presentation towards camera (I’ll assume that it is a camera). There is quite substantial background noise – an ongoing hiss which probably speaks to the quality of the recording mechanism employed here. There is the odd thunk (presumably of equipment being moved off camera). After a brief introduction the young person (Molly) is introduced and as if by magic, the medical professional’s voice becomes more gentle and more measured.

The medical professional is humorous; the presentation is, dare I say it, kind and considerate. In fact, it is exactly the pace and volume which I have been looking for in a video. Despite the hiss, I would say this one is a good video. However, the length is perhaps a little shorter than is properly ideal. Not least because YouTube is going to slot in a bouncy advert straight afterwards.

For the patient she appears to be relaxed, even entertained, which must be quite a skill to create, I would imagine. I thought this one rather good, probably worth giving a review. In any case, I’ll trial it in the Procrastination Pen playlist for a while to see how it beds in.

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

Sleeping With ASMR

This week I find the statements that alcohol is rotten for sleep to be sadly ratified by experience. I am not the world’s greatest social animal and so my forays into drinkies are but occasional. I am sure that at my age my body does not thank me when I make such forays as I currently do.

Having been out on one of these forays recently, I returned feeling reasonably content with the world, easily slid into Neptune’s house. Only to find much of the night punctuated with tossing and turning and awakening to a head feeling like two tree trunks colliding in a hurricane.

If you do imbibe as a mechanism of medicating your way into the land of nod, it would seem that in fact you are not doing yourself a great deal of good. I would recommend a dose of the Procrastination Pen playlist as an alternative. You can use this playlist as a distraction to gentle you off to sleep.

Each week I review some content for its restful qualities and some of that content (assuming it is any good), I add into a playlist which is publicly available on YouTube and you might find of use.

Some of the other content (such as Calm) will require a subscription. However, I do try to balance it out with as much free material as I can locate that week.

I hope in this fashion to give you enough material to create your own playlist should you prefer.

For a little while I have tried to locate some material that is not on YouTube, i.e. files that are not supported by advertising and therefore that will not be interposed with adverts at quite a different volume and pace from the video itself. Such adverts can be disturbing to the quiet-seeking ear and, to be honest, I’ve got kind of tired of them myself too.

This week’s is this one:

ASMR Blue-20170308-Peripheral Nerve Examination – ASMR Doctor Medical

It is on the Internet Archive again (I’ve found material on the Internet Archive in previous week’s) and is roughly in line with the medical theme, this blog has been following for many weeks, I’m sure you’ll agree.

This is a little over thirty-seven minutes which is a reasonable length for videos we have seen of late. As we would expect the tone is excellent. There is no startup music and the artist does not, initially, descend into whispering.

The notes that come with it are the usual Internet Archive level of brevity: ” ASMR Blue-20170308-Peripheral Nerve Examination – ASMR Doctor Medical-4mnbR3kmiwI-[99689714].mkv

ASMR Blue-20170308-Peripheral Nerve Examination – ASMR Doctor Medical-4mnbR3kmiwI-[E742A0EA].jpg

Title – Peripheral Nerve Examination – ASMR Doctor Medical

video_url – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mnbR3kmiwI

video_description – Hey guys! This is a twist on the popular Cranial Nerve Exam Role Play. Instead of looking at the cranial nerves though, we’re checking your peripheral nerves, which is an entirely different examination called the Peripheral Nerve Exam or Upper/Lower Limb Neurological Examination.

0:00 Nurse Violet checks your vitals

10:45 Doctor Blue performs peripheral nerve exam

#asmr

💙Bluewhisper

Instagram and twitter username ~ bluewispy

Email ~ bluewhisperasmr at gmail”

There are zero comments but this seems to be a lot less unusual on the Internet archive than it is on YouTube, for example. There are of course noises other than the ASMR artist’s voice. I don’t really like the glove noises or the Velcro sounds. There are also rustling noises, crinkling of plastic noises, the sound of a blood pressure cuff being blown up (which to me is excessively loud), there were paper noises, writing noises.

There is, unsurprisingly, some whispered content. In this case this is less distracting than some of the extraneous noises I’ve mentioned.

I think this is a good one, why not have a review yourself.

The offering from Calm that I’ve listened to this week is this one:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/D1jDKA6-QE

Daily Calm

The Place

NARRATOR

Tamara Levitt

AUTHOR

Tamara Levitt

Tamara may be my favourite voice on Calm. I often prefer the actual content from Jeff Warren or Jay Shetty but for a calming voice I think staying with Tamara is not a bad plan. This one is about our tendency to grasp pleasant emotions and things. Unpleasant things we push away. However, this track encourages us to accept reality as it is, pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.

The structure I’ve employed for these reviews now expects a review of content from a professional ASMR artist and I am not about to change unless I get some negative feedback about this.

This week let’s look at this one:

1940’s ASMR~ WWII Nurse Role Play {1900-2000 Series}

It is from the channel Angelica which has 627k subscribers, 1K videos (wow) and sixteen playlists of which one would appear to be on theme for the medical related ASMR this blog has focused on for a long time now:

Today’s video is a little over eighteen minutes long and so, in contrast to the advert-free offering above, is quite short by comparison with some that have been reviewed on this blog of late. The notes are refreshingly brief: “2,827,299 views 28 Nov 2016

New ASMR Channel:    / @angelicasgrasss 

⁂ Instagram:   / angelicasgrass   ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙”

Comments are not permitted which stops the more esoteric, not to say abusive, contributions of Joe public. However, it also prevents us finding out how many ASMR sycophants have hung around the video in the nearly ten years since it was posted. I am guessing that this video will have been discovered by many thousand individuals and most of those will have loved it (that seems to be how it works with professional ASMR artists).

It begins without startup music and straight away I would say this artist has an excellent voice, somewhat better than some I have heard of late. The video has some background noise (louder than I would have expected for a professional ASMR artist). I like the vocal tone, I like the pace, I like the intonation, I even like the accent. I can see why this artist is so popular. Indeed, if this quality is consistent, I may return to check out at least one other of the videos associated with this artist. There are of course extraneous noises, paper noises, writing noises, sounds from the artist moving about, the odd clunk, sounds of hands being rubbed together. It must be a testimony to the quality of the voice that I did not find any of it distracting.

I’m not convinced some of the equipment in use would have been around in the 1940s however we’re here for the sound rather than the quality of any video presentation.

I think this one well worthy of a listen.

The inadvertent ASMR video this week is this one:

Advanced Health Assessment (NP) Neck/Respiratory/Cardiac

it comes from the channel Eli Metts with 480 subscribers twenty-five videos zero playlists. The videos are on a wide-ranging set of themes. I could only find four that seemed to be on a medical subject. Two of these posted six years ago and the remaining two seven years ago. It would seem that all video posting ceased six years ago for some reason. It looks like this is another video you should view quickly before the channel gets removed altogether.

The video is just less than twenty minutes so not huge in length. It starts without startup music and with no background noise. This is unusual for something filmed in a hospital which usually is dogged by very loud air conditioning noises.

There are notes, which are thankfully, brief: “64,727 views 10 Feb 2019

Advanced Health Assessment (NP) neck, respiratory and cardiac systems assessments”.

Comments are permitted and are the usual level of variability. However, ASMR fans have been here before me (which is usually good news).

There are occasional traffic noises, which sound like they are close by. There are sporadic equipment noises, which sound like they might be in an adjacent room. There are noises from furniture moving.

The medical professional (Eli Metts) has a good voice. One advantage of this video being designed for a medical purpose is that the professional is not whispering. The patient (Gabrielle Burch) also has a good voice but we, sadly, do not get to hear a lot of it.

The examination is nicely paced and most importantly not too loud. It does seem to end rather abruptly but all in all enjoyable in the listening.

I think this one was well worthy of a review.

On that basis, just one, video this time.

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

Sleeping With ASMR

I came across a course by Tara Brach ” Mindfulness for Anxiety and Sleep: Learning Practices that Help Reduce Stress and Calm Fears”. I’ve subscribed (sadly it is not free) and as it is on theme for the material that we have been covering I thought I’d let you know about it as well. You’ll find it at the Radical Compassion Institute and it is $19.99. Of course, if that sort of sum is a long way from the amount that you wish to spend at the moment, that is completely understandable. However, I know that there are some people desperate for sleep out there and I rather like Tara Brach’s voice…

Of late, I have been trying to seek out material that is both free and not on YouTube, in the hope that I can direct people away from energetic adverts when they are trying to sleep.

This week I thought we’d go back to the Internet Archive again with this one:

PE: Shoulder Pain – OSCE Prep (Pulm, Cardiac, Pulses, Screening OSE, UE Neuro, MSK, Special Tests)

https://archive.org/details/youtube-EglDKnv5mLw

This has the look-feel of a YouTube video that was reviewed on the Procrastination Pen many months ago. It is eight minutes long. It has quite extensive notes:

“This particular video is intended as a demonstration of a physical exam that may be useful in evaluating a patient with shoulder pain.

It is not intended as a complete instructional video and should not be considered a source of complete physical examination instruction. It is also intended not as a perfect example of a physical exam that would be performed for a patient in clinical practice, but is designed to optimize function and efficiency for a OSCE testing setting.

Instead, it should be treated as a supplement to independent learning using primary Osteopathic Physical Examination instructional resources. Clinical skills are best learned and developed with support from faculty in the context of a complete Osteopathic Medical School Curriculum.

Osteopathic Clinical Skills is a channel dedicated to discussing and exploring Osteopathic Clinical Skills concepts for medical students, residents, and clinicians and presenting them in an easy-to-understand manner.

Attributions:

Many thanks to the University of North Texas Health Science Center Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine (UNTHSC – TCOM) for permitting use of the Medical Education Training (MET) facilities and equipment during the production of this video.

Additional thanks to the UNTHSC-TCOM learner and faculty volunteers who participated in this production and provided permission for the use of their image in this video.

Addeddate

    2023-08-09 12:29:33

Channel

    http://www.youtube.com/@OsteopathicClinicalSkills

Collection_added

    social-media-video

    additional_collections_video

Identifier

    youtube-EglDKnv5mLw

Originalurl

Scanner

    TubeUp Video Stream Mirroring Application 0.0.35

Year

    2023 “

There are no comments, but then that isn’t really exceptional for a video that we find on the Internet Archive rather than YouTube.

The video starts without startup music and actually has no discernible background noise. The medical professional does not have your classical ASMR voice and is definitely not someone given to whispering. However, his style is gentle and measured, even slow perhaps. Occasionally he speaks a little more loudly which might be distracting if you have just dozed off. There are none of the grinding, popping, clicking, noises that attend many YouTube osteopathy videos and which caused me to reject the entire category for this blog some time ago.

The patient does not have much to say but she also has quite a calming voice. That is not common with YouTube videos – at least one participant habitually sounding like they’re employed to engender wakefulness.

Of course, each week now I refer to something from Calm because I have a Calm subscription, but I am not in any way trying to rub that in. Merely indicating that other material is available outside of YouTube. This week we have:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/TdLlUcxXBY

Daily Jay

Context Switching

NARRATOR

Jay Shetty

which is about how changing rapidly between tasks is taxing on the mind and inefficient. A sentiment which I wholeheartedly endorse, given that I have a very single-tasking kind of mind which becomes progressively more insistent about that limitation the older that I become.

This week’s professional ASMR offering comes to us from Cap Bailey ASMR. The channel has 375K subscribers six hundred and thirty seven videos and nine playlists of which this one would seem to be on theme for the medical examination subject we have pursued for this blog for some time now:

The video is this one:

Medical ASMR Friendly Field Exam (Whispered Sleep Roleplay)

The video has comments (of course it does) and, as usual, people are wetting themselves with joy over a new ASMR video. There are notes, which are refreshingly brief: ” 10,275 views 15 Feb 2026

(World War 2 Roleplay) Your friendly ASMR Medic treats your injuries to make you feel better (relaxed and sleep well) I hope ya love this video. I really enjoy doing these type of videos so if you enjoy this, leave a like and let me know in the comments. Much love and enjoy 🙂

Patreon –   / capbaileyasmr 

PayPal – @CapBaileyASMR

Instagram –   / cap_bailey 

Cap Bailey ASMR

375k subscribers”

It is a little over twenty-two and a half minutes in length, so not exceptionally long. It starts without music, but does have a kind of background noise as if the person presenting is standing in a storm. I think this is deliberate given the context of the video. It is definitely a whispery presentation but not your classical ASMR voice, I think. It is a bit esoteric for our normal fare in that it is not in a hospital, GP surgery, or even a nursing student’s bedroom.

The WWII aspect is unusual. However, we’re here to listen to how good the voice is. I’d say it is acceptable but I am not raving as much as the comments would have had me do.

The voice has an edge to it which makes it less than the calming I was expecting. I think it is that the person presenting is fighting to be quiet or, perhaps is trying both to be quiet and to project at the same time and it is an oddly jarring effect. That is not to say it isn’t well worth a review, of course.

There are, as usual for such things, other noises; tapping noises, stroking noises, slurping noises, some clicks, the odd thump, clunk and scraping noise. The person also makes that odd mouth clucking/clicking noise so beloved of ASMR artists but which does not do anything for me.

This may well be an example of something I have noticed before which is that some ASMR artists seem to try to get every ASMR trigger they can into each of their videos. I have said before that this is a mistake, as it does feel a bit like hammering at a trigger rather than it gently coming out of the presentation. In addition, if your trigger is mouth clucking, it probably isn’t whispering and vice versa. On that basis any ASMR fan is going to find part of the video unfulfilling, presumably.

Occasionally these extraneous noises get to be quite loud. I did find some of the noises to be distracting and personally I would not be using this one to try to fall asleep to, your mileage may vary. If you’re watching, the recreation of military artefacts and costume seems well done, but I think most people reading this blog will be using any of the videos to doze off to and hence will only be listening. I guarantee that there will be many-many people who absolutely lap this up, so why not have a review for yourself.

Today’s inadvertent ASMR video comes from the most minimal of channels. The channel is Lauren King and there is just one video on that channel. The subject of this week’s review.

HEENT Health Assessment Video 2_King

There are no notes and no comments. The channel has just two hundred and forty-nine subscribers but I notice the video has 123,950 views at the time I am looking at it (let’s hope that bodes well for us). It is a little less than twenty and a half minutes which is definitely not huge. It starts without music but with a reasonable level of background noise almost certainly air conditioning. Lauren seems to have a good voice and, indeed, the “patient” has a voice that is pretty good too. So far, so good.

There are equipment noises, noises from adjacent cubicles, some of which are quite loud (laughter even). The “patient” seems to be called “Tanner Wallace”, although there is every possibility of that being incorrect. Also, the date of birth verbally whisks by (possibly August 10 1993, not that the information is of very much use to us).

The bed motors (Lauren raises the bed) make a fearsome noise which is genuinely distracting. Fortunately, that particular noise does not last that long. The examination is well paced even gentle in places. Lauren occasionally seems to work hard on enunciation (there are a few technical terms).

In common with some presentations we have seen, Lauren sometimes spends moments struggling to work out what comes next. This is very standard student assessment video. By now, you and I have seen so many such videos we can almost work out what we expect to happen next. This one seems a small cut above, in that the style has the appearance of including some genuine empathy which is a fundamentally rare skill demonstrated in student assessment videos.

Part way through, the shoulder badge becomes visible and we see that it is Walla Walla University School of Nursing.

This has a channel but we have long established that university channels are there to promote the university rather than generate any ASMR-related content. (No doubt rightly so).

Sadly, my listening to the video was repeatedly interrupted by loud adverts (which more or less reiterates the point where we came in).

I rather liked this one, extraneous noises notwithstanding. Certainly, it is of reasonable quality for a student assessment video and I’m going to put it in the Procrastination Pen Playlist.

On that basis, just one, video on this occasion.

That’s it today, 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

Sleeping With ASMR

I recently read some recommendations around the use of magnesium to aid sleep. Personally, I was sceptical. I consider my diet has quite enough healthy attributes. So why would I need a supplement. I decided to go with cheap and minimal to give it a try. I located some 375mg magnesium and vitamin B6 from Tesco. I figured if the bargain basement variety was effective, then there was something in this magnesium supplement solution.

I also wanted the lowest mg I could find as I had been warned that strong supplements of magnesium can act as a laxative, and I was not too keen on that.

In any case, I now find it slightly easier initially to fall asleep. I have found that it has zero effect on the nights when I am already stressed – so far nothing available off prescription does. It also seems to have no, to negligible, effect on waking up during the night. Taking it, I find I still wake up around 4AM and it is still a struggle to get back off to sleep again.

Of course, this is anecdotal. A sample size of one could hardly be called a scientific sample size. There is also a strong possibility it is all placebo effect. However, if so, I’m all for the placebo effect. It might be worth giving magnesium a try if you haven’t already.

So, again, welcome to the Procrastination Pen, the home of restful material to aid in distraction of the sleepless and, on a good night, towards gentling them off to sleep.

Of late I have been trying to find material that is not on YouTube to give you the option of avoiding some pretty sleep-disturbing adverts. One of the people who is more famous than most is Jack Kornfield. Who, unsurprisingly, has a truly excellent voice and one, which, in the past, I listened to very frequently.

Surely meditation royalty like this would not have material out there in internet land that is free of charge?

Well in fact there is a whole site of it here, including, completely at random, this one: https://dharmaseed.org/talks/85881/20240902-Jack_Kornfield-SR-a_labor_of_love-85881.mp3

We also find the odd content in the Internet Archive including this one:

I’m beginning to understand that, with all this information available, one really does not have to put up with YouTube at all.

Following the structure that was established a few months ago, at this point I tend to recommend something from Calm. I have a Calm subscription and so I am in the fortunate position that I can listen to the content there. I recognise that only a subset of the people reading this will be in that position, so I will keep this section brief:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/iViiLizTTt

Daily Jay

Soul Grow

NARRATOR

Jay Shetty

This is about becoming a more extraordinary version of yourself. In it Jay explores this letter. I often find that Jay has some of the more interesting content on Calm, although not usually the most restful. I assume most people want to become the best possible version of themselves and so this may appeal.

Following on from the Calm recommendation, regular readers will know that at this point I now turn to YouTube and look for a professional ASMR artist. I am now not clear whether this is to recommend them. Many of my articles have found problems with content from professional ASMR artists. However, at the same time I have found the same artists with positive legion fans leaving sycophantic comments. I have to conclude therefore, that there are many different ears in the world and they all like to hear something different. For this reason, I persist, in the hope that at least one person who happens across this blog will like the content.

This one is unusual in that it has no notes and very few comments. That does not usually bode well, so my expectations are not high from commencement.

ASMR | Nurses Station 1: Nurse on Cranial Nerve Exam 🩺

It is from ALBERTSVOICE ASMR, which is a channel that has 16.8K subscribers, 3.4K videos, eleven playlists with some playlists quite obviously on theme for our medical – related ASMR reviews, such as:

and

and

and

This is such a huge number of videos I can only assume that the person is doing this as a full-time job. In which case all power to him.

Today’s video is a little over twenty-three minutes. It starts very loud for an ASMR video including a ringing tone, loud speech, and loud keyboard sounds. The phone gets a good clattering and the video continues in the same loud manner. This is certainly not your classical ASMR video. Although we have heard videos with excessively loud keyboards before, this is quite possibly the loudest yet.

There seem to be very loud equipment-related sounds every time a piece of equipment is selected. On the upside, there is no sign of whispering or breathy presentations. There are no mouth clucking sounds or any of those other sounds we have associated with a number of professional ASMR artists. In fact, it is so loud, I do wonder if it is in fact a parody of ASMR videos rather than an ASMR video as such. Although we have encountered videos with loud noises in them, I have rather assumed that this was a mistake rather than by conscious choice. Here it would appear that it is by design. I suspect that unless you give the volume control a healthy downwards turn you are not going to get much rest whilst listening to this one.

It is odd, when I started to review professional ASMR artists I was convinced that the content would be so good that very soon all the inadvertent material I had initially focused on would be shown to be excessively lacking. Actually, the more reviews I do, the more I find that much of this inadvertent material stands up rather well.

Perhaps I made the correct choice, quite by accident, when I started writing this review series of blog articles all those months ago.

As to that, this week’s inadvertent ASMR video is this one:

Neurological assessment video

It has no notes and comments are denied – so reassuringly quite unlike a professional ASMR artist then. It comes from the channel Lila Kalman, which has 1.08K subscribers. This is quite an achievement given there are only sixteen videos and no playlists.

The posts to this channel start three years ago, conclude two years ago and have all the appearance of student assessment videos. Today’s video is not going to break the bank timewise given it is less than eight minutes long. Other parts of the channel look worthy of investigation however, so I will most likely be returning for a further look in the future.

It starts with the typical student video pantomime knock. Usually this precedes attempts at privacy using thin air, which fortunately does not happen here. The medical professional introduces herself as Lila, so I am guessing the owner of this channel. The “patient” seems to be Lauren Hager (assuming I heard that correctly). There is no excessive background noise (somewhat of a miracle for videos of this nature). Lila seems to have an excellent voice. Lauren’s is almost as good. If I happen across Lauren’s channel in my travels I may give it a review. (Assuming that she was a nurse in the same year as Lila, which is by no means a given).

The video continues quiet, and the approach is methodical. Would that we had seen many more such videos. There are occasional equipment noises, none of which seem to me to be excessive. If anything, the recording seems a little on the muted side. One of the rare occasions in which you will be rolling over and turning the volume control up. (Whereas more usually you’ll be turning it down, often quite a long way down). There is occasional noise, which sounds like it might be traffic noise, outside of the building. In which case the building could probably do with some more insulation as it sounds unusually noisy.

There’s the odd pregnant pause, I assume while Lila attempts to recall what it is should come next in the process. So far, so typical student assessment video. There is occasional speech from an adjacent room, which is also the kind of thing that we have heard before.

All told I think a rather good video for us and it is going into 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

Sleeping With ASMR

YouTube has intermittently started to require me to log on. This only seems to happen on the tablet; it does not seem to happen on the laptop. The upshot is that whilst I am reviewing the videos (on the laptop), I can play what I like and I can write these articles. However, when I go to bed, I try to play the playlist and I get stopped and asked to log on. My password is a lengthy one; I am not at all interested in raising myself from a partially sleepy state to start typing in passwords. I’m sure it is possible, I just don’t value the change in requirements, and I have alternatives that do not dictate to me in this fashion. (Not least a number of videos I have found on the Internet Archive – some of which I have featured of late).

For example, this week I found this one:

Sadly, it is in a language I do not understand. The person is listed as “Emma Smith” but the content sounds Russian to me. I only worry in case I recommend something which contains language that I wouldn’t recommend if I did understand it. If anyone understands this content and finds it to be filled with undesirable language, let me know and I’ll delete the recommendation. It references a channel, I tried that for further details but found it did not exist. So not a lot of help.

The voice is not what I would call tip-top, but the video does lack background noise, startup (and tail end) music. It is an odd one in that I have seen a few head-to-tail videos (usually by medical students), and this content does not look like any I have seen so far. It is possible that it was extracted from a much longer video. Have a listen and see what you think.

For this week’s Calm recommendation, I am back with Jeff:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/DDw6S3ZLMF

Daily Trip

Can You Live with This the Rest of Your Life?

NARRATOR

Jeff Warren

AUTHOR

Jeff Warren

As Calm dailies go this is quite a long one. It is close on 11 minutes, possibly even enough to drop off to. However, the thing I love about Jeff is how often he comes up with something which reflects some of the things I have either dealt with or am dealing with. Even where he doesn’t do that, I find the subjects that he brings up to be fascinating in any case. This one is about being able to welcome anything that happens to you in your life. This, to me, sounds like a rather daunting expectation. Even where what has happened will last for the rest of your life. As I get older, I begin to understand there are a number of changes that are just not going to go away. In which case, I think practices like this may increase in relevance.

For this week’s professional ASMR video I have been looking at this one:

Removing a foreign object from your Arm | ASMR Medical role play

It is odd for a professional ASMR video, in that it does not have a description. There are comments but they are decidedly on the surreal side – very normal YouTube then. It comes from the channel sillystarASMR. This channel has six hundred and fifty-seven videos and 7.63K subscribers. There are seven playlists none of which obviously fit with the medical theme which we have been following for a while now.

The video is just less than seventeen minutes in length; it starts without music and straight away we hear that this is not classical ASMR. For a start there is no whispering involved and definitely no breathy moments. There is some mouth clucking noises and some background keyboarding happening. There are, of course, other noises: equipment noises, hand sanitiser noises, plastic sheet noises, beeping noises, Velcro noises, rustling noises, clicking noises, even the occasional clunk.

I would say that the voice isn’t high on empathy (this is in common with a number of student videos we have seen). Which shows how valuable a person who has some empathy in their voice actually is. At one stage there is even some sighing going on, as if the person is tired of the whole thing.

For the inadvertent ASMR this week I’m looking at this one:

Health Assessment

It is from the channel Dylan McCollough. This has four videos, 1.54K subscribers and no playlists. That seems a fair few subscribers for so few videos. Hopefully this bodes well for us.

Today’s video has no notes (usually a sign that it is not a professional ASMR video). Comments are permitted. There are a number of these and quite a few are uncomplimentary. That does not sound good for us.

The video is just less than twenty-two minutes. It starts without music but does have some strong background noise – almost certainly air conditioning. Unlike some of the commentators I rather like the voice. Some parts of the presentation are a mite hesitant so it strikes me as one of the student assessment videos which we are so familiar with. The voice then gets very quiet indeed and personally I was straining to make out much. The auto subtitles seem quite good for that if you really want to watch (I assume you’ll just be listening). Fortunately, it becomes a lot more listenable quite swiftly.

There are noises from other people (presumably in adjacent rooms in the medical establishment). These are unwelcome and quite loud. There’s the occasional clunk from equipment and slamming of doors sufficiently nearby to be quite loud. There is the sound of water running at one point in an adjacent room. There are noises from the patient moving around when requested. I would say that the patient does not have such a great voice and he is a bit louder than the medical professional here as well. However, he is very respectful in his responses so I was quite taken with that. Whoever is operating the recording equipment occasional thumbs the microphone, fortunately that isn’t too loud. The examination is methodical, even gentle, shame about that air conditioning and those extraneous noises, but it is often thus with student assessment videos. I can see why people take videos and edit them to retain only the quiet bits, but how they get over the copyright issues I have no idea.

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

Sleeping With ASMR

There is a now well-established relationship between getting enough sleep and the strength of your memory. I have always had a pretty poor memory and had to work very hard to retain important facts for any extended period.

I remember reading that scientists can now alter memories during sleep. It would be rather good to banish some of the more unpleasant memories, but how much more relevant is that if you have had a traumatic experience.

The links between lack of sleep and dementia is being explored. It is widely agreed though, that sleep quality gets progressively worse as you get older.

It is for this reason that the Procrastination Pen started to review restful videos some little while ago. I might be getting older but I’m not keen to join any waiting list for dementia. It is therefore important, I feel, to fight the tendency towards shorter amounts of sleep and for that sleep to be more broken. I have felt that one key part is something that will soothe you off to sleep and lull you back to sleep, should you wake up during the night.

I tend now to start with something from Calm. Only because I have a Calm subscription and I dislike putting up with adverts (Calm doesn’t have any).

This week, for a change, let’s look at a course provided by possibly my favourite voice on Calm which is Tamara Levitt.

This is a sequence of Body Scan meditations:

https://www.calm.com/app/program/whzIxMJxVR

Body Scan

Tune into physical sensations to deepen your awareness

Tamara Levitt

Head of Mindfulness at Calm

This has sessions starting at three minutes in length and ultimately building to thirty minutes. I must confess I have not yet learned to sit undistracted for thirty minutes, but it is a good goal.

This is definitely worth a listen if you have a Calm subscription.

At this stage, and for a while now, I have taken towards reviewing a professional ASMR artist – you never know this may turn out to be a great source of ASMR material! (Only half joking, some of the stuff I have reviewed has not exactly set the sleeping muscles to much exercise.)

I was attracted to this one by the title, as it is sleep related:

Chronic Insomnia Healing by Japanese Pro – ASMR

It comes from the channel ASMR Twix with 900k subscribers two hundred and eighty seven videos thirty-two playlists

There is the odd playlist which is borderline for the focus of this blog thus far such as:

and

Videos are still being posted here but the notes against the channel are over a year old:

“Original Japanese Head SPA in Progress for 2024, Spring Grand Opening in Tokyo.

“ASMR Twix” channel set the trend for Japanese Head SPA to become famous worldwide. I am honoured to be the first and biggest YouTuber in Japan to have worked with 190+ Japanese SPAs, salons, haircuts, make-up, kimono, etc. relaxing services and establishments. You can visit all of these relaxing places. Often, there are discounts or gifts just for my subscribers. Mention “ASMR Twix” at the beginning of your session. Feel free to book via Instagram in English or an online website. All places are by appointment only! From the SPA places on my playlist “Gift from Twix,” you can receive a special gift after your session, prepared specially by me (Twix).

Terahertz massage tool collections are available in 16 SPAs in Japan. You can find out more about it (https://asmrtwix.shop) and recent projects at the links below.

For business, contact via Instagram at @asmr.twix.”

(I’ve edited the notes because, as usual, they are quite long).

Today’s selected video has notes as well:

” 1,356,968 views 15 Apr 2021 #asmr #migraine #chronicinsomnia

Salon info: Mr. HEAD

address: Tokyo, Ichigaya station, Yobancho 5F

website: pls go to pinned comment!

Top 10 Frequently asked question about Me:

1. Am I Japanese or mixed?

I’m not! I have been living in Japan for several years.

2. Where Am I from?

I’m full Asian. For privacy issues, I prefer to keep my nationality, real name, age,address in private.

3. Do I get treatments every day?

No. I balance treatments schedule considering my skin and health condition. For example, once a week.

4. Why “Twix”?

Me and My sister work on creating these contents together. As you know Twix chocolate bar has 2 pieces. So, I’m not the only creating these videos. My sister👩 is behind the camera as Camerasister. So we thought that would be fair If I add my sister’s name. Of course, not directly adding her name.

5. Why my Camerasister doesn’t show up in the videos?

She prefers to work behind the camera. I hope you will respect her decision.

6. Does my Camerasister also get treatments?

Sometimes she does. I give her scalp, neck, face, shoulder massages at home😅

7. Who replies to the comments?

Me who always appears in the videos.

8. What kind of ASMR channel is this?

This channel is focused on Japanese exclusive head spa, face and head massage, aesthetics, facial and scalp treatments. In our videos, it is always “Soft spoken” in Japanese language with English subtitles. We don’t do “Whispering” and “No talking” videos.

9. Are my videos sponsored?

If I get sponsored on my videos, I’ll definitely mention about sponsorship in the videos according to YouTube sponsorship terms and conditions.

10. Do all places I visit have good result?

I always do deep research on the places before I visit. Because, I have responsibility of showing the real result and recommend it to my viewers. I always give my honest opinion about the treatment, massage and environment of the place at the end of each video.

11. Do I have any other social media?

No, I don’t. I want to focus on creating better videos on YouTube. We’re working on creating PayPal donations, Patreon page where I can connect even more with Twixes. They will come out probably on March 🥰”

ASMR artists really know how to write very long video notes.

Comments are permitted. There’s a lot of them but they are predominantly positive. So far, so good.

The video is a little over half an hour and so not the hugest we’ve seen. It starts without startup music, for which may the Lord make us truly thankful. However, it does have some pretty impressive background noise. By impressive, read loud. It sounds like a very bad 1980s recording. The video is in Japanese with subtitles in English and it is a shame about the background noise because I would say that the voice is excellent. It tends towards the whispery side with occasional breathy interludes.

The pace is wonderfully slow and relaxed. Turning down the volume a heck of a lot reduces the background noise, a bit. Of course, in consequence, you also lose some of that voice at the same time. The voice is worth holding onto because it is a good one for our purposes, I think. Because it is of such good quality I have made an exception for the advertising that crops up at the tail end of this video. Advertising by the ASMR artist themselves I regard as a no-no for this blog. See what you think, it might be that this video was/was not deserving of a review. Sadly, the normal energetic adverts decided to interpose themselves on more than one occasion (at least whilst I was listening). Of course, this is ever more motivation for me to research sounds that are not on YouTube and that people may find restful. I’ve skipped past that this week due to time constraints but I will locate some more in the very near future.

Meantime, I did not realise until this week that the Internet Archive has some of the ASMR videos we have already covered. This includes the Cate Darnell video which has already been reviewed.

This one is archived here:

I notice that the files are available for download. On that basis it would seem that you can download these, assemble your own playlist, and avoid the adverts altogether. I have not tried this yet but I am certainly giving it some serious consideration.

You may recall a previous post in which I mentioned a URL which linked to thirty two videos. The URL is this one:

Medical Training Videos

It has thirty-two videos (discounting the introductory one). Last time we managed to review just four of these, so there is a fair few left to look at…

The next one in the series is this:

Knee Examination – Orthopaedics

Somewhat over nine minutes in length, the notes are: “684,941 views  28 Nov 2012  Clinical Examinations

This video – produced by students at Oxford University Medical School in conjunction with the faculty – demonstrates how to perform an Orthopaedic examination of the knee joint. It is part of a series of videos covering Orthopaedic examinations and is linked to Oxford Medical Education (www.oxfordmedicaleducation.com)

This video was produced in collaboration with Oxford Medical Illustration – a department of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust. For more information, please visit www.oxfordmi.nhs.uk”

The person narrating has a great voice, lovely and quiet. When I find a good voice like this it is often frustrating that I cannot identify whose it is (so that I could look for other videos in which that person features). In this case though, there are no clues, so reoccurrence of this voice (if ever) will be purely by chance.

Hip Examination – Orthopaedics

A little over nine and a quarter minutes long. The notes are: “938,894 views 28 Nov 2012 Clinical Examinations

This video – produced by students at Oxford University Medical School in conjunction with the faculty – demonstrates how to perform an Orthopaedic examination of the hip joint. It is part of a series of videos covering Orthopaedic examinations and is linked to Oxford Medical Education (www.oxfordmedicaleducation.com)

This video was produced in collaboration with Oxford Medical Illustration – a department of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust. For more information, please visit www.oxfordmi.nhs.uk”

The narrator has a good voice and it is nicely paced.

Trauma Assessment – Pelvic Fracture Scenario

A little less than sixteen minutes the notes are: “176,944 views 13 May 2012 Trauma Surgery

This video – produced by students at Oxford University Medical School in conjunction with the faculty – demonstrates how to perform the initial assessment of a patient with suspected traumatic injury. This scenario is of a patient with a suspected pelvic fracture and internal haemorrhage.

Videos on this channel are linked to Oxford Medical Education (www.oxfordmedicaleducation.com)

This video was produced in collaboration with Oxford Medical Illustration – a department of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust. For more information, please visit www.oxfordmi.nhs.uk”

This is introduced and, although it is a trauma situation, it is not excessively loud, but not exactly restful either.

Trauma Assessment – Teaching Scenario (with possible pathology)

Fifteen and a half minutes. The notes are: “58,225 views 13 May 2012 Trauma Surgery

This video – produced by students at Oxford University Medical School in conjunction with the faculty – demonstrates how to perform the initial assessment of a patient with suspected traumatic injury. This scenario is of an uninjured patient. It includes possible pathology to be found at each step.

Videos on this channel are linked to Oxford Medical Education (www.oxfordmedicaleducation.com)

This video was produced in collaboration with Oxford Medical Illustration – a department of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust. For more information, please visit www.oxfordmi.nhs.uk”

The narration is similar to the last one. The medical professional has a reasonable voice and the progress is methodical.

I think that I will conclude the blog post at this one and continue in another post. Failing that this blog post would become really large indeed, to the point of boredom, I imagine.

That’s it on this occasion, more next time.

The Oxford Medical Education Hospitals 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

Sleeping With ASMR

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.”

Home

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

Sleeping With ASMR

I was recently lying awake, as I often do, watching rubbish TV in the hope it will tempt the sleep fairies out from hiding. I came across something which was a TV programme covering TikTok videos. The concept seemed sufficiently low rent that it was bound to drive any idea of wakefulness screaming for the hills. I discovered that there had been a TikTok video in which there was a person who had decided that a specific individual was the one for her. He was going to have to be working in finance, physically he had to be six foot five inches and he had to have blue eyes.

The idea that selection on such a basis was the concept that would lead to a successful relationship rather appalled. But then I found that the video had been viral, had spawned a music video, a collaboration with a famous musician, and an income of several hundred thousand pounds.

This seemed to indicate a general consensus that selecting a partner for a relationship on the basis of appearance and income was, all in all, a generally good idea.

I then thought of people I found intriguing, those who gave up their lives to save the pangolin for instance. Those who worked hard to make a relationship work with much less obviously appealing material. Those who endured a difficult situation with failing health, failing resources and so on.

I realised that perhaps the reason sleep is not as much a friend is that I have found myself out of step with the zeitgeist. But then I reassured myself that, on the basis of current information, I probably always have been.

If you find that the world seems to be moving along in a direction that you no longer feel a part of, perhaps it may not be a terrible idea to distract yourself with a restful video, a music file, perhaps even a meditation. The Procrastination Pen is here to help with that.

I came across an older podcast recently on the subject of ASMR. It appealed because the artist describes ASMR in the way that I understand it. A pleasurable experience that is non sexual but can assist with sleep. It turns out that this podcast is so old that the website it linked to for the artist is no longer available. Because it was a podcast, I have no idea what Melinda Lauw looks like which I imagine makes the locating of any ASMR by Melinda slightly more exciting. However, I need not have worried because there is an entire YouTube video dedicated to her here:

which helpfully links to the relevant website.

And it would appear that Melinda is now also producing YouTube videos of her own, for example:

ASMR | Face Measurement Exercise (Personal Attention, Math Tools)

I think this week I shall use Whisperlodge ASMR as the professional ASMR artist. Even though this will make the order of this article somewhat out of step with how I have been previously doing things. (Perhaps being out of step is somewhat the message for this week.)

There are nineteen videos here and 4.29K subscribers which is a pretty healthy figure I’m sure you agree. There are four playlists, none of them on an obviously medical theme and indeed the selected video this week is a little peripheral in that respect.

The video is from a professional artist and so of course it has associated notes: “49,339 views 24 May 2020

Hi everyone, I’m finally starting to make videos!! This time, I’m using old school math tools for a little face measurement exercise. While this isn’t perfect, I know I’ll get better with more practice! A few of our Whisperlodge guides will also be contributing their videos here! More to come!

https://whisperlodge.nyc/”

Comments are permitted and, as usual, are the premium level of sycophancy that we typically find associated with professional ASMR artists. Whatever they have it should be bottled. But maybe it secures them a tall blue-eyed partner who works in finance…

The video is fifteen and a half minutes long and hence is properly short for a professional ASMR artist. It starts without music (heaven be praised) and definitely is on the quiet side of whispery. I got the impression that whispery was not the natural volume for this as if it was a little strained but that may just be me.

You may need to roll over and turn up the volume a bit to get much from this at all. For me, it is therefore not the greatest voice I have heard. However at least there are no offensive noises. A lot of ASMR videos (professional or otherwise) could learn a lot from that. Even with the volume turned way up I found it a bit quiet for me (but I do have old ears). Be aware though with the volume up when the inevitable intrusive YouTube advert kicks in, you are very likely to lift vertically off the bed in stunned surprise. Not for the first time I wish I owned the video such that I could amplify it a bit to make it more listenable.

That said, I found it enjoyable. I would return to the channel to take another look only there is precious little material to draw upon. Perhaps the future will bring more. Maybe it will even be on a genuine medical theme, I can hope…

I found the presentation relaxing and really would like to see more. Let us hope that Whisperlodge is reading The Procrastination Pen.

Slightly in reverse order this week, the habitual Calm offering (usually I write about this before the professional ASMR artist). A small subset of people may find this appealing (in that you have to pay for a Calm subscription before you can listen to the full track).

https://www.calm.com/app/player/ZChWn_-1Bl

Daily Jay

Become the Lake

NARRATOR

Jay Shetty

This is about one’s mindset and how to widen perspective. As usual with Jay the content is interesting and challenging, but perhaps this one is not enough by itself to comfortably get you off to sleep.

I’ve discovered a recommendation online for some miracle pillows. Miracle anything is a bit like pixie dust; it would be incredibly useful but seems exhaustingly difficult to find. So it is with some trepidation that I put down the money. The service was excellent but the pillows smell a bit like the inside of a factory at the moment so I haven’t actually laid my head on one. I’m leaving them to acclimatise in a quiet area and they may need a spray of lavender oil before I start using them.

However, I’m not going to feedback on what they are like until they actually start living up to their claims (the leaflets in the packaging state at least fourteen days before judging). Given my partner accuses me of sounding like a hog at the trough when I sleep, it will be interesting to see if it makes any difference.

Meantime the ASMR video search continues apace. Sometimes the videos are very effective in lulling me off to sleep, but sadly, unlike pixie dust, they aren’t universally effective and sometimes there is a night of much tossing and turning and relatively little sleep. (The noise cancelling headphones are a terrific help and I recommend them).

Today’s video is this one:

Alana Haas head to toe- south university

Again, it has come up in my YouTube recommendations so frequently that I am not clear that I haven’t covered it before, but a quick search of the blog does not reveal any trace of it.

It is just less than fourteen minutes and comes to us as part of the gift that keeps on giving – the student assessment video. These are by part manna from heaven and by part noisy, irritating, and a source of many discarded videos.

Initially you will see that the video is in portrait mode and this tends to produce the more “Blair Witch” style of videos – i.e. shaky and with intrusive noises. Possibly because it is frequently a mobile phone that is in use to film it.

The medical professional is Alana Haas i.e. the person in the title and she announces that she is at South University.

South University of course has its own YouTube channel with one hundred and seventy-seven videos on the day I’m looking at it and 2.8K subscribers.

These seem to be (as is typical for such channels) material promoting the University rather than suitable ASMR material.

Back to the video, Alana does not have a typical voice for us and it starts a bit loud. We find that the filming date is 2013, and the “patient” is Jordyn Hutchinson (I’m basing the spelling on the name of the channel). The surname is less than clear and it isn’t the same as the surname in the channel as you’ll see in a short while.

The video gets into its stride and quietens down but this is no Hollie Berry. There are equipment noises but air conditioning noises are not too obtrusive for a video of this type.

The channel is Jordynlee21. I’ll make the assumption that Jordyn met a Mr Lee after college sometime, but it is feasible that the channel goes back to when she was Lee and she is now Hutchinson.

The channel has only four videos yet 3.36K subscribers (which is frankly amazing).

Given how few videos there are it is well worth our time reviewing the other three.

Jordyn Hutchinson head to toe- South university

Here the former “patient” is now the medical professional. The former medical professional is now the “patient”.

It is filmed in the same manner as the previous one and, as before, no notes and no comments. Given the nature of some of the comments that is frankly a relief and, given the number of subscribers, I think we can assume that the ASMR community has set up a tent, a fifty inch plasma screen and a seven speaker surround system around this channel.

This video is twelve and a half minutes so it looks like they are going to be much of a muchness in terms of length (I expect the remaining two to be similar).

There is knocking and a door closing at the beginning which isn’t the most restful. The air conditioning, for some reason, is more intrusive. Jordyn doesn’t have an amazing ASMR voice. Which might be a theme for this set of videos.

There are equipment noises. Some of the conversation sounds designed to fulfil a brief rather than the empathy that perhaps you might expect. It quietens down but still no Vicki Scott.

Callie Donnay head to toe- South university

This is just over fourteen minutes so assumptions about video length seem warranted (they’re all about the same length, well, within a couple minutes). Callie is the medical professional. Straight away Callie seems to have a better voice. The patient is Ashley Brehmer. The air conditioning, though, is building up to full Shakespearian drama. (this is a constant hazard with such videos)

Ashley seems a bit noisy in this one but she isn’t the main player.

There are equipment noises, some of them are really quite loud. Obviously, a video that would profit from some healthy editing, if I was disposed to steal someone else’s video, (which I’m not). Part way through Callie begins to sound a bit tired of proceedings, or nerves are setting in, one way or the other.

Ashley seems quite amused by it all and there is the odd mouthed comment which I cannot make out, probably my elderly hearing equipment.

Head to toe Ashley Brehmer- South University

Again, a reversal of roles Ashley Brehmer the medical professional here and Callie Donnay the “patient”. This is just over twelve and a quarter minutes.

By now we are familiar with the format. Door noises at start – tick, air conditioning ramping up its role – tick – lack of real empathy – tick.

It settles down to become almost muted, barring the inevitable equipment noises of course. There is a sense that at intervals the participants are just going through the motions. Who knows how early or late this is being filmed. However, everyone participating could just be very tired (that or a rather energetic night in the bar the previous night, let’s hope it was the latter for their sake).

I suspect that this video is likely to be the one that more fully stands the test of time in the Procrastination Pen playlist, notably because obtrusive noises are less in this one. (sometimes one clang is enough to wake me from sleep and that condemns the video from that point onwards).

That’s it on this occasion, more next time.

The Jordyn Lee 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

Sleeping With ASMR

The moments when sleep provides relief have to be truly given thanks for. So easy it is to take the things in life which are most meaningful for granted. The ability to make tears, the ability to see well. The ability to hear well, particularly in a crowded room. Moving with ease and without pain. Falling asleep easily and staying asleep once you get there.

All of these things, and many more besides cannot be taken for granted as, for many, they are not gifted for a lifetime but only for a swift few decades.

I’m afraid I cannot help you if you live in pain. However, I do hope to provide some assistance if you are struggling for sleep. This blog reviews material for its relevance, calmness, relaxation potential and as a bonus, occasionally I find some material that may be of use to people who get ASMR symptoms.

Habitually I have reviewed YouTube videos because they embed well in this page and make the blog look pretty. However, it turns out that YouTube has to make a living like the rest of us and part of that is ensuring that we pay attention to each and every advert that pops onto the screen.

This is distracting enough in the daytime but, I have found, very deleterious when trying to get to sleep.

Hence, I have been wracking my brains of late for the material that I used to use before I started to explore the world of YouTube. In the days when MP3 players had no screen and the best you could hope in the darkened room is a restful voice crackling through a set of cheap headphones.

One of the people that came to mind is someone called Martyn whose MP3 material I used to download from a retreat called Moulin (the clue is that it is in France, I think).

Armed with that information I realised that the site is this https://www.moulindechaves.org/. The name of the place is Moulin de Chaves and the name of the man is Martin Aylward. Sadly, my exploration did not reveal any MP3 files though. In all probability, over the elapsed time, the site has changed beyond recognition.

However, I did find some at https://dharmaseed.org/retreats/5369/. It is a meditation retreat so expect some Buddhist content and some of it might be challenging. If you find that off-putting, scroll on down as there is more material reviewed below. However, if you do not find it off-putting then I’m sure you’ll agree that Martin has an excellent voice.

Regular readers will have noted by now that I habitually review something from Calm. Calm is not free but it is free of adverts.

https://www.calm.com/app/player/-B5yiokpfS

Daily Jay

A Full Life

NARRATOR

Jay Shetty

Which, unsurprisingly, is on how to live a full life. As usual an interesting subject from Jay. Certainly, worth a review, I think, if you have a Calm subscription that is.

OK, and so habitually I now review a professional ASMR artist, and I’ve been doing this for a while. Mainly to see if you get more relaxation per minute than with an inadvertent ASMR video. Of late, I have not found that to be the case.

This week’s video is this one:

ASMR EAR NOSE & THROAT DOCTOR | tingly medical exam role-play

It is from the channel GwenGwiz ASMR, this has 497k subscribers, twenty eight videos and eleven playlists. One of these playlists is on a medical theme and so is in line with the focus of this blog for the last few months:

The video is a little over thirty four minutes in length, so not one of the longer ones that we have reviewed.

It has a vast long set of notes so here are the edited highlights: “154,308 views 16 Apr 2025 #ASMRForSleep #asmr

Welcome to the clinic! Relax as Dr. Gwen conducts a thorough examination of your ear, nose and throat. There’s lots of tingly #asmr triggers in this video including: personal attention, inaudible whispers, latex gloves, keyboard typing, light visual triggers and more! Hope you enjoy XOX Oh and sorry for the background sounds, it was a veryyyyy windy night!

✩ get exclusive videos and support the channel:   / gwengwizasmr  

WEBSITE: https://www.gwengwiz.com”

Comments are permitted but there are not the usual terrific huge number of these. As is usual for a professional ASMR artist, the comments seem to be predominantly positive.

The video commences without startup music, which is excellent. Personally, I think the presentation errs a bit on the slow side as if the person is deliberately slowing down the intonation of each and every word. Not off-putting, just a little unusual. Presumably with this number of viewers most people do not agree with me. It does tend to vie towards the whispery, which is something we are used to hearing with professional ASMR artists. Judging by the feedback this is also what ASMR fans are demanding. It is all a bit breathy, which again, is not untypical for a video of this type.

There are, of course, other noises; glove noises, that strange mouth clucking come clicking noise that seems to be popular with ASMR afficionados. There are clicking noises from equipment and keyboard noises. Despite the warning in the notes though I would not say that the background noise is at all excessive. I was either tired or this is very effective because I found myself nodding to this one. Definitely worthy of a review, I would say.

You may recall a previous post in which I mentioned a URL which linked to thirty two videos. The URL is this one:

Medical Training Videos

It has thirty-two videos (discounting the introductory one). Last time we managed to review just seven of these, so there is a fair few left to look at..

The next one in the series is this:

Intramuscular and Subcutaneous Injections – Clinical Skills

This is seven and a quarter-minutes. The notes are: “1,527,565 views 29 Nov 2012 Most Popular

This video – produced by students at Oxford University Medical School in conjunction with the faculty – demonstrates the principles and techniques underlying intramuscular and subcutaneous injections. It is part of a series of videos covering clinical skills and is linked to Oxford Medical Education (www.oxfordmedicaleducation.com)

This video was produced in collaboration with Oxford Medical Illustration – a department of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust. For more information, please visit www.oxfordmi.nhs.uk”

Again, the start is with an introduction but this time the narrator has a louder voice. Despite this I think it would be suitable for the playlist. The demonstration itself is silent, which actually makes it quite a relaxing video. (If you do not like needles for goodness’ sake do not watch – just listen).

Blood Transfusion and Intravenous Infusion – Clinical Skills

A little under twelve minutes in length. The notes are: “520,998 views 29 Nov 2012 Most Popular

This video – produced by students at Oxford University Medical School in conjunction with the faculty – demonstrates the principles and techniques underlying intravenous infusion of fluids and the safe transfusion of blood. It is part of a series of videos covering clinical skills and is linked to Oxford Medical Education (www.oxfordmedicaleducation.com)

This video was produced in collaboration with Oxford Medical Illustration – a department of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust. For more information, please visit www.oxfordmi.nhs.uk”

It starts with a narrator again and the narrator has a pretty reasonable voice for us. The actual examination involves a medical professional with another fairly good voice for us. The patient has very little to say. This video is suitable for the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Wound Care – Clinical Skills

Just over eight and a half minutes the notes are: “245,926 views 29 Nov 2012 Nursing Skills

This video – produced by students at Oxford University Medical School in conjunction with the faculty – demonstrates the principles and techniques underlying basic wound care. It is part of a series of videos covering clinical skills and is linked to Oxford Medical Education (www.oxfordmedicaleducation.com)

This video was produced in collaboration with Oxford Medical Illustration – a department of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust. For more information, please visit www.oxfordmi.nhs.uk”

It has a nice quiet introduction by a narrator with a good voice for us. The narration is nicely quiet and not over fast.

Shoulder Examination – Orthopaedics

Just over nine and a half minutes in length. The notes are: “604,900 views 28 Nov 2012 Clinical Examinations

This video – produced by students at Oxford University Medical School in conjunction with the faculty – demonstrates how to perform an Orthopaedic examination of the shoulder joint. It is part of a series of videos covering Orthopaedic examinations and is linked to Oxford Medical Education (www.oxfordmedicaleducation.com)

This video was produced in collaboration with Oxford Medical Illustration – a department of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust. For more information, please visit www.oxfordmi.nhs.uk”

Again, it is introduced. The voice is perhaps not quite as good as the last video but still reasonable enough for the playlist, I think. During the medical examination we find that the voice of the medical professional is also reasonable for our purposes (if anything slightly better than that of the narrator here).

I think that I will conclude the blog post at this one and continue in another post. Failing that this blog post would become really large indeed, to the point of boredom, I imagine.

That’s it on this occasion, more next time.

The Oxford Medical Education 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

Sleeping With ASMR

I notice that advice for insomniacs abounds. Quite often the advice does include suggestions to distract oneself with another noise (white noise seems popular). Of course, The Procrastination Pen exists to describe distracting noises. Until recently it has consisted primarily of videos on YouTube. However, I have often bemoaned how intrusive the inter-video adverts are. I therefore keep trying to find alternatives.

So, I thought this week we would start into free resources that might preclude the need for YouTube at all. I am looking for things that could be restful and which are not going to wake you with loud adverts.

I had made a note of a URL during lockdown and never returned to it. Now it turns out that it has gone and can only be located on The Internet Archive:

https://web.archive.org/web/20221005123843/http://me-cl.com/resources/

There are three files that appear in this order:

Talk: Mindful Eating by Jan Chozen Bays (note: begins rather abruptly with a short chant)

Meditation: Mini-Meditation before Eating by Char Wilkins

Meditation: 10-minute Breath Awareness by Char Wilkins

The Jan Chozen Bays talk is close to forty-two minutes in length. It has a long, quiet introduction (silent, in fact). Then it gets really loud very quickly. It seems to consist of rhythmic chanting which I, for one, did not find relaxing. After about a minute the chanting stops, but it is enough, from my perspective, to discount it as a source of relaxation.

After that time a talk starts and that is nicely quiet (another situation where, if I owned the MP3, I would truncate that initial part altogether and the file might be quite usable). The voice is ok, not much in the way of ASMR-y, but given we are looking for sleeping aids, I would say certainly relaxing enough for me.

Not unexpectedly the talk has a religious theme and also (perhaps unexpectedly) a US-centric theme. I apologise if you find either to be not for you. In which case perhaps this review will save you listening to it at all.

The further through the track we go the better it is paced and the calmer the voice becomes. Perhaps it’s one to start playing before you’re ready to sleep and start listening a few minutes in…

The Mini Meditation by Char Wilkins is just less than six and a half minutes long. It starts with a bell, which might be a bit jarring. The voice is, again, not as quiet as I expected, you’d probably want to adjust the volume down a bit. The pace is quite good though. Not an ASMR-y tone but restful enough for sleep, I think. There is another bell about midway through; I’m sure this is a mechanism for punctuating the meditation but it may also be something that causes the slumbering mind to surface again. The final three minutes or so is completely silent.

The ten-minute breath awareness also starts with a bell. It is actually eleven minutes long. Here the voice is a better volume and a better pace than the previous one. There is also a further bell towards the end of the track.

The files seem to be free to download, such that you could download them and manipulate them as you see fit with an editor such as Audacity.

(Perhaps you could even chop out some of the louder bits, for example).

Of course, this mechanism of locating restful material does not build into a playlist. I think you’re stuck with downloading, manipulating to focus on restful moments, and then building a playlist yourself using a media player of choice. Given the files are not mine I dare not do that for you in case a formal person in a serious suit were to find out about it.

The other alternative to YouTube I have explored for a while now is limited only to those who already have a Calm subscription. I am not sure what percentage of a readership this actually is (conceivably it could be a waste of time). However, I have felt that describing alternative methods of getting some peaceful background noise might be more effective than taking a chance with those adverts. Today’s is this one:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/kM_FSkJ6oJ

Daily Jay

You Belong

NARRATOR

Jay Shetty

This concerns the universal desire to belong. It features an enlightening story about belonging and attitude to belonging. Even if you are not using it to relax for sleep it makes for interesting listening.

I like the statement “any form of suffering is a part of life”. Those of us who struggle with sleep probably will take some succour from that.

Frequently having covered the Calm option, I have now been featuring a professional ASMR artist (often on a medical theme). I started reviewing these to see if the offerings were as good, or preferably better, than the inadvertent ASMR which has been the subject of this blog so far.

This week I am looking at the channel Celaine’s ASMR this has 2.01m subscribers, nine hundred and seventy six videos, thirty one playlists some of which have greater than two hundred videos in them. This is an extremely popular channel.

I notice that there are some playlists on a medical theme (which has been our focus for a while now).

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

As you can tell this is a very prolific ASMR expert.

From all of this huge bounty, I have selected this one:

ASMR Eye Exam Lens 1 or 2 (With or Without) 👓 Light Tests, Realistic Medical Roleplay for Sleep

It is twenty-four minutes in length and in my case started with the loudest advert I’ve encountered yet. Celaine is excellent, she has a great voice. There is no startup music. No attempt to cover every random trigger – for example, no mouth clicking, scratching, or nail tapping on a hard surface. If only there were more videos like this.

There are notes of course:

“388,965 views 23 Dec 2024 ASMR Cranial Nerve Exam Roleplay Podcast

ASMR Eye Exam Lens 1 or 2 (With or Without) 👓 Light Tests, Realistic Medical Roleplay for Sleep. Vision Test & Cranial Nerve Orbital Exam. And MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

In this ASMR medical exam video expect an eye exam roleplay that’s focused on the lens 1 or 2 test, Glasses Fitting, Orbital Light Exam and ASMR Light triggers for sleep FAST.

The perfect ASMR eye examination video to test your orbital vision! This video includes Dr. Eye who will give you a detailed eye exam and eye test for your ASMR relaxation~ ASMR: Lens 1 or 2? With or Without? (role play) inspired by the amazing YouTube creator SRP ASMR !

✿ What is ASMR? ✿

Autonomous sensory meridian response, is a tingling sensation that typically begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. Used to help with sleep and relaxation

#asmreyeexam   #asmrroleplay   #asmrvideo”

As usual for a professional ASMR artist the notes are on the long side. I have truncated them a tad or it would be boringly long. The video is divided at intervals and loud adverts, as you would expect, populate those intervals. The video has comments of course. Some of which are a tad on the odd side, the majority, as we would expect, being profuse with praise.

I can hear why that is. I think it is close to ideal for sleep purposes, those intrusive adverts permitting.

At this stage we usually do an inadvertent ASMR video, but this post is already quite lengthy. I think I will cover one video but not attempt to find any linked videos, or this is likely to go on forever.

The channel is

Joel Sattgast with 4.14k subscribers, one hundred and sixty eight videos, twelve playlists. Some of those playlists look worthy of further review (given more time and blog space).

The chosen video is this one:

Foot and Ankle | Palpation Guide

It is a little over seventeen and a half minutes long.

It has notes: “21,676 views 4 Jul 2020

This video takes students through palpation and identification of the major landmarks, bones, and joints of the foot and ankle.

MU DPT Sp2020

Fair Use Act Disclaimer: This material is for rehabilitation educational purposes only (e.g. DPT education)

Fair Use

Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education & research.  Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.

Copyrighted material used for educational purposes is indicated with citations.”

I think I qualify under the “criticism” heading, at least that is the gamble I am making. If I suddenly stop posting I might be enjoying some leisure time at the behest of His Majesty. There are comments, but precious few of those (let’s hope that is not a bad sign).

Joel’s voice is excellent. It starts calm and nicely paced. There is no startup music and no loud equipment noises. He does get a bit louder as if trying to communicate through projection alone. That said the video is not ideal ASMR material. To be restful I think you’re going to have to reduce the volume a bit. (I’ve commented before that inter-video volume changes are a problem on mixed playlists like that compiled by The Procrastination Pen).

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