Sleeping With ASMR

I am continually reminded that there is nothing new under the sun. I spend so much time on YouTube now that I sometimes inadvertently happen upon something which I was not really searching for. Recently I discovered that the Procrastination Pen is not the only channel trying to put together a playlist connected with sleep. (On reflection I suspect that there are many of these).

I found that the channel Zbizzle has a playlist just entitled “Sleep”. At the time of looking, it has twenty-eight videos and four thousand two hundred and thirty views so none too shabby. I am listing it because you may be interested in checking it out.

The videos seem to be compiled from professional ASMR channels and so quite different to the approach that I have been taking. It might form an interesting contrast to the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Sadly, Zbizzle has not included any details about themselves in their channel (other than that they joined in 2012 – so somewhat before the Procrastination Pen).

I have not reviewed the sleep playlist myself; I’ve been a bit busy reviewing my own list. I can’t either recommend or criticise, I simply offer it up in case you haven’t found it yourself and you fancy giving it a try.

Back to the Procrastination Pen and the video being appraised today, this being:

Hannah’s Head to Toe assessment

At just less than forty-two minutes this one is a real thoroughgoing test. Recently we have been used to videos quite a bit shorter than that.

The title immediately strikes me as possibly being to do with a student assessment video which we have seen a number of in the past.

The focus looks a bit off, the distance of the subjects as if they are at the end of a long tunnel, both participants reasonably young in appearance.

The patient is introduced as “Miss Strickland” but the channel is “David Strickland” – there is no indication as to how that is the case. A possible gender change individual perhaps?

The background noise is not too oppressive thankfully, there is no introductory music for which may the Lord make us truly thankful. The medical professional does not introduce herself but jumping ahead the second video on this channel may iron that one out – of which more later.

There are no notes associated with the video which does indicate a non-professional video as we have noted. Professional videos tend to have notes associated with them.

There are comments, and as usual the comments are unhelpful. (I’ve formed the view that denying comments is probably a wise move with videos on YouTube).

There are no ASMR-related comments which may mean this is a find or it is a terrible video.

The sound is somewhat muted, which we have heard before and might be connected with the quality of microphone employed.

The delivery is as we have grown used to; the individual is assessed and so has to rattle off a certain amount of terminology in order to get a grade. (I surmise this in that most of the videos produced apparently as part of a course all seem to progress in the same way).

Videos of this type always seem to involve the “medical professional” consulting with some kind of mental checklist in a fairly rigid manner, up to the laughable “privacy” provision sections, where the poor student draws an invisible (i.e. non-existent) curtain.

The delivery is slightly loud and a little hesitant. It is obvious that the “medical professional“ keeps forgetting where they are supposed to be in the examination.

Regular readers will now be thoroughly familiar with cranial nerve tests now of course including some that are delivered by professionals.

The medical professional keeps pausing delivery, presumably in an effort to remember exactly what it is that is supposed to come next. Towards the end she actively consults her notes. But of course, for the purpose which we wish to put this to, which is to lie there and to listen, this need not be too distracting.

I love the way that she pronounces “Lazy eye”, a very different way to enunciate those two words to what I am used to.

The channel is David Strickland, perhaps a relative of Hannah Strickland who we saw as the patient in that first video.

The second video features the same participants but in a reversal of the roles:

Danielle’s Head to Toe Assessment

The key is that the medical professional of the former video was Danielle and in this one Danielle is actually the patient. There remain no clues as to where this actual medical establishment is.

The comments remain unhelpful and there are still no notes. The focus remains on the fuzzy side and the background noise is still muted. This one comes in at a little under thirty-eight and a half minutes.

Hannah starts off a little loud. The introductions are somewhat brief and definitely not enough to give much information about course, institution, more details of the participants and other information that I often use to determine that the video is a legitimate one and not from an ASMR professional. (From the appearance of it, I somewhat doubt it is the latter).

Given the paucity of the number of videos and the complete absence of playlists, two hundred and twenty-two subscribers is a really good result. One certainly gets the idea that the video was never intended to be out there in the greater public and, given both videos are both posted in 2014, any related course is long gone by now.

Part way through Hannah’s voice is completely masked by a background noise sounding like the microphone has been placed in a wind tunnel. Almost as if someone was hoovering it with a 1950s vacuum which had not received regular maintenance in the last seventy years. That is really quite distracting.

As before, the presentation is hesitant with some wrong steps being taken and some parts forgotten and returned to later.

There are obvious pauses as elements are recalled. Like the first video of this article in fact.

We discover that Danielle was born April 6th 1994 but the location is given merely as “nursing lab” which doesn’t help much in tracking down the institution – oh for an identifying badge or similar.

The David Strickland 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 experience to log on, this interrupts the listening 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 Dollar Gill on Unsplash

Sleeping With ASMR

If you’ve been reading the Procrastination Pen for a while you will have come across the theory that people have a much more gentle and quiet approach to examinations when dealing with small people.

What could be better to test if this is consistent or just an occasional occurrence than to occasionally feature an examination with a small person and to observe whether such videos are better in terms of volume and method.

Universities have so far been pretty good for videos but they are also often a huge source of self-promotional material involving MGM style soundtracks and Saachi and Saachi motivational messages. There is, therefore, a mass of material to look at and quite a lot of it is unsuitable for us.

The University of Leicester though, in common with Warwick University, who we saw before,  has a number of teaching videos and some of those are very good. Today’s video is sadly very brief at just shy of five minutes in duration.

Paediatric Clinical Examinations – The Abdomen

It includes comments and as expected a number of the comments are not helpful. Reading between the lines though, I think ASMR fans are here well before I am. This is something that we have come to expect now.

It is a professional video and so of course it has notes associated with it:

“30 Jul 2014

This is a real-time demonstration illustrating the technique and parent and child interaction involved in the examination of the abdominal system of a child.

The film was produced by a paediatrician to aid the teaching of clinical examination skills. It starts where the history has been taken, and the clinical examination is about to commence.

Written and presented by Dr Elaine Carter, Emeritus Consultant Paediatrician, MA, MB ChB, MRCP, FRCPCH, MMedSci.

This film was produced by External Relations, University of Leicester.

Filmed & Edited by Carl Vivian

Written & Produced by Elaine Carter”

There is no – I mean zero – music at the start of the video – Warwick take note. This is such a welcome difference.

We are introduced to mum Sophie and her son Alex, who, it has to be said, looks suitably anxious. There is limited background noise; no obvious air conditioning noises for example.

The presentation is lovely and gentle. So far, the theory about small people is vindicated yet again.

I never expected a child to be this calm when having his abdomen probed in such a deep manner. Perhaps the presentation is just a little loud but that is a minor criticism and is only possible because other aspects of the video are so right.

Interestingly, I found the video is now in the Internet Archive the first time I have ever found that to be the case.

The video is posted eight years ago to this channel: University of Leicester.

This channel is simply huge, 1.3K videos at the date I am looking at it. Eighty-seven playlists and few of these are anything that we could use.

However searching the Internet Archive, discovered earlier, we find that Elaine is also involved in another video of a similar type.

This video, as luck would have it, is also present on YouTube:

Paediatric Clinical Examinations – The Respiratory System

This one seems to have been filmed before the previous one in that this is the first time we are introduced to Alex.

Again, there are notes: “30 Jul 2014

This is a real-time demonstration illustrating the technique and parent and child interaction involved in the examination of the respiratory system of a child.

The film was produced by a paediatrician to aid the teaching of clinical examination skills. It starts where the history has been taken, and the clinical examination is about to commence.

Written and presented by Dr Elaine Carter, Emeritus Consultant Paediatrician, MA, MB ChB, MRCP, FRCPCH, MMedSci.

This film was produced by External Relations, University of Leicester.

Filmed & Edited by Carl Vivian

Written & produced by Elaine Carter”

As before there is no startup music. If it wasn’t the fact that there would be so little material to work with, I would only select videos that lacked startup music (and tail end music as well for that).

We are also introduced to Ellie, Alex’s sister, Alex looks suitably bored, possibly because his sister is the focus of attention in this video.

It is another brief one at just less than six- and three-quarter minutes.

The presentation style here, if anything, is quieter than with the previous video. Ellie seems calm, even happy at intervals.

The comments are variable as always but again reading between the lines this is also already known to the ASMR community.

That’s it for this time.

The University of Leicester 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 Mikhail Tyrsyna on Unsplash

Sleeping With ASMR

I notice that there is now a lot more traffic in social media sites that utilise pictures or videos than there is in sites dedicated to reading. So, it is feasible that writing a blog (to whatever level of skill) is now something of a dying art (a bit like writing thank-you letters to your aunt because you received a fountain pen for your birthday).

It seems few people write letters now other than solicitors and banks. People using fountain pens do so because they like pens, rather than it’s a thing that you just use.

I assume people still have aunts; however, I imagine any messages of thanks are now received via Signal, WhatsApp or even (the now somewhat dated) SMS.

Perhaps AI will save us by writing all these blog articles for us, however I wonder then who will be left to read them.

So, it is with a sense of some stubbornness that I write (however badly) another article on ASMR for sleep.

Today’s video comes from that very deep mine of videos which we have thoroughly excavated of late which is the video apparently produced as some kind of course work. Sadly, these always seem to be pressured efforts produced in public areas and as such the sound quality is often not quite there.

A number of these seem a great idea at first (to me at least) but have subsequently hit the Procrastination Pen archive list because they do not measure up to the competition we are seeing through continual review of the videos available.

So, it is with a triumph of optimism over experience that we come to today’s:

Head to toe

The sound is flat as if being recorded from some distance away (which may be the reality). The pace is frenetic (is someone timing the participants for some reason?)

From the introductory comments I heard that the medical professional is Carmen, a student (some kind of student but it was too fast for me to catch what).

Similarly, the “patient” could be “Charlene” (but that may well not be correct).

The date it is filmed is 03/08/2021 and they are at LIU campus Brooklyn.

LIU of course has its own YouTube channel. (This must be de rigueur for universities). However, there appear to be only fifty-nine videos here. As we have seen before these tend to be promotional videos for the university, rather than material that an ASMR-related blog can really make much use of.

The video (as is common for such videos) is in portrait mode (presumably filmed on a phone). As we have come to expect, there are various noises associated with equipment. Here, the muted nature of the volume works in our favour.

There are no comments permitted (which as has been pointed out before is probably wise). However, it does mean that I have no awareness as to whether other people have discovered this video and are using it for ASMR purposes. ASMR fans are so good at sniffing out a good video that a tracker dog would do less well. I therefore suspect quite a few have been here before me.

Once the examination-proper starts, things begin to slow down. (Thank goodness, this is supposed to be relaxing).

At nearly forty-two and a half minutes this is quite a long video. One does get the idea with such videos that in order to pass an assessment the student has to rattle through a list of certain phrases as if mentally following a checklist.

This often leads to a quite stilted presentation. (Presumably it is effective for assessment purposes, however).

Charlene (if that is her name) seems as anxious as we have come to expect in such videos. Perhaps the pace has not been relaxing for her either.

There are a number of thumps and bangs from the equipment. As pointed out before medical equipment does not seem to come with the quiet option.

Definition:

JVD: Jugular Vein Distention, bulging of veins in the neck.

Thrill: a heart murmur that can be felt.

Bursitis: a swollen and painful joint.

The channel is carmen yip which has one video and no playlists. Yet, despite this, it has two hundred and five subscribers, that is quite an achievement I think.

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 Nihal Karkala on Unsplash

Sleeping With ASMR

Welcome to the Procrastination Pen and the latest series which is featuring ASMR. More specifically, videos which will soothe you back to sleep after you have woken for the third time from your most tenacious nightmare.

The output of these articles is a playlist of videos which you can watch in shuffle mode on YouTube (or more probably if you are trying to get some sleep – listen).

I will always put the playlist at the end of the article, so if you have no time, scroll straight to the end and pick it up from there.

Still here? Fantastic, let’s take a look at today’s video. As usual, I am not the first to look at this as a potential ASMR candidate. Some of the comments indicate that others were here before me and obviously at least some of them have found it helpful.

HEINE Direct Ophthalmoscopy — How to perform Ophthalmoscopy

It is a professionally produced video and as we have found with professionally produced videos it has notes to clarify what the contents are about.

“5 Mar 2010

How to perform direct ophthalmoscopy using the direct ophthalmoscope. HEINE products and Mr. Brian Little.

0:00 Intro Ophthalmoscopy

0:55 The Ophthalmoscope

2:29 Examining the Red Reflex

4:37 Examining the Fundus

6:14 Direct Ophthalmoscopy Limitations

6:55 Ocular Pathology

▬ About this channel ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

On “HeineOptotechnik” you will find videos about high-quality diagnostic instruments from HEINE, compact information about their handling as well as application examples.

Subscribe now and stay up to date!

Subscription link: https://www.youtube.com/user/HeineOpt…”

At eight minutes twenty-two seconds not the longest that we have seen so far. This has a good narration track (potentially Brian, if so he has a good voice).

After a few minutes I found that the approach was wonderfully relaxing with, thankfully, no background noise at all. As an instructional video it is methodical and well-paced and gratifyingly, no unpleasant surprises.

The channel is HEINE Optotechnik with one hundred and thirty-three videos at the day I am looking at it. There are thirteen playlists so it seems best to identify a playlist which contains this video. Sadly, none of the playlists contain this video. The next technique I usually adopt is to scan all videos to see if the same “patient” or the same medical professional is in any of the others.

In this case there is not a fantastic view of the medical professional and there appears to be only one video with this “patient”.

In this case I tried videos which feature Brian Little as the narrator and came up with three (Including the one reviewed at the beginning of this article).

HEINE Indirect Ophthalmoscopy — The Binocular Indirect Ophthalmoscope (Part 1)

Again, there are notes “29 Jun 2010

The development, the optics, the controls and the clinical examination for the Binocular Indirect Ophthalmoscope explained by Mr. Brian Little.

Learning Objectives Part 1:

0:53 Development

1:30 Optics

3:36 Controls

Clinical Examination:    • HEINE Indirect Op… 

▬ Recommended videos ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

► HEINE Indirect Ophthalmoscopy Part 2:    • HEINE Indirect Op… 

► HEINE OMEGA 500 Binocular Indirect Ophthalmoscope:    • HEINE OMEGA 500 I… 

▬ About this channel ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

On “HeineOptotechnik” you will find videos about high-quality diagnostic instruments from HEINE, compact information about their handling as well as application examples.

Subscribe now and stay up to date!

Subscription link: https://www.youtube.com/user/HeineOpt…

▬ Social Media ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

►Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/heineopto…

►Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heineoptote…”

The voice is as good as before, the approach is still methodical but there is no patient examination in this particular video. There are no ASMR comments with the video, so it does not appear as popular as the last one. However, it lacks distracting background noise and has potential for relaxation, I think.

HEINE Indirect Ophthalmoscopy — The Binocular Indirect Ophthalmoscope (Part 2)

notes again “29 Jun 2010

The development, the optics, the controls and the clinical examination for the Binocular Indirect Ophthalmoscope explained by Mr. Brian Little.

Learning Objectives Part 2:

0:46 Clinical Examination

5:42 Summary

▬ Recommended videos ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

► HEINE Direct Ophthalmoscopy:    • HEINE Direct Opht… 

► HEINE OMEGA 500 Binocular Indirect Ophthalmoscope:    • HEINE OMEGA 500 I… 

▬ About this channel ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

On “HeineOptotechnik” you will find videos about high-quality diagnostic instruments from HEINE, compact information about their handling as well as application examples.

Subscribe now and stay up to date!

Subscription link: https://www.youtube.com/user/HeineOpt…

▬ Social Media ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

►Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/heineopto…

►Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heineoptote…”

Familiar voice, similar approach, professionally recorded, there seems little to dislike. No comments from ASMR fans again so this is probably another unpopular one.

This one does include a patient examination (unlike the last one). Therefore it is more in tune with our standard approach, which is to feature medical examination videos.

Examining the rest of HEINE Optotechnik, there seems little else of value ASMR-wise at this moment in time, so I am unlikely to revisit. Still, we have three more videos for the playlist and we do not always find that.

The HEINE Optotechnik 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 Pourya Gohari on Unsplash

Sleeping With ASMR

Some people have echoed the concern that the material to write a blog dedicated to ASMR is soon enough going to dry up and I shall come to an abrupt halt. Recently, however I have signed up to an ASMR group on Facebook. This group receives ASMR posts daily and a great many of them. It seems likely that there will always be ASMR material. It also seems that the popularity of ASMR isn’t going to wane in the short term. ASMR seems to have now been established as an interest for a sufficient time that I think it unlikely that this is a fashion or a fad.

What will perhaps be more challenging is the area I have chosen to explore, which is of ASMR-inducing videos where that was not the initial intent of the video. I find this a great deal more interesting, like uncovering a diamond in a coal mine.

It does mean quite a bit of work in sifting through the very many unsuitable videos. However, the mental reward when the like of Hollie Berry or Shane Brun are discovered does to some extent compensate for that. Although, unsurprisingly, there are many more videos which are not of that calibre.

Every once in a while, I will take a side route to illustrate videos that are not quite on theme but might be of interest. If, one day, I cease to discover new inadvertent ASMR there is always the world of professional ASMR to take a look at. It might even be that readers of this blog will encourage that direction, perhaps to advertise their own ASMR material, for example.

For now, I have another video to look at.

Head to Toe Assessment: Greta Garber

This is quite brief in terms of the videos we have looked at of late, at just over six and a quarter minutes.

The notes are informative: “18 Nov 2020

Head to Toe Assessment done by Greta Garber on November 18th for NSG 261 Skills Test #2”

NSG261 appears to be one in a series of exams with NSG262 and NSG263 material also being readily available in terms of study guides, quizzes, advice and so on. So it does not appear to uniquely identify a specific institution. Where colleges offer NSG courses these seem to be in relation to a nursing qualification, so it might be that NSG is just an odd abbreviation for nursing.

Greta Garber is the medical professional in this video, the “patient” is Audrey Stephens (almost certainly misspelled). Given this is filmed in 2020 it might have been when Greta was at Miami University.

Miami, of course has its own channel with around hundred and ninety-seven videos at the time I am looking at it. However, we have experience of university channels now and mostly they are about promoting the university (unsurprisingly) and experience tells us it is a poor source for ASMR material.

The address is given which sounds like “233 Gaslin”, but which almost certainly is nothing like that. Many of the commentators have mentioned that whoever is handling the camera probably had a bad cold that day, or at the least is used to breathing through their mouth. At times it sounds like someone trying to make a certain kind of telephone call.

The poster for Phi Mu turns out to be a “fraternity” at Miami. I’m not at all informed about what a fraternity would do or why they exist. This one seems to exist as a way to meet like-minded women, which amongst other things, seems to be involved in some charitable events. Perhaps that is why all fraternities exist. Interestingly, the word seems to originate with the term brotherhood, which makes its re-use as a term to define a group of women interesting. American websites seem to more typically use the term “Sorority” to define a group like this. I’m not sure of the ramifications (which could potentially be political).

Although it starts a bit energetically – it seems like it was quite hard to take it all seriously – the video settles down and becomes quite gentle (in places anyway).

The channel is Greta Garber there are four videos of which this one is by far the most recent. The others do not look very promising as ASMR candidates.

cheer winter

Given the music and photographic content I would say it is a nostalgic celebration of success designated for participants only. Definitely of no use for an ASMR video.

meniscus

well, the title is medical so it promises to be more interesting. The music at the start is a lot less so. It is slightly over two and a half minutes so really not very long. The video includes the channel owner and someone called Kayla, who on the face of it has a much better voice.

It was obviously filmed in the equivalent of a canteen with the background noise that we have come to expect from such locations. It then appears to move to a more medical room with a similar level of noise. There is the air conditioning unit running which could have doubled as a cooling plant at Chernobyl. It could have been a very good video in principle but I think it is more likely to keep you awake than lull you off to sleep.

VOTE GRETA GARBER FOR SECRETARY

Loud, so loud. Really not at all what we want to hear.

So that’s it. Not a huge one this time I’m afraid, but I’m sure that we will have next time another for your delectation.

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 Shona Macrae

Sleeping With ASMR

In a previous blog post I pointed out that there was a whole page of videos on the Internet that had no affiliation (that I could determine) to YouTube, and that therefore I was unable to embed in a WordPress page for viewing.

In addition, I felt that the videos could be better shown to you if I took them and uploaded them to YouTube on my channel. However, I am not a copyright expert, and in my amateur way rather thought some very well-paid people in threatening clothing might send me a formally-written letter if I tried it.

So I looked out for a contact email and found that the owner Dr Michael Koller had died. This is not only very sad but very regrettable in that I could not ask him if I could upload these videos to my channel on YouTube. I have approached Stritch via email, but each time I look at the website there seems to be another email to try and so to date I have not received permission (or a flat refusal) to use them.

The upshot is that the blog posts on this page tend to be a little dry as they are not dotted with friendly-looking embedded videos. However, given I habitually recommend that you go to YouTube to play the videos in my usual posts, and in this case, you simply have to go to the page to play the videos, there isn’t a great deal of difference.

I would feel that I wasn’t doing my part in telling you about the material that is out there if I simply limited myself to YouTube.

However, I don’t want to dwell too long on material that cannot be actively linked to (other than via URL) so although it will make this blog post a long one, I intend to cover off the remaining videos on that page in this blog post.

The complete page is here: https://www.stritch.luc.edu/lumen/meded/medicine/pulmonar/pdself/menu_videos4.htm

This has now been covered in two prior blog posts.

As part of this process, we satisfied ourselves that where there were complete and part videos under the same title. That the part videos were simply parts of that complete one. That is, you could get the material from all the part videos simply by watching the complete one. This will save time here; I can link the part videos for interest but cover only the complete videos. In addition, the included text files seem to only be of academic interest to those on the course for whom it was intended, so we have no need to review those.

15 Minute Screening Neuro Exam; Dr Michael Merchut

Complete: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=63316618-E354-4810-B165-86F5BE921595

This starts quietly and thankfully devoid of startup music. The video is just over twelve minutes in length. Dr Merchut turns out to have a great ASMR voice, and had this been available on YouTube it would have been in the Procrastination Pen playlist. This is a loss to the list and to the ASMR community.

Detailed Neurological Exam; Dr Michael Merchut

Complete: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=9E4CE1F3-C34F-47FB-BD71-0CABC3072A8E

Part 1: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=AA8922F6-F798-4142-A821-42882B67E091

Part 2: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=E979142A-9E74-4F3A-B3A4-A78945B1C703

Part 3: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=6F820BDB-82F2-4B7E-ADD6-652AE7FEAFCA

Part 4: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=45E2AD3F-AEC4-4E01-88D4-0749FFA55142

Part 5: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=0C5B819B-57E5-4EC5-BA2E-9E4D26DD5A41

Part 6: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=9EF4F8DD-CC9B-4B21-A4AA-456863FC34E8

I’ll ignore the part videos as they have nothing extra to contribute. The complete video starts with startup music, which fortunately is neither too long nor too loud. Dr Merchut returns and gives a reasonably lengthy introductory speech. The entire video is a little over forty seven and a half minutes.

His voice is not quite so excellent in this one, but this is in comparison with the last one which was actually rather good.

Nancy again the “patient”. She featured in our previous blog post.

Again, I think if this video had been on YouTube, then it would have already been in the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Oral Presentation; Dr Michael Koller

Complete: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=3EFE23F8-8960-4AC6-8A37-F1EFBD73B302

Part 1: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=0247721D-D980-446B-B786-C69B70D641F2

Part 2: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=861669A7-1548-4E51-AA41-BB2834464384

Part 3: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=8F822DBB-08A6-4FB7-B957-F6CEE834FFD2

Again, I’ll focus on the complete video only. In this case it features Dr Koller. We know that we are on safe ground with Dr Koller, in fact we have already added one of his videos to the Procrastination Pen playlist from YouTube.

This also begins with startup music but this time it is really going for it. The video quality is also on the abysmal side of poor. The sound has the normal background we would expect by now (air conditioning again).

The video is a little less than twenty-three and a half minutes. The initial presentation style is a little halting and, although this is the point of the video, it proves to be distracting.

Dr Koller is doing the narration which is great but somewhat intermittent (more narration by Dr Koller would be welcome as he has a good voice).

The music then kicks in again at breaks in the video. The sound has a metallic edge to it.

Although Dr Koller is as good as we are used to, the way the video is structured makes it more stimulating than anyone really needs when they are trying to get to sleep. Even if it were possible, I do not think that this one would be finding its way into the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Definition:

HPI – History of Present Illness.

PCM Gowning and Draping; Dr Michael Koller

Complete: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=08522D70-D724-4F3E-8BB1-39914783108E

This time just one video available, again with Dr Koller. This is just less than twenty-five and a quarter minutes and thank goodness there is no startup music. There is an ever-present air conditioning background drone though.

Dr Koller still has a good voice for our purposes. In this case though, I’m not certain the subject matter is that fascinating to anyone who isn’t in the medical profession. However fascinating is not that useful in getting off to sleep so this video might be a great fit.

Part way through we have loud clunks due to equipment noises (metal drawers being pushed in and out), just the kind of noise to stir someone from sleep as they were dozing off.

A great deal of thought has gone into the positioning of gowns and drapes in this video and apart from equipment noises, it is a good video for us. It’s a shame about the equipment as otherwise it would have been a great Procrastination Pen playlist candidate (well had it been on YouTube in any case).

Full Body Skin Exam; Estelle Kahn MS4 and Dr Anthony Peterson

In this case there is no “complete” video, so no choice other than to review each in turn.

Introduction: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=19CBA75E-0AF6-4B70-87E3-390A01173012

Unfortunately, there is start up music and it is really dynamic stuff too. Estelle initially does not have a true ASMR voice, sometimes this happens when the person is presenting rather than examining someone however.

This introduction is a little over four minutes in length. If you are watching it is slightly distracting that Estelle seems to be reading a script which is slightly off camera.

I’m pretty sure that even had I the opportunity, this one would not be in the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Exam: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=2C6965B5-F2BC-4EED-A2B4-52E185A77EE1

It starts with door opening noises which are a little distracting. We see this in student assessment videos of course, soft-close not being a thing in medical establishments.

Dr Peterson has an excellent voice. He might be worth checking for elsewhere in case there is other material available. As expected, Estelle’s voice is much more muted during the examination. The examination is gentle and methodical and the whole video lasts only a little under nine and a quarter minutes. There are occasional equipment noises, equipment not having been designed to slide quietly in use apparently. All-in-all it is quite a good video. If it had been on YouTube this would be a strong Procrastination Pen playlist candidate.

Conclusion: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=75C54DF8-09FB-4141-A186-4A654725FFC5

Dr Peterson presenting and this is great as he has by far the better voice for us. There is no startup music – yay. There are occasional loud moments; watch the volume. Dr Peterson appears to be consulting notes at intervals, although if you’re just listening you will not notice that. The whole video is somewhat under three and a half minutes. This would’ve been a good Procrastination Pen playlist candidate (had it been on YouTube).

Neonatal Exam; Dr Thomas DeStefani

Complete: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=4DE8CA15-DAF6-42FC-AA95-40EA218E2942

Part 1: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=B736EE60-21CA-4916-BBA6-00E433518D68

Part 2: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=0917610E-D1CF-4575-9005-83A091053322

Part 3: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=702D5D1B-A58B-4244-A26D-826524F854F4

Reviewing the complete video again, the entire video is thirty-seven and a quarter minutes. It starts with some positively starship enterprise style music; very grand; very distracting. Straight away we seem to be in the soundscape of a public area, there is some kind of hubbub in play. Dr De Stefani is narrating this one. He does not have as good a voice as Dr Peterson sadly. There are telephone noises which Dr De Stefani has to talk over.

When the examination of the baby commences it quietens down a great deal. Of course with examination of a baby, the baby starts to complain about it. Not substantially so though. In fact, this was a good baby to choose as she appears to be so chilled under examination. After a while she does lose patience and lets us have it crying wise.

Background medical establishment noises continue; a repeating electronic beep sound at one stage, sounds of other babies at some distance who are a bit less chilled, muted conversations from adjacent rooms, distant equipment noises, an occasional telephone and of course the continuous accompaniment of air conditioning noises.

Although this is in part a great video, I think these distracting noises would discount it from the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Definition:

Foetal Alcohol Syndrome: effects that occur as a result of a mother drinking (alcohol) while pregnant.

Knee; Dr Jerold Sterling

Complete: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=52F9EC84-D261-46C3-B048-6EBA2CE966AE

Just the one video to look at a little over twelve minutes and it starts with startup music and there is a constant background hiss happening as if the entire thing was recorded on an LP and then poorly stored.

For some reason after a minute that hiss disappears entirely. Dr Sterling does not have a natural ASMR voice but by no means the worst that we have heard.

The delivery is measured and even and accompanied only by the hmm of air conditioning.

It’s sad about the start as otherwise this could have been a good video for us.

PCM1 Upper Limb/Spine; Dr Paul Lento

Complete: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=49B3EF2E-91D6-4DB7-B7A6-FBA1933D7AEA

Part 1: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=D64FC0E9-D5DC-461C-80F0-77F88CC9A3DD

Part 2: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=05E08513-5688-497B-8058-72CB85B564A5

Looking at the complete video then, it is just under twenty five and three quarter minutes. Dr Lento has an impressive voice, impressive in its volume I mean. After the start-up music it is quite surprising to find the voice of the presenter louder than the music.

The “patient” is Sal – or that is what it sounds like. The volume also exposes the metallic sound to the audio track which we encountered with a previous video in this blog article.

This video really isn’t a suitable one for our purposes.

PCM1 Lower Limb; Dr Bill Hopkinson

Complete: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=CEBDE33C-BBA4-4F9C-BD72-7D2F39E1C3B4

Only one video to review, eleven and three quarter minutes and again with the startup music. The videos are now starting to fall into a theme. Dr Bill Hopkinson who immediately has a better voice for us. He is quieter, more measured in expressing himself but he does attempt to compensate for that with the loudest washing of his hands I have encountered thus far.

We encounter Sal again as the “patient” – they obviously had him around and so were going to make good use of him. This one seems to have less background noise, certainly less hiss than encountered in previously videos in this article.

The actual video quality is no better though, not that I suspect you would be watching in any case.

PCM2 Musculoskeletal Provocative Exam; Dr Neeru Jayanthi

In this case there is no “complete” video so there is no choice other than to review each video in turn.

Introduction: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=49A8423E-73F8-4111-860C-6808C3CF30F4

Less than three quarters of a minute so do not blink. Dr Neeru Jayanthi who on the basis of this amazingly brief video has a good voice for our purposes. Eric is the “patient” here. There was still time to sneak in introductory music (boo), although the background noise for some reason is a great deal more muted in this one, probably not enough here for me to consider it for the procrastination pen playlist.

Shoulder: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=79BA4C19-6E74-41FB-89A2-6D29AF23CF19

Just a bit more than three and a quarter minutes – none of these are winning any length contests. This would be a good candidate for the Procrastination Pen playlist if it ever appeared on YouTube (hint Stritch hint).

Elbow: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=1B623A46-E00E-476B-BB63-0BF76F51DEF3

Just less than one- and three-quarter minutes probably not long enough for any playlist, in fact the way these are going it would be better to combine them into one long playlist – which I sense is probably how it was filmed in the first place and then they were divided up for (presumably) educational purposes.

Hand/Wrist: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=B60FA5A4-C1A1-4F81-85B7-B25328532E71

One and a quarter minutes, again rather short – combine these, lop off that music and this would be a good set for the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Functional-Hip: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=2F1751ED-CA75-484C-A9DA-A0CB750361F2

Just less than one and a quarter minutes – it looks like we have a theme developing.

Knee: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=B7BC44CE-7A50-4148-B73B-505D5B7C8605

A little less than two minutes but remains consistent with others in this set.

Foot/Ankle: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=5355FBDC-93E8-4439-B3BD-D6F02FD9C8C2

Almost a minute, so short it is barely a blip.

Hip/Spine: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=89F41E6A-1265-4B82-ABF9-81D725BDE903

Just over one- and three-quarter minutes, again no extraneous noises and a good presentation. A good combination of these videos would make one good one for the Procrastination Pen playlist – assuming anyone uploaded it to YouTube.

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 Shona Macrae

Sleeping With ASMR

In searching for new ASMR videos I’m prepared to try various avenues. You will have noticed that on occasion I do voyage away from the main theme, which to date has been medical (and similar) examination videos.

Despite the attrition of videos slowly being removed from YouTube, the Procrastination Pen playlist continues to grow and hence I can afford to be quite critical of its contents and to weed out those that are less desirable for sleep promotion than at first thought.

The overall playlist as usual appears at the end of this article, so if you are short of time scroll straight to the end and pick it up from there.

If you’re still reading, onto today’s idea.

Of late I have noticed that some gruff and loud presenters seem to calm down and go quiet when dealing with young people. Today’s is a foray into that area therefore.

It is this one:

Rachel Bridges Head to Toe Assessment

As expected, it is quiet, calm and methodically presented. The only thing I would say is that you might need to turn the volume up a bit.

At just over twenty-five minutes, it is quite a good length and it seems others think so too as the channel has over two thousand subscribers as at today’s date. However, (probably sensibly) comments are not permitted which means I cannot tell if ASMR fans have already tracked this down. (As we’ve seen before some comments are less than helpful).

The small person seems suitably entertained including being tickled at one stage, I think.

The medical institution is not identified. Rachel has an identification badge but I cannot make out what it says.

There is as expected continual background noise (probably air conditioning) as we’ve heard before.

I would guess from the orientation of the video (Portrait mode) that it was taken using a mobile phone or similar device.

Rachel maintains a conversation with the small person throughout, including in areas I thought they would find hard to comprehend.

I think this one belongs in the Procrastination Playlist, although it might be subject to future weeding.

This one is posted in 2018 to the following channel:

Rachel Bridges

The videos on here range from five years ago to five months ago and there are only four of them. There has to be a reason why there are quite so many subscribers. I would make a wild guess some ASMR fans have got here before me.

Looking at the other videos:

September 15, 2017

Very brief, just over a minute and appears to be reading from a piece about nurse practitioners. Rachel has a good voice but this one does not seem to be a great fit for the playlist. I think this might be an assessment piece for a course which is in line with other videos that have been featured before.

Another very brief video:

January 20, 2023

This one is on the role of a psychiatric nurse mental health practitioner, again, it is reading from a script and is not a good fit for the playlist.

The next one is another “Head to Toe” but without the small person (the person involved is more adult sized). Let’s see if my theory about people changing behaviour based on whether a person is a young person is supported by the second video.

The video is this one:

R.Bridges Head to toe assessment

Straight away the presentation is a lot faster than the last “Head to Toe” on this channel, and a lot less measured. However, the tone remains quiet. The presentation is so fast in places I am not sure what medical terminology is in use.

I have a feeling that the “patient” here actually has a slightly better voice (than Rachel). However, he gets little to say (he is also unidentified).

Comments are permitted but there are no comments that are helpful to us (such as where this is for example).

However, at one stage the badge comes into view and I believe it states “NP Student” at “Indiana Wesleyan”.

So at least we have identified the location, if not the “patient”.

We’re back to landscape mode with this one but the background noise persists. The volume is slightly louder, not markedly, but I would say the approach is less gentle (than the first video in this article).

It is just over nineteen and a half minutes so still a good length and on balance I would say also belongs in the Procrastination Pen playlist. However, I keep reviewing this playlist and videos get demoted to the archive playlist all the time based upon their long-term sleep promotion effects (or otherwise).

The video goes out of focus at one stage but, given you will not be watching but lying there praying for sleep whilst listening, I think that’s unlikely to affect you.

As is not atypical for assessment videos. There are occasional thuds as equipment is relocated – in the past I have weeded videos for this, and this one might be another that goes the same way.

I notice that (like me) the patient has apparent problems with the heel to toe exercise (not great if you have dodgy balance).

So a couple of videos from Rachel worthy of conclusion and so, as is habitual on this site, I have created a Rachel Bridges playlist:

The main playlist on the Procrastination pen is (as always) here:

The archive list of videos which whilst once in that main list were found over time to be less listenable than at first thought is here:

The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:

I hope that you continue to find them restful

If you liked this blog article why not follow this blog.

Until next time.

Photo by Anas Belmadani on Unsplash

Sleeping With ASMR

I’ve mainly been editing older material of late because I had (have) developed quite a backlog of articles on an ASMR theme. It is therefore good to be writing something new for a change.

Welcome to the Procrastination Pen, which for several months now has been the home to a blog about ASMR, ASMR videos and ASMR playlists. However, I appreciate that only some people have any ASMR feelings at all. For this reason, from the outset, my emphasis has been on calming videos that anyone could use to relax and perhaps to drift off to sleep.

I have focused on ASMR videos that were designed to do something entirely different, rather than the ASMR videos produced professionally by ASMR artists. That is not to say that I may not write the odd article about such videos but I have limited experience of them as it stands (and there seem to be a vast great number to choose from).

The outcome of this endeavour has been a large playlist consisting of the videos I have reviewed so far that were worth listening to. There is also a set of playlists relating to each channel I have reviewed (if you like a particular channel).

I always include the details of the latest playlists at the end of each blog article, so if you’re not keen to read about the review process, you can scroll straight to the end and pick them up there.

The theme has tended to be about medical videos mainly because medical professionals seem to take a calm approach to their work and often therefore speak slowly and quietly, which is I believe fundamental to a good voice for ASMR.

This week an institution which we have featured before, and I have no doubt will be featuring again.

At that time, I picked up a video directly from the Stanford Medicine Channel on YouTube. This time I have come across the page in which they embed all of their videos, which is this one:

https://stanfordmedicine25.stanford.edu/videos.html.

As we can see there is a range of videos separated logically into subject areas and all referencing a location on YouTube. However, for our purposes logical is all very well but are they any good ASMR-wise.

Choosing at random we can see that Dermatology Exam is a subject area that has just four videos, which seems a nice small number to review in a concise Blog post, so let’s see what they have to offer.

The first video is this one:

Approach to the Dermatology Exam (Stanford Medicine 25)

which is just shy of eight minutes in length.

In common with a number of professional videos this one has notes, a précis of which is:

“22 Jan 2016

From our dermatology series, this video covers all the basics you need to accurately describe and diagnose any skin lesion.

The Stanford Medicine 25 program for bedside medicine at the Stanford School of Medicine aims to promote the culture of bedside medicine to make current and future clinicians and other healthcare provides better at the art of physical diagnosis and more confident at the bedside of their patients.”

From memory of the last article the notes tend to get a bit repetitive, so I will only feature elements which might be of interest.

Bravely they are permitting comments and as expected not all of the comments are positive. There are no obvious comments from ASMR fans which given how effective ASMR fans are at finding videos is possibly not a good sign.

The video starts with the bugbear of any ASMR video devotee, the peppy start up music, applied I’m sure more through branding or marketing considerations than anything to do with quiet relaxation.

The medical professional is Dr Justin Ko, (which the automatic subtitles render as “Justin Cohen”!). Straight away we realise we are not dealing with any Dr James Gill in terms of voice but the introductory piece is relatively muted. However it gets louder, I mean a whole lot louder. In addition the background music continues and persists throughout the rest of the video. In addition the subject matter is a bit distracting.

I think this prohibits this one from becoming a member of the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Approach to Multiple Rashes (Stanford Medicine 25)

The relevant part of the notes are: “22 Jan 2016

From our dermatology series, this video covers all the basics you need to accurately describe complex and multiple skin lesions.”

This is very short at a bit over four and a half minutes. Again, with the music, sigh. This time Bernice Kwong who is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Dermatology.

The video starts quietly and Bernice seems to have quite a good voice, relatively quiet and calm. However, again, the music persists throughout the video – why, why, why? This video is also not useful for us.

Approach to Nevi (Moles) – Stanford Medicine 25

At four and three quarter minutes it still isn’t a long video. The relevant notes are “22 Jan 2016

From our dermatology series, this video covers all the basics you need to accurately describe complex and multiple skin lesions.”

Again, the comments are not at all helpful. So far, so YouTube. The start-up music remains. This time Jennifer Chen is the medical Professional; a Clinical Assistant Professor.

The start is promising, a quiet beginning but again continuous background music – how frustrating. This video is just not for us.

Diagnosing Acne vs. Rosacea (Stanford Medicine 25)

Just over three minutes so the shortest so far and featuring Jennifer Chen as in the previous video. The relevant part of the notes is: “22 Jan 2016

From our dermatology series, this video covers all the basics you need to accurately differentiate between regular acne and acne rosacea.”

The comments are nearly totally irrelevant or unhelpful but there are clues that some of the listeners are ASMR fans. mostly, it turns out, frustrated ASMR fans due to the background music.

So we know what is coming sadly.  Unfortunately, Dermatology is a strike-out ASMR wise despite some great presenters. The decision to have music throughout is really very distracting.

However, all is not lost – there are those other videos to draw on, of course.

I think a visit of the Ankle Brachial Index category is worth a try particularly as it contains only two videos.

Ankle Brachial Index (ABI) Test: How to Perform

For once, the comments appear to be universally upbeat, positive and supportive (wonders will never cease). The video is close to seven- and three-quarter minutes and sadly still incorporates that music at the start. This time the medical Professional is John Cooke who actually seems to have a good voice and a very relaxed style of presentation – heaven be praised.

In addition, the muppet with the music mania has not decorated this with background noises. In fact it is marvellously quiet and calm. Unfortunately, there are some additional noises coming from an handheld doppler device, employed as part of the video. I don’t think these will exclude this video from the Procrastination Pen playlist, but it might mean that the video gets dropped to the archive list on subsequent review.

Venous Testing

This is just over five minutes so not long. It starts with the familiar music (spit spit). John Cooke and again he starts with a good delivery well measured and low toned. The doppler device is heard as before. I’m not certain if that might not prove noisy of a night time. I’ll include the video in the playlist but it may suffer transfer to archive if it proves excessively distracting.

So the Ankle Brachial Index category came to the rescue, (marginally).

The Stanford Medicine playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

The Procrastination Pen playlist (which is no-doubt what you have all been reading this in order to locate) is found here:

I have been listening to this playlist most nights and some of the videos that were members have now been removed. If any of your favourites are missing from that main playlist you can find them here in the archive list:

Quite often the videos getting removed have no faults other than occasional intrusive noises.

The playlist of items that are great for ASMR (but contain an age verification function), usually a great way to interrupt your listening in the middle of the night, is here:

I hope that you find the playlists restful and that you get a good night’s sleep.

Hope to see you again back here for the next blog article.

If you liked this blog item, why not subscribe to this blog.

Until next time.

Photo by Shona Macrae

Sleeping With ASMR

As at today’s date the Procrastination Pen playlist has one hundred and sixty two videos and, of late, I have not felt the need to migrate any of them to the archive list due to strange noises, background buzzes or sudden alarming thuds of equipment.

I probably need to be a great deal more critical of this list. However, I always welcome feedback so if you find the playlist to contain items that it should not contain, by all means, tell me. I might even agree and make the changes.

Welcome to the Procrastination Pen. For several months now the site where reviews of “inadvertent ASMR” videos happens. I have been focused mainly on YouTube (because that’s where the playlist is). The idea is to create a playlist of videos that you can listen to when you desperately need to sleep and when no sleep is coming.

If you’re a person who gets ASMR feelings from videos, then welcome. If you don’t get such feelings, welcome too. The idea is that the videos should be relaxing enough that anyone can use them to relax to.

The mission so far has been to find videos that were not designed for the relaxing content but cause relaxation despite their original intent. This has meant that the majority of videos covered so far have been to do with medical examinations. People undergoing medical training seem to be as gentle, careful and thoughtful as they are reputed to be. This greatly helps when you’re looking for an ASMR video.

However, there are other avenues out there and I will always take suggestions, anything that appears sensible I may even try and see how it fits.

I’ve been reviewing ASMR YouTube videos for a while now and given I have predominantly been on one subject (inadvertent ASMR deriving from videos designed for medical tuition) one hazard is that I start to re-review videos that I have reviewed previously.

This has happened once or twice. In one case, I prepared two articles on the same video and they got all the way through editing before I realised my mistake.

Today’s video has the worrying feel of familiarity about it. If anyone spots that I’ve prepared something on this one before please let me know.

Macleod’s examination of the cervical spine

This is very brief at just over 2 minutes.

The introduction screen states “Video taken from Macleod’s Clinical Examination 13th Edition By Graham Douglas, Fiona Nicol & Colin Robertson.”

Given this is a professional video it also has some notes associated with it:

“New! Macleod’s Clinical examination 13th edition

This video demonstrates clinical examination techniques as described in Macleod’s Clinical Examination. The textbook with access to the full set of videos is available at www.elsevierhealth.co.uk/macleod

Comments are permitted but there are few of them.

The two participants communicate in a very stilted manner and I think this might be a video in which the audio is machine generated, possibly the video as well. Alternatively, the audio of the participants was dubbed on afterwards without much reference to the video itself. The commentary is the main feature of the video and this starts a little loud.

The Channel is Farsight Channel and we have encountered this one before.

There are fifty-nine videos and five playlists. The playlist: “New! Macleod’s Clinical examination 13th edition” contains twenty-four videos. The safest way to narrow these down to the number we can cover in one blog article is to select them based upon the participants in the video. In this case, the “patient” occurs in a number of the videos and so does the medical professional.

Therefore, I will select videos where both the medical professional and “patient” appear.

The patient is “Omar” but in a number of videos he is examined by another medical professional (perhaps we’ll come back to those in a future blog post). The medical professional in the above video is “Ben”. There are relatively few videos in which both Ben and Omar appear.

Macleod’s examination of the shoulder

Another brief video, just less than five minutes. The audio of the participants is again a bit strange. The narration is quieter and more suitable to the purpose we are looking for, i.e., getting some rest.

Macleod’s examination of the hip

The theme with this set is that they are all brief. They all have a stilted strange feel to the interaction style between the participants.

This one is a little over six minutes.

The narrator sounds a lot more like a normal human being. It’s hard to describe the problem. The intonation and the timing seems all wrong as if created artificially rather than recorded from an actual interaction.

Definition:

Lumbar lordosis inward curve of the lower back.

Macleod’s examination of the thoracic and lumbar spine

This one is a little under five and a half minutes.

Definition:

Lipoma a fatty lump growing under the skin.

Dimples of Venus, a picture seems best for this:

Dimples of Venus while seated (with arrows)

Macleod’s examination of the motor system of the upper limbs

The one advantage of videos prepared professionally is that they are quite consistent. In this case there is no background noise, no people wandering across the camera and no noises coming from the camera operator.

This video is again brief at just a little over six minutes. This seems to be a feature with this particular set. The advantage is that when watching on YouTube and using the shuffle option you will not get a continuous repetition of videos with similar content (which otherwise might get a little trying). The disadvantage comes if you do not choose this option in which case these occur one after the other in the Procrastination Pen Playlist. It may quietly drive you mad.

I recommend you choose the shuffle option.

Macleod’s examination of the motor system of the lower limbs

Definition:

Clonus – condition causing involuntary muscle contractions.

Here we end the videos featuring “Ben” and “Omar”

The channel seems fairly uniform in terms of quality so I’ll be back in the future with another set of videos from this channel.

The Farsight playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

The Procrastination Pen playlist (which is no-doubt what you have all been reading this in order to locate) is found here:

I have been listening to that playlist most nights and some of the videos that were members have now been removed. If any of your favourites are missing from that main playlist you can find them here in the archive list:

Quite often the videos getting removed have no faults other than occasional intrusive noises.

The playlist of items that are great for ASMR (but contain an age verification function), usually a great way to interrupt your listening in the middle of the night, is here:

I hope that you find the playlists restful and that you get a good night’s sleep.

Hope to see you again back here for the next blog article.

If you liked this blog item why not subscribe to this blog.

Until next time.

Photo by Shona Macrae

Sleeping With ASMR

For those of you who have been following the blog the subject matter will not come as any surprise or the purpose of this writing. For everyone else welcome to the blog. It exists purely to review unintentional ASMR videos, to locate the best ones and to create a playlist of those videos.

The aim is to find the most relaxing videos on YouTube (or occasionally from elsewhere) which can be used to help you drift off to sleep, get back to sleep when you wake up in the middle of the night, and to completely fail to disrupt your sleep due to loud music, loud equipment noises or strange contributions from the air conditioning.

This week, a video which seems to fit into the range of student assessment videos, of which, we have seen more than a few already.

The entire Channel contains fifteen videos which is way more than I usually review at one sitting. However, as you can see the longest of these is less than seven minutes, such that I may make an exception in this case.

The video is this one:

Head, Face, and Neck

It is barely longer than three minutes so it isn’t going to take long to listen to. The medical professional is Leah and it is safe to assume that it is she who owns the channel (as we shall see).

The volume track is muted and sounds distant as if being recorded under water. There is the ever-present sound of air conditioning (which we’ve heard often before).

The approach is gentle and methodical. However, there is the noise of people apparently talking in the background. This is heavily muted though and so in this specific case, is none too intrusive.

The video has no comments and it looks like it is unlikely that we will find out where it was filmed. Although posted in 2023, of course, it could have been filmed at any time.

The channel is Leah Barlow and has eighty five subscribers – which isn’t a huge number in comparison to some we have seen.

There are fifteen videos which is a large number for any single blog post. However, in overview it appears that Leah appears with a different “patient” in several of these videos. Therefore, if we stick with Leah and the patient featured in this video, we have a much more restrictive list (we can return to Leah in a future blog post).

Musculoskeletal Exam Practice

This is slightly longer at five- and three-quarter minutes but still not particularly taxing in terms of attention. It is almost identical in terms of sound with the last one. I think the patient states her name as Mackenzie and d.o.b. 2/15/01 which for those of us in the UK is 15/02/2001. However, I had a hard time making that out and the spelling is probably incorrect in any case.

Again, the presentation is muted in comparison to the background noise which includes a healthy amount of chatter coming through from adjacent rooms.

There are loud noises as footwear drops to the floor, which may cause this one to ultimately be dropped from the Procrastination Pen playlist. (Off-putting noises are the commonest reason for dropping videos into the archive list). It is not the first time I have wished that I could alter a video in order to eliminate such noises, given that a number of videos are excellent in part, and dire in another part.

At intervals there are raised (even excited) voices from an adjacent room and this proves to be quite distracting.

There are also noises from the equipment as the “patient” moves around.

Neuro Exam Practice

Just over six and a half minutes and if anything, the background noise is trying for a starring role. The video proceeds as for the two we have already reviewed. It is gentle, methodical and, background noise allowing, relatively quiet. If there was a God of air conditioning then a few sacrifices need to be made to appease him or her. There are loud equipment noises and some hilarity about the loud equipment noises. (This will probably see it dropped into the archive list). Mackenzie seems to have developed a cold as there is much snivelling and coughing.

This one is really too loud, including some quite energised chatter from an adjacent room.

There is also entertainment due to the fact that Mackenzie proves to be ticklish.

Cardiac Exam

A bit over four and a quarter minutes. There is loud knocking to start with. Mackenzie seems to say that her surname is Delavaso, but it probably isn’t that at all. The air conditioning has started playing drums for Motorhead but thankfully the background chatter has settled to the level of irritating that can be safely ignored (I think).

Thorax and Lungs Exam

Four minutes long. Loud knocking to start, as before. More loud equipment noises more air conditioning noises, but the conversationalists have decided all the loud discussions of previous videos were dreadfully rude and so a background murmur is all that can be heard.

It would be truly quite a good video if the clunks and clangs of the equipment didn’t attend every movement of Mackenzie. Not the first time equipment noises have proved to be a deal breaker for this blog though.

Cardiac Practice

A little under five minutes and the microphone is now officially inside the air conditioning outlet. The voices in this are heavily masked by the sound of forced air.

This really isn’t suitable for the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Ear exam

Less than two and a half minutes, in other respects similar to previous videos. Leah has a good voice but the extraneous noises are at intervals off-putting or irritating.

I’m inclined to include this one, if only because it is so short.

Nose, mouth, throat exam

A bit more than four and a quarter minutes. The knocking at the start seems a little more muted but the background conversation has reasserted itself, somewhat irritatingly.

Mackenzie has an identity badge which could have told us where this is being filmed but sadly it is out of focus so I can’t make it out.

Leah seems much more hesitant in this one than the others we have seen here. There seems to be much hilarity again, so presumably both participants are uncomfortable with the process.

That’s it for this item, but I think we will be revisiting Leah in the future.

The Leah Barlow playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

The Procrastination Pen playlist (which is no-doubt what you have all been reading this in order to locate) is found here:

I have been working through that playlist repeatedly and some of the videos that were members have now fallen from favour. If any of your favourites are in there you can find them here in the archive list:

Quite often the videos getting removed have no faults other than excessive background noise.

The playlist of items that are great for ASMR (but contain an age verification function), usually a great way to interrupt your listening in the middle of the night, is here:

I hope that you find the playlists restful and that you get a good night’s sleep.

Hope to see you again back here for the next blog article.

If you liked this blog item why not subscribe to this blog.

Until next time.

Photo by Tatyana Eremina on Unsplash