Category: Anxiety

Sleeping With ASMR

I remember that during lockdown I used to read https://laterbloomer.com/ and the course https://imaginarium.debraeve.com/courses/479032/lectures/8819588. It is material that is designed for those, like me, who would rather like to imagine that there are some aspects of existence still remaining to them, despite their advancing in years.

I suppose it is material like this which encourages me to resist some of the effects of aging like declining sleep quality, and to try to do something about it. Who knows, I might suddenly take up something amazingly fulfilling in later life which I would have missed out on if I’d allowed my sleep to just continue to get worse.

I hope that because I mention advancing years this will not dissuade any young people with sleep issues from reading further. Assuming such a person found this blog, I think the relaxing material which is featured here is very likely to be applicable both to young and old.

By all means, feedback if you disagree.

I think I kicked off Calm recommendations in this blog greater than six months ago. Such that regular readers will recognise what comes next. I have a Calm subscription and I make use of it reasonably frequently because I can guarantee that it is not going to have a loud, unpleasant advert kick in sometime during the track. That said, much of the content is variable, and some of it I do not find as calming as the name would suggest. The one thing I am finding out however, through listening to different ASMR tracks is that everyone is different, and some of the ones that I feel are marginal may turn out to be your favourites.

One of the tracks dedicated to sleep is the Calm Nighttime Wind Down, it is a little less than seven minutes:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/zX75qkm1AI

As such, personally, I do not think it is long enough to get me off to sleep, particularly on one of my more wakeful evenings.

It is also music-based and as I have commented before, I do not actually find music that restful or at least not restful enough to fall asleep to. So, I doubt I’d do much more than lie awake listening. The other problem, for me, is that it isn’t the quietest. I have had more restful moments listening to ITV in the early hours, to be honest. But I guarantee that there will be someone out there who will love it.

Give it a try and see what you think, assuming that you have a Calm subscription in any case.

I have been looking at resources that are not on YouTube (as I wish to avoid the adverts). I came across this one which seems to me a tad surreal:

The notes I can pick up from it are as follows:

“【ASMR】 detailed medical exam for sleep ♡🏥

By: pillowdear ASMR

Published: Jan 20, 2025

Views: 95

Topics: YouTube, video, Entertainment, vtuber, anime, girl, gamer, calm, cute, ASMR, let’s play, spooky, cozy, comfy, relax, funny, cupid, love, waifu, holo, scream, scary, gf, kawaii, stream, gameplay, game, live, asset, clip, comp, voice, female, affirmation, dere, jumpscare, girls, happy, sfw

Collections: Mirrortube: Mirrored YouTube Videos, Social Media Videos, Additional Collections – Video

Ready for your medical check-up? I’m nurse pillow, here to take good care of you and help you get nice sleep! ════ ⋆♡⋆ ════ If you’re thinking about donating, please consider doing it through the link below!!! All tips “

It is animated, it is somewhat peculiar, and the voice is not the greatest. However, it does lack adverts. I’m not sure that you can download it sadly, I could not see a mechanism for doing that. It starts with music – grr. However, it isn’t the loudest music that you ever heard.

The video is in excess of two hours in length! Certainly, long enough to drop off to.

Why not take a listen.

For several months now I have been reviewing just one professional ASMR video per blog article. I have now concluded that if I just review the latest stuff in my YouTube feed it is probably not as useful as picking out a YouTube video at random from the past.

Those of you who do not spend your time reviewing YouTube videos I suspect would not be trawling the historic entries for something that just might be worthwhile. That said I have found a number of professional ASMR videos are not as scintillating as one might otherwise expect and that doesn’t seem to change no matter how long ago, I look back.

Today I am looking at the channel  Alleviate ASMR which does seem to be doing the job that I would like to do myself. It would seem that the channel is nicking other people’s ASMR videos and assembling them into a playlist. I shudder to think what copyright implications there might be. It is my lack of awareness in this area that causes me to shy away from similar behaviour. I tend to review original videos where I can find them and keep the videos in the location and in the state that the originator intended. This often results, in my opinion, in a less successful video than might have been the case had they been heavily truncated (notably to remove any branding music from the start and end of some videos). However, I do not want to disturb anyone who can charge a fortune simply for writing a letter. Especially if they are the kind of person who takes to wearing a frighteningly expensive suit.

The channel has 6.9K subscribers and only eleven videos so go Alleviate ASMR for achieving so many subscribers from so little material. There are two playlists one of which is right on theme for us and one of which is not:

and

The channel seems to have been very active a couple of years ago and then swiftly to have fallen into abeyance. I do not have any idea why that should be.

Today’s selected video is as follows:

Cranial Nerve Exams for Unintentional ASMR

As a welcome change this has very brief notes (rather than the lengthy ones we are more used to): “1,167,336 views 2 May 2023 #unintentionalasmr #compilation #cranialnerveexam

A compilation of three incredibly relaxing cranial nerve examinations to fulfil your Unintentional ASMR needs, perfect for relaxation, study and sleep. All credit goes to the owners of these clips. Check out my other Unintentional ASMR videos on my channel 🙂

Check out more Unintentional ASMR medical videos here –     • Unintentional ASMR Medical Videos 

Be sure to Like and Subscribe for more! Sweet Dreams 🙂

#cranialnerveexamasmr  #cranialnerveexam #unintentionalasmr #medicalasmr #compilation #asmr #study #sleep #relaxation”

There are quite a few comments, and many are either strange or for ASMR afficionados in the know. If you have been reading this blog for a while you will swiftly appreciate what I mean by this as at one time or another I have tried to translate such comments.

The video is less than twenty minutes long. It breaks the rules of this section as, although this has been professionally assembled, it is not by a professional ASMR artist as such. I hope that you will give me some latitude. Normal service will be resumed with the next blog post.

It starts with some background noise – probably air conditioning. Then the medical professional introduces herself possibly as Dr Pitford. Two other medical professionals are in attendance and are making notes. It is possible this is an example of one of our favourites the student assessment video. I am used to these coming from a number of the nursing establishments in the US but this person has a resolutely English accent so I assume a UK offering instead.

I would say that this person has a very good voice for our purposes. I have no idea how extensively the video was edited (I’m certain that this is not its usual home) but if I do happen upon the original version, I will review the whole thing for the blog. (I do try to find original videos where I can do that).

There are equipment noises, clunking against metallic objects. None of these is excessively distracting.

Around six minutes in, the video segues without warning to a brand-new medical professional, Vicky, who informs us that she is at the Swindon Academy. As I have mentioned before, I do not like videos that have been crammed together like this. By all means use a playlist, but assembling them into one whole is, I find, jarring when you flit from one place to another, one person to another, and in many cases have changes in sound to go with it.

If anything, Vicky has a slightly better voice than Dr Pitford. A shame that we are not starting a new video. I’ll go with the “I’ve started so I’ll finish” philosophy and plough onwards. However, if I was reviewing this for the Procrastination Pen playlist this would disinclude it. In fact, if I was as brave as Alleviate ASMR I’d take ownership of the video and divide it back into individual videos again. At eleven and a half minutes the video segues again, this time to Tom Sutton who (at the time this was recorded) was a final year medical student. The background noise hikes up a bit and the sound recording is somewhat less successful. Tom sounds a little distant and muted to me in comparison to the two that went before. I would say he has a good voice but by this stage we have been spoiled by the two voices that we have just heard and, in my opinion, both of them are superior voices. Another argument for not gluing these videos together like this.

At this stage in a normal blog post (and since the ASMR part of this blog started) I have been reviewing inadvertent ASMR videos on YouTube. These are videos, ostensibly established for one purpose, but which turn out to be relaxing, possibly even giving ASMR-effects (to those that can feel them).

I don’t give guarantees on the ASMR-yness of the videos because one thing I seem to have established is that one person’s ASMR is another person’s annoying video.

For me, I really like a calm voice. It is hard to define what tone is best, as I have listened to a number, but I would like (I’m sure) a tone that was empathetic even supportive. I’m making a guess that many other people would find such a voice restful and might find my reviews of such material to be helpful.

This week, I have chosen this video which is a little off-centre from the usual medical material that I have chosen to review for months now.

SCEHResources ElkinsHypnotizabilityScaleEHS 2014

This is a professional video so, of course, it comes with notes: ” 487,753 views 17 May 2018

The Elkins Hypnotizability Scale (EHS) is a measure that correlates at 0.86 with the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, and can be administered in 30 minutes.  Find this and other Hypnosis Clinical Resources on the SCEH website.

This video demonstrates the Elkins Hypnotizability Scale.  For more information, see Hypnotic Relaxation Therapy: Principles and Applications by Gary Elkins Ph.D., ABPP, ABPH.  Copyright 2013, Reproduced with the permission of Springer Publishing Company, LLC ISBN: 9780826199393.”

Which, fortuitously, are refreshingly-brief. Given the title, it seems to have been recorded in 2014 but not posted until 2018. There is no obvious explanation for the delay.

No comments are permitted, which, given the nature of a number of comments we have seen, is probably the safe option, to be honest.

The channel is: Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis this has 1.08K subscribers from eleven videos. That’s pretty good performance in my opinion.

There are just four playlists with only one looking a good fit for us, I think:

Today’s video is in excess of forty-three minutes in length. That is not bad at all, in terms of videos we have reviewed of late. A video of two hours in length, so far, being an uncommon thing to find.

There is a fair amount of background noise, an ongoing hiss that could be in the recording technology used perhaps. The voices of both participants turn out to be rather good, calm and nicely paced. I can understand why the professional is good at hypnosis if the voice is anything to go by.

There are paper shuffling noises. These are not excessively distracting and are the only extraneous noises apart from the background hiss.

At thirty-five Minutes the video changes over to a presentation by Dr Gary Elkins at Baylor University. Although a presentation, his voice remains calm.

Many people when presenting seem tempted to project, as if they didn’t have a microphone. The upshot is that presentations tend to be louder. Thankfully this is avoided here. That said, I would not say that this part of the video was the most fascinating thing I’ve listened to. However, given I am reviewing material for its usefulness in driving someone into sleep, I would say this is nigh ideal.

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 nothing whatsoever is working. As such I have time to stop and have sympathy for people who struggle for sleep. I notice that the links between sleeplessness and dementia are being used as a fuel to stoke our fears.

I’m not sure that a terror about losing your mind is exactly the mindset you need for a long, restful snooze. Just in case you would prefer a restful track designed to be quiet and to distract those kind of thoughts, the Procrastination Pen exists as a site that reviews video tracks in the hope of finding the odd one that may do that. If it turns out that you get ASMR affects from the video, so much the better but you do not need to regard it as a pre-requisite for enjoying the videos.

There is a playlist of tracks that have been reviewed so far and it always occurs at the close of these articles. So if you want to give it a review, scroll right to the end and try it for yourself.

For a while now, I have been swaggering on about having a Calm subscription and how much quieter I am finding it all than the advert-infested YouTube experience. It is true that if you have a subscription to Calm, you probably already make more use of it than you do of YouTube for night-time relaxation. Not because YouTube videos are not restful. Many of the ones already covered by this blog are quite adequate in this respect (some of them are even great).

However, the insistence of ramming loud and distracting adverts into every interval does make the experience in the round a little more testing.

I am on the search for some other free resource with restful tracks of some kind that does not require commitment to receiving a ton of adverts. When I locate such a thing, I will flag it here.

Today’s Calm track is this one:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/XYoEpl-gZW

It’s Like This

NARRATOR

Tamara Levitt

AUTHOR

Tamara Levitt

I like Tamara’s voice. Sometimes I think it might be my favourite voice on Calm, sometimes not. I enjoy the content that she delivers but I often listen to Jay Shetty or Jeff Warren, dependent on what the track seems to have in it.

Mel Mah is much more about activity and I have to say I have not yet bought into the activity aspect. It is probably one of those New Year’s resolution things. To Do but not yet To Done.

The track is a little over ten minutes so it probably will not quite be enough to doze off to unless you are properly tired already. (Perhaps if you’re more bought into activity than I am and, hence, have come in from a long run or similar).

This track is about acceptance which I suppose is not a bad skill to have if your life is heading towards Alzheimer’s.

Recently I have been considering a professional ASMR artist at this stage. So why buck the trend if it seems to have worked for us so far.

This week the video is this one:

【ASMR】Eye Exam for Bloodshot Eyes and Vision Loss🏥 | Ophthalmology Roleplay【Eyelid Injection💉】

It is from the channel Runa ASMR【るな氏】, this channel has 236K subscribers three hundred and nine videos eleven playlists. The longest playlist has nearly one hundred videos in it. This seems to be an ASMR artist that is doing something right.

There are notes of course “299,990 views Sep 10, 2025 #ロールプレイ #mouthsounds #asmr

#roleplayasmr #asmr

#お耳 #talkingasmr #asmrvideo  #makeyousleep     #mouthsounds 

#originalstory #ロールプレイ  #ロールプレイ #医療ASMR #doctor #clinic

💭視力良くなりたいヨォ、コンタクト毎日変えるの大変だヨオ

🎮セカンドチャンネル

   / @るなちの遊び場 

🌙メンバーシップの参加はこちらから

   / @runaasmr575 “

However, I cannot read them.

Google translate at least reassures me that there’s nothing untoward here: “299,990 views Sep 10, 2025 #roleplay #mouthsounds #asmr

#roleplayasmr #asmr

#ears #talkingasmr #asmrvideo #makeyousleep #mouthsounds

#originalstory #roleplay #medicalASMR #doctor #clinic

💭I want to improve my eyesight, but changing my contacts every day is such a pain.

🎮Second Channel

/ @Runa’s Playground

🌙Join Membership Here

/ @runaasmr575″

Comments are permitted but the feedback is predominantly using a character set I do not understand, so they could be instructions for building a space shuttle. More likely they are commenting about how marvellous the video is because that level of adulation commonly accompanies professional ASMR artists.

The video is a little under thirty-nine minutes and so is a little longer than anything we have listened to recently. It has no startup music for which I am very grateful. The voice, as you would expect, is excellent.

Fortunately, when playing, the subtitles were in English so I’m at least clear it didn’t consist of swearing. Sadly, the keyboard features rather loudly, at least initially. But given how good the voice is, I think it is worth persisting with.

At intervals it does not appear to be about the voice. There are tapping noises, liquid sloshing noises, container unscrewing noises, pouring noises, clicking noises, gloves-related noises, equipment noises, liquid noises, plastic crinkling noises, sounds of a pestle and mortar being used to grind stuff.

All of these are a waste of time for me, I’m only here to listen to the voice. But I am betting each one is a trigger for someone. It does mean that we get a lot less of the voice than we would do otherwise, which is a shame.

I still think the voice makes it worthy of a review, why not listen for yourself.

I also think I will be revisiting this channel in the future.

I’ve been spending a lengthy amount of time of late evaluating the sleep offerings through Calm and falling asleep to them. Some excellent voices involved but given Calm is not free it would not be of much service if I start evaluating the content of Calm.

As a result, I have not written much in a while regarding YouTube content and I have been bolstered by the fact that I had written a great deal of content in the past and it was simply a case of editing it sufficiently to bring it up to date before pushing the correct button to put it out there. Calm is certainly interesting and some of the content is worth listening to but whether it is worth the money I can only leave it up to you to decide.

For me it is good to have something else available after YouTube decided to take my channel down one time, and with it all the playlists I had spent time curating. Where anybody has the power to do that to you it is well worthwhile having some other strategy available.

This is probably the message of everything available via the Internet. It is at best transient and so it is not too sensible to base anything permanent around it.

Today’s video draws from previous work indeed it is from an old favourite channel Moran Core from the Moran Eye Center. (UK readers note that is apparently the correct spelling of centre).

The video is this one:

Learning the Ophthalmoscope

It is just five- and three-quarter minutes so don’t sneeze or you’ll miss it. It’s another professional video and as we have established by now, these videos tend to come with notes (not uncommonly because they also serve to promote a service of some kind).

This video has the following notes:

“194,819 views 11 Aug 2018

Title: How to Use the Direct Ophthalmoscope

Author:  Tania Padilla Conde, 4th Year Medical Student, University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine; Christopher Bair, MD and Michele Burrow, MD

Date: 08/10/2018”

Tania seems to have a good voice for us, although the volume for me was a little loud, sufficient to sound echoey in the space where it was recorded. The video starts without extraneous startup music which is so rare that sacrifices need to be offered up to the video-recording-god in supplication for the beneficence shown.

If you are listening to this one as part of the larger Procrastination Pen playlist, you might be rolling over to the tablet and giving the volume down button a couple of disgruntled presses. Tis a shame that I do not have control of the videos in the playlist or I would normalise the volume of them a bit. I too am sometimes awakened when the playlist changes from a quiet video to a louder one.

In this case the video is interrupted by a comment by Tania which is even louder. It is all a shame because otherwise she does have a good voice.

Tania does not appear on another video on the Moran Core website so if we are going to stick with her, then a search of YouTube is in order.

Tania Conde returns quite a number of channels and a brief perusal reveals that the majority are just not going to be helpful to us.

Using “Tania Padilla Conde” instead reveals a lot of content in Spanish.

This one:

Nancy Reynoza Entrevista a la doctora Tania Padilla Conde

Which is at the pace of Speedy Gonzalez and so not at all restful.

And a couple of playlists

The first one is:

COVID-19

Consisting of twelve videos. Ranging in length from two and a half minutes to in excess of twenty minutes. Not one of them seems to be a medical examination as such.

I am also hampered in that I have zero comprehension of Spanish, so I am trusting that nothing untoward is being relayed as part of the video.

The first video of the playlist is:

Cómo usar máscara correctamente

This video starts way-way too loud and it continues at a fast pace, this is really not a suitable video for us.

Como tratar los sintomas de COVID-19 en casa.

Double the length of the previous one it starts just as loud with fast paced music. This is just not conducive to sleep.

¿Qué es la hidroxicloroquina? Ensayo clínico aprobado por Kristi Noem en South Dakota.

Continues as for the previous two videos and as such I am convinced there is no purpose in reviewing the rest of this playlist. There is nothing here that we can make use of ASMR-wise.

The second playlist is this one:

Health/Salud

Somewhat more hopeful (given the title) that there might be restful content. It contains fifteen videos ranging between two and three quarter minutes and in excess of twenty minutes.

The first video is this:

Como tratar los sintomas de COVID-19 en casa.

And oh no just as before loud start up music. It strikes me that this is eerily similar to those that we’ve just looked at. So, unfortunately, I think that this playlist isn’t going to offer anything useful either.

On that basis just one, short, video on this visit.

Onwards till next week.

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

The Moran Core 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 am reflecting on the double-edged nature of companionship. On the one hand, many resources now indicate that loneliness is a killer. That having people regularly in one’s life is a source of happiness. On the other hand, it is rare that you will find yourself having arguments with yourself… It isn’t often that you find you’ve made a profound social gaffe whilst completely in your own company. It is hard to get stressed and anxious over a quiet evening in, accompanied only by a book.

If you find that social events have got on top of you and you’re lying awake when you should be asleep, mulling over the various errors you made and perhaps the need to go back and apologise afterwards. Be assured a good night’s sleep may ameliorate some of those feelings, and a good night’s sleep is what this blog is here to promote.

Of late, I have been starting the blog articles with something provided by Calm. I am lucky enough to have a Calm subscription and I do so love the absence of advertising. In many ways Calm is not ideal, the need to pay for it being a big one. The absence of the ability to create playlists is a second. Third the fact that every day the content changes and that item you so loved yesterday will now be absent, unless you remember what it was called and go search for it.

However, I think the content provided is great. I like the voices of the professionals involved. Much of the material is not only restful but educational as well. So far, I have not encountered one loud and distracting advert deliberately interposed with the restful content in order to grab your attention.

Today’s suggestion is this one:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/b-gRGIQlxn

Daily Trip

Vertical Thinking

NARRATOR

Jeff Warren

AUTHOR

Jeff Warren

Jeff has an excellent voice, second only to Tamara on this site for me. I also really enjoy a lot of the content that Jeff chooses. We seem to have similar interests and concerns in some areas. I hope you also enjoy his stuff. (If you have a subscription, that is).

This is just a little over eight minutes so it won’t take you long. This concerns rumination and the periods of quiet in between.

If you’ve been following the blog for a while you will realise that, of late, I like to review a professional ASMR artist. Mostly this is in contrast to the inadvertent ASMR which is the bread and butter of this blog. Also, I thought anybody meandering across this blog might enjoy the variety.

This week we are looking at a video which is brief in comparison to many professional ASMR videos we have examined.

ASMR Inspecting Your Entire Body, Soft Spoken, Personal Attention

it’s a little over seventeen and a half minutes in length so it is not going to keep us very long.

As a professional ASMR artist’s video, we would expect there would be notes and we would expect that a fair proportion of the notes would be about self-promotion. The notes associated with this video are: “47,900 views 5 Oct 2025 #asmr #asmrsounds #asmrvideo

Hey my friends, I hope you’ve been well! Tonight, I am going to be random inspections on your body to help you unwind and relax! Let me know what your favourite part was! Thank you so much for watching! xx

Instagram ➤   / brittneymay__ 

Business Inquiries ➤ brittneymay.asmr1999@gmail.com

Throne Gifting ➤ https://thronegifts.com/u/brittneymay

(Please don’t feel obligated to gift me anything! I just set this up for if you are feeling generous and would like to support myself and my channel!)

My Upload Schedule:

Wednesday’s ➤ 4 PM PST/ 7 PM EST

Saturday’s ➤ 4 PM PST/ 7 PM EST

Thank you for watching and supporting my channel, I am so grateful! ✿

✿

#asmr #asmrvideo #asmrsounds #asmrinspection

Brittney May ASMR

138K subscribers”

It is enormously gratifying to find such restrained notes associated with such a video. In addition, the video does not start with whoever is sponsoring the video today. You don’t get to see videos of that nature on this blog. Sponsor’s information in a video is, I find, hugely distracting. I can see that someone has to buy the groceries but I would have thought the place for details of the sponsor would be in the associated notes, not taking up ten percent of the actual video.

Comments are permitted and, whacky feedback allowing, mostly reinforce the idea that ASMR artists are held in high-esteem by YouTube visitors (well the ones who can be bothered to leave comments, in any case).

The voice is, as expected, excellent. It is very towards the whispery end of presentation which seems to be where a number of ASMR artists find themselves. Perhaps this is what the listening public is demanding. It isn’t a terrible idea; I just cannot envisage a medical professional actually holding a session in that way. It has a tendency to be a bit on the breathy side, again a number of ASMR professionals also do this. Perhaps a quantity of ASMR afficionados find that characteristic appealing. Personally, I am all about the quality of the voice.

There are various other noises, gloves, rustling, cloth-related noises, thumping noises, wood against wood noises, scribbling noises, finger drumming noises, brushing noises, spraying noises, scraping noises.

At least there is no startup or tail-end video music which seems to mar many inadvertent ASMR videos I have reviewed.

I would say the setting appears to be more domestic than hospital-related but as you’ll be listening rather than watching I doubt it will phase you. The channel is Brittney May ASMR it has 138K subscribers from five hundred and three videos there is one playlist containing thirty-four videos. Interestingly from our point of view these are on a medical theme (which this blog has been for several months now).

You may want to check that playlist out for yourself:

I rather liked this video. I certainly can see some value in you giving it a review.

If you wandered into this blog article without previous awareness of the blog, you might like to know what it is all about and why you should be interested.

The Procrastination Pen, for over a year now has been searching for medical videos (and sometimes other videos) predominantly on YouTube (but not uniquely so) for content which might cause ASMR symptoms (in people lucky enough to feel ASMR symptoms).

In this case, it is for people who get “tingles” or similar ASMR symptoms from people speaking quietly and calmly (even so far as whispering). However, this does not cater for people who like scratching, squelching, paper turning or other stimuli.

For those who sadly do not feel ASMR symptoms, the aim is that the video will be quiet enough to relax you. The hope is that you will relax sufficiently that sleep will come more easily. If you leave the Procrastination Pen playlist playing, it is also hoped that it is calm and quiet enough that if you do awaken during the night, you will find it more straightforward to fall back to sleep.

Sometimes life is too busy to read a review of individual videos and for people who find themselves in that situation, the playlist is always found at the end of each blog article – simply scroll straight to the end and pick up the link from there.

This week we come in with a video which by title is part way through a sequence of videos – such is the way that recommendations on YouTube seem to work. Logic does not necessarily appear to be relevant.

The video is this one:

Examination of the Hand – Part 3

It is a little less than ten minutes and features Roger Pillemer as the medical professional and he has an absolutely excellent voice for our purposes. Quiet, gentle and moderately slow paced, what is not to like.

The channel is called Roger Pillemer and has twenty-five videos as at the date I am looking at it. The oldest seems to be seven years old and the latest just a month ago. There are two playlists one of which has seventeen videos and the other five. Our video of course occurs in the longer playlist and I do think the longer playlist is a little – long.

Any review of seventeen videos will probably have you reaching for the TV remote control, or similar, part way through.

However, there are three videos called “Examination of the Hand” so let’s review the other two.

Examination of the Hand – Part 1

As before, Roger’s voice is what carries the day. The presentation isn’t necessarily fascinating but above all, it is relaxing. There are no disturbing noises, no background air conditioning racket and no equipment noises. Sadly, there is start-up music but thankfully it is muted. There is also a continuing background music which plays continuously throughout. Sadly, I think this discounts this video from being included in the Procrastination Pen playlist.

It is nearly thirteen- and three-quarter minutes which is a presentation regarding the hand. Usually, I reject videos involving presentation as being excessively loud, as if trying to project from a stage to a large audience. Roger does not make that mistake. He remains as quiet as he was in the first video of this blog article.

Examination of the Hand – Part 2

This is just less than twelve minutes and the same problem as the last video i.e. a music track that plays continuously. A great shame as Roger has a really great voice.

So sadly, just one video on this occasion.

However, the playlist is now really quite large so plenty there for you to enjoy.

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

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’m spending some time recently exploring psychology books and trying to work out if I am actually learning anything about myself, or if I have an ego sufficiently huge that nothing is ever going to penetrate it. I have found that no matter how many books I read, it does not seem to translate into more of a restful life. Which probably says a great deal about my inability to learn effectively.

So, given life is carrying on at the hubbub it had last year (or more likely an ever-increasing pace with each passing year), I have found it helpful to have something restful to listen to. It was for this reason that I started to explore ASMR. I’m not sure if I am a typical ASMR listener, (I have a sinking sensation that many such people are a great deal younger for instance).I did pretty swiftly find that the quality of “ASMR” was highly variable. I wondered how I would settle down with an ASMR track in the hope of getting to sleep, knowing that the ASMR video was actually going to be restful (and not crammed with all kinds of weird effects designed to hammer on every “trigger”, as if it needed a 4lb hammer).

After a while I realised that I couldn’t depend on the commentary associated with the videos. It ranges from sycophantic through aggressive, onto asinine. The review sites I found seemed to belong to people whose ears were obviously assembled in a different factory to mine. Therefore, I was going to have to review the material in advance before I wanted to use it and make use of some method of storing the ones that were worth listening to.

YouTube played material without paying up front. At the time, the adverts really did not seem too overpowering, but the clincher was that you could assemble the items that you liked into a playlist for subsequent playing. There was no need to own the videos to do so.

I also discovered that you could make the playlist public, so that other people could benefit from the work that you had done.

I reasoned that I would have to be pretty formal in my approach and hence, this process of reviewing videos started. I hope that you have ears not too dissimilar to mine and that therefore you will like the videos that I like.

If so, the Procrastination Pen playlist always appears at the end of every one of these articles and you can hop over to YouTube and see if you like what you hear.

A little while ago I started listening to Calm, mostly because it does not have the advertising load of a YouTube track. The downside is that you are going to need a subscription.

For many people this will be a show-stopper and if so, the YouTube reviews are coming very soon in this article (scroll down a bit). I used to be the same. I find too often now I’ve drifted off to a charming little ASMR video only to have some loud and distracting advert kick off and rouse me back to wakefulness again. In fact, of late this has become so frequent that I think it is by design. Advertising pays the bills, after all.

Today’s Calm track is taken from the Calm Dailies. I find these rather more approachable than Calm “sleep” tracks. The artists involved, frankly, have better voices. The Calm Dailies do not have music (I find music is just not as restful as people would have you believe). Some of the Calm “sleep” tracks involve an actual story and so rather than drifting off to la la land, you find yourself engaging with the story.

The Calm track this week is this one:

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

Daily Calm

Thinking

NARRATOR

Tamara Levitt

AUTHOR

Tamara Levitt

Tamara has a great voice. She maybe my favourite but I rather like Jeff Warren, so I dither in the mornings when I am looking at the next track. That said, Jay Shetty has much of the more interesting material, especially if I need a mental kick up the backside – which is most of the time, frankly.

This is quite a long one for a Calm Daily, in that it is nigh on 11 minutes in length. It is about obsessive thinking. If you find yourself struggling with intrusive thoughts at bedtime, this may well be the track for you.

I’ve settled into a semi-rigid structure for several weeks now: Calm review, professional ASMR review, inadvertent ASMR review. The blog originally only considered inadvertent ASMR videos. It has evolved this way. So, in deference to custom, this is this week’s video from a professional ASMR artist:

ASMR – Extremely Satisfying Allergy Test!

It’s a professional ASMR video so of course it has notes and of course the notes are going to promote the ASMR artist: “410,294 views 24 Sept 2025

Hi guys, welcome back! In today’s video I’m doing your allergy test. Hope you enjoy!

My Spotify Nanou ASMR: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2trBl…

My TikTok ASMR: nanouasmrofficial

My Dutch vlog channel (with subtitles):    / @nanouphilipsvlogs  

My new English vlog channel:    / @nanouphilips  

🖥 My other channel:    / @nanouphilips 

🖥 My channel with shorts:    / @nanouasmrshorts 

📱My Instagram:   / nanouphilips 

🎥 Production: Arc Agency – contact: info@arcagency.be

TikTok: nanou.philips

TikTok ASMR: nanouasmrofficial

Twitch:   / nanouasmr  

🅿️Paypal: https://paypal.me/NanouASMR

📧 E-mail: nanou.asmr@outlook.be”

The notes were so extensive I’ve given you the edited highlights, which, to my mind, are still way too long.

There are comments, of course, and, of course, because it is a professional ASMR artist they vie towards the sycophantic side. So far, so usual.

The video comes from the channel Nanou ASMR, this has 1.75M subscribers, seven hundred and fifty-two videos nineteen playlists, more than one of those playlists has in excess of one hundred videos. So, a hard-working ASMR artist – full kudos given. I am a little concerned because the last video I listened to that had in excess of 1.5 million people raving about it, I really couldn’t get on with at all. Let’s see how this one fares.

It is surprising how often a video starts from a professional ASMR artist that raves about their latest sponsor and so it is a rare experience to be free of that. I disregard completely the many I find that do that. Making money is reasonable but I do find this disrupts the ASMR experience, whether you introduce sponsor du jour in a whispering voice or you do not.

In this case we are music free, sponsor free, and the video starts instead with what I assume to be recognised “trigger” sounds.

Clucking noises, keyboard noises, paper-related noises, donning-gloves noises, crinkling noises, tapping noises, liquid noises, a potpourri of sound, presumably designed as a catch-all of “triggers” for any attending ASMR devotee.

I am not really interested in that. I’m here for the voice and so how is it? The voice as you would expect, with such a popular artist, is excellent. Presentation is on the whispery side of whispery and so is about as believable as Boffo for Prime Minister, but this does not detract from its effectiveness as an ASMR voice or as the audio for a restful video. It does that job very well, in fact.

Sadly, the keyboard is selected for its ability to be heard which is sad, because I would prefer that it wasn’t heard at all. I think the keyboard is distracting and excessively loud. No doubt there are some ASMR fans who just love that kind of thing (I guess a number of subscribers to this YouTube channel, in fact).

There are quite a few rustling noises, gloves, clothing, the ASMR artist moving around. This is not obtrusive and so if it isn’t your thing either, it should not cause any concerns.

I’m not sure why ASMR artists do that clicking/clucking noise at intervals with their tongue, it seems out of place to me, but I just bet there is a die-hard devotee that turns up for new videos just to hear that sort of thing.

The plastic arm that intrudes into view and is then drawn on with a felt tipped pen is a tad on the surreal side, as if Metal Mickey had turned up for an examination. Given that you’ll be listening rather than watching, I’d say this should not have any impact. I’d say the video goes on about two to three minutes longer than I would have liked but a heck of a lot of subscribers disagree with me. On that basis you may want to give it a review.

The routine in these articles for the last few months has been that now I deal with the material on which I originally based the blog i.e. inadvertent ASMR videos. Of late, this has been videos on a medical theme, just because I have found a lot of success finding calm and restful videos where those videos were designed to illustrate some medical concept or other.

This week we are back to a channel that has featured multiple times on this blog here, here, here, here and also here.  It is Geeky Medics. The videos so far have featured Dr James Lower and Dr Andrew Pugh, and so in this week’s article.

The dedication to this channel has been because the videos here seem to be of a reasonably consistent quality (given that they are inadvertent ASMR videos in any case). They have a tendency to be quiet. There is though the regrettable tendency for the odd distracting noise to crop up in them.

Of course, some readers will not have read the previous articles, so I should mention that Dr Lewis Potter is the founder of Geeky Medics. The videos will all have notes that are similar (this has been established in those past blog articles). In order to cover the notes for new readers, I will give a precis version with the first video.

I think this will be the concluding such article, as I believe I have calculated that we have covered very nearly every video available. I make it that there are six left to cover and so we’ll mop those up in this article. I suspect we are getting a bit towards the tail-end in terms of quality as well but I live to be surprised.

Straight Leg Raise & Femoral Nerve Stretch Test – OSCE Guide | Clip

In case there are people who have not read any of those previous articles, I will include the notes associated with this video so you see how they work. The notes are lengthy and I’ll only include them once (or this will grow to become a very long article composed principally of notes).

The notes are: “48,856 views 14 Sept 2022  Musculoskeletal Examination OSCE Guides | CPSA | UKMLA | PLAB | MRCS

This video demonstrates how to perform a straight leg raise (a.k.a. sciatic stretch test) and a femoral nerve stretch test in an OSCE station.

You can read our step-by-step guide to the examination of the spine here: https://geekymedics.com/spine-examina…

Check out our other awesome clinical skills resources, including:

• 🔥 Geeky Medics Bundles (discounted products): https://app.geekymedics.com/purchase/…

• ✨ 1000+ OSCE Stations: https://app.geekymedics.com/purchase/…

• 🏥 Geeky Medics OSCE Revision Book: https://app.geekymedics.com/purchase/…

• 📝 150+ PDF OSCE Checklists: https://geekymedics.com/pdf-osce-chec…

• 🗂️ 3000+ OSCE Flashcards: https://app.geekymedics.com/purchase/…

• 📱 Geeky Medics OSCE App: https://geekymedics.com/geeky-medics-…

• 🩺 Medical Finals SBA Question Pack: https://app.geekymedics.com/purchase/…

• 💊 PSA Question Pack: https://app.geekymedics.com/purchase/…

Chapters:

00:00 Straight leg raise

00:36 Femoral nerve stretch test

Subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to know about our latest content: https://geekymedics.com/newsletter/ ✉️

Join the Geeky Medics community: 👩👩👧👧

TikTok:   / geekymedics 

Twitter:   / geekymedics 

Instagram:   / geekymedics 

Facebook:   / geekymedics 

Always adhere to medical school/local hospital guidelines when performing examinations or clinical procedures. DO NOT perform any examination or procedure on patients based purely on the content of these videos. Geeky Medics accepts no liability for loss of any kind incurred as a result of reliance upon the information provided in this video.

Achieve success in your medical school OSCEs, UKMLA CPSA, and PLAB 2 exams with our free clinical skills videos. Subscribe to our channel to be informed of our latest releases. 🙂

CPSA OSCE Guides https://geekymedics.com/the-clinical-…

UKMLA AKT Notes https://geekymedics.com/ukmla/

PLAB 2 OSCE Stations https://geekymedics.com/plab-2-osce-s…

Revise for the Simulated Consultation Assessment (SCA) with our collection of high-quality SCA cases written by GPs and Training Program Directors. Check out our SCA revision cases and prepare for the MRCGP https://geekymedics.com/sca-cases-ban…”

As we have heard in the previous articles, these videos commence with an unwelcome piece of startup music. So far, I have found no mechanism for removing startup music on someone else’s video. If I had, you would see more of the videos that have been rejected on the road to getting the odd “acceptable” one out to you.

I have tolerated the startup music in previous Geeky Medics videos and I will do so this time. It does not preclude bumping them to the archive list at some point in the future.

This video is a little over one and a half minutes so it is rapidly over with. It is the voice here that is excellent. There is background noise but it is not excessive. There are periods of silence which might be distracting whilst listening. Personally, I found this quite restful.

There is tail end music which is even louder than the startup music and it would be great if it just wasn’t there at all. Of course, given the video is a short one, there is much more opportunity for distracting adverts which was certainly maximised at the time I was reviewing this one.

Lachman’s Test – OSCE Guide | Clip

One and a quarter minutes long and so none of the ones we’re looking at this week seem to be very long at all. It finds time for the distracting start up music though. It is nicely calm in the few moments it is actually playing. However, it also finds time for the even louder tail end music – I’d have to ask why this is necessary.

Anterior & Posterior Drawer Test & Collateral Ligaments Assessment – OSCE Guide | Clip

Just over one and a half minutes and now we’re in the swing of these, we know how it will go, distracting start up music, nice calm presentation, even worse tail end music, YouTube advert…

Patella Tap & Sweep Test – OSCE Guide | Clip

All of these seem of a similar length; this is the same length as the last one. The format is the same as the previous ones including unwelcome musical parts. This video seems to have been substantially slowed down and is mostly silent. This makes for very calming watching but does not contribute much when you’re listening and not watching.

Thomas Test – OSCE Guide | Clip

This one is shorter at just over one and a quarter minutes. Same format as the previous ones. In common with previous OSCE videos there are on screen medical notes for medical students. Of course, these are of no interest to us. The presentation is beautifully calming, but oh so brief and it’s back to funky music again.

Trendelenburg’s Test – OSCE Guide | Clip

The last ever such video and the last item in blog posts featuring Geeky Medics. It has been a while now. This is the shortest so far at only slightly over a minute. Same music top and tail. Same on-screen notes, useful to medical students but not to us. Same calming voice but this time we barely have time to hear it before it is back to the music again.

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

The Geeky Medics 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 was thinking how easy it is to feel that people are not being supportive. The mind can fancy a journey of its own. Simply not hearing from someone can do it. Finding that some significant life event occurred and they did not tell you, perhaps. It is not surprising therefore, that the mind can go on a restive journey just as you’re trying to get some sleep.

Those with mental discipline instruct the mind to obedience, no doubt. The less self-controlled do well to distract it with something restful. For such a purpose did the Procrastination Pen first start reviewing restful videos, many moons ago now.

This week, for the first time, a Calm track that is dedicated to getting you off to sleep which has some possibility of doing that:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/pBsp3Sb6MT

Yours, Finn

Andrew Scott reads a series of letters from a writer to his long-distance lover — pondering place and time, longing and belonging, and the meaning of home.

NARRATOR

Andrew Scott

AUTHOR

Florence Skelton

It is calm, the voice has a great tone, there is an absence of music (God be praised). I’d say this one is well worth a review on the assumption that you can. Calm is a paid-for offering and I’m not about to recommend that you shell out for it, if you haven’t already.

Each week, I check out an offering from a professional ASMR artist to see if it is a big improvement on the inadvertent ASMR videos that I set up the blog to review; goodness knows how long ago now.

This week I thought I’d review the following:

POV assessing your spinal function, flexibility assessment & neurological exam | cranial nerve test

It is from the channel asmr august. That channel has 252K subscribers, two hundred and eighty-seven videos, eighteen playlists. Quite a few subscribers, so I, for one, have very high expectations.

The video is a little over thirty-two and a half minutes long. Given it is a professional ASMR video you will be unsurprised to realise that it has notes:

“506,222 views 7 Apr 2025 #asmr #sleep

soft spoken assessing as you sit still

• palpation of the cervical, thoracic, lumbar spine

• testing your nerves

• checking for slipped discs

• ligament and muscle touching

• movement camera tilting

• reflexes testing

• cranial nerve exam

• neurological exam

• video to sleep

*My content is for entertainment purposes and should not be taken as actual medical/beauty advice. I am acting and not a professional.

#asmr #sleep”

Fortunately, not the great long tortuous notes which we sometimes come across.

Comments are permitted and given this is a professional ASMR artist, it is unsurprising that they are predominantly positive. That just seems to be how it goes with professional ASMR artists.

There is no startup music, thankfully. There are however equipment noises, paper noises, clothing rustling noises, scribbling noises, noises from the donning of gloves, noises from spraying, quite loud blood pressure cuff sounds.

It is not the most whispery presentation I have heard and as we would expect, the voice is excellent. It occasionally descends into breathy. None of this is obtrusive or excessive. In fact, I think asmr august is worthy of a future visit.

Recently, I have been finding that the playlist just is not working for me at all. In fact, several nights I find that I sit in front of the television until finally sleep comes and then it does not seem to last long.

For this reason, I am thinking of waging war on the playlist to ensure that only the highest quality items remain in there.

Today’s blog item comes from an area that is well-established in this blog now, that of eye-related examinations.

Qpercom presents Observe in Action: Eye Exam OSCE Station

It is five and a quarter minutes long and bravely supports comments, a number of which (as we have come to expect) are critical. The Internet, and more particularly YouTube, generating a number of experts who know much more than the ones who actually create content.

It’s a professional video and so, as we would expect, it has notes: “24,624 views  23 May 2013

Homepage

This video demonstrates how examiners use Qpercom Observe to assess medical students during an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). For further information or to schedule a demonstration at your institution please visit http://www.qpercom.com

Contact:

Tel: +353 91395416

info@qpercom.com

What is an OSCE exam?: https://www.qpercom.com/what-is-an-os…”

In case you are interested that final URL is: https://www.qpercom.com/what-is-an-osce-exam/ which should help clarify an OSCE for those (like me) who have not been exposed to one.

It starts without music, which is fantastic., However there is a sound like a football whistle at the start which is most disconcerting. The medical professional announces herself as “Elaine” (possibly misspelled). The patient is “Francis”. Both participants appear to have Irish accents. In fact, the voices here are the true highlight. Both are very relaxing to listen to.

People wander across the camera. Hopefully no one will actually be watching though but lying there listening and trying to get some rest. There is the constant background hum (almost certainly air conditioning) – we’re getting used to this. There is then a further whistle sound after the initial examination concludes (about 3:35 on the playing time).

I often complain that a bit of editing would make some videos perfect and so again here. Eliminating that damn whistle would be a true asset.

The second part of the video is intended to be a contrast with Dr Macdonald the medical professional (again, this may well be misspelled).

Despite the fact that this is supposed to be a bad exam, it is equally good sound wise. Immediately afterwards, there is yet another whistle sound.

I have a feeling despite the great presentation this extra whistle noises are going to consign this to the archive list at some point in the future.

The participants are documented. The “Patient” who announces himself as Francis is in fact Michael Browne. Elain Loughlin is the first medical professional and Niamh Mc Donnell the second.

The channel is Qpercom and it has thirty eight videos, and most of these do not appear to be that useful from our perspective.

There is one playlist QPC https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy-XOfRwSfY6II-w_4sDlCl4kPmWEgFMu

Which seems to focus on videos that are not useful for ASMR (eight of them). It appears to be a collection of videos to sell the Qpercom product. Good for them, not so useful for us (particularly as it seems to feature a great deal of enlivening music, the last thing that you want when trying to get to sleep).

Therefore, in this case I think it best to restrict myself to videos in which there is actually some kind of medical examination taking place. This restricts those that are available (and those available are short, in terms of duration).

Of these, we have:

Qpercom Basic Life support

One- and three-quarter minutes and sadly it starts up with that whistle noise again. Otherwise, there is an ongoing background noise (a low hum which could well be air conditioning). However, if it were not for that whistle noise it would be great for our purposes. Then they commit the offence of repeating the whistle noise – twice at the end. I will trial it in the Procrastination Pen playlist but I’m pretty clear that if it becomes irritating, it is going in the archive.

Qpercom Basic Life Support- Short

Only forty-five seconds surely this time they cannot be including a blasted whistle noise. Oh but they do. It is basically a cut down of the one featured just previously and all of the comments above for that one apply here as well. Although at least there is only one whistle noise in this one.

Qpercom presents Observe in Action: Breaking Bad News OSCE Station

A little over nine minutes, but that gives time for the initial whistle noise again. There is a small background noise (a hiss). It is quite muted, the voices of both participants are excellent. Without the whistle this would probably be premier class.

There are further whistles as there is a transition between participants. And just to round it off a further whistle noise.

Qpercom presents Observe in Action: Handwashing OSCE Station

Just less than two and a half minutes. The whistle noise as expected, and a lot of noise which I think is the sound of running water hitting the bottom of a stainless-steel sink. There are equipment noises and a whistle noise as there is a transition between presenters. To conclude another whistle noise.

I notice the credits refer to NUI Galway, as expected this has a YouTube channel it has 1.2K videos and 5.51K subscribers, but history tells us that the videos will be about promoting the University (quite rightly) so I will not be investigating that any further.

Qpercom presents Observe in Action: BMI OSCE Station

A bit less than seven and a half minutes. Comments are of course critical. There is that whistle noise again but otherwise it is calm. Again, the voices of the participants are excellent, if only the whistle wasn’t included. There is another whistle as we transition between presenters (roughly half way through the video). A further whistle noise at the end.

Really the whistle noises ruin what is otherwise a good experience.

Qpercom presents Observe in Action: An electronic OSCE Solution

A little less than five and three quarter minutes and the last possible candidate on the site I can currently find. None of these have been ideal, with the whistle noises, and this one has additional noises from a slamming door and a very echoey track. Presumably the action was filmed in a large space with minimal sound deadening in place.

I’m going to run them in the Procrastination Pen playlist but only because the voices of the participants are great. The additional noises distract from the experience and, to be fair, it will probably result in all of them hitting the archive list before too long. However, you will get the time to review them before it does so…

The Qpercom 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.

Photo by DeepAI

Sleeping With ASMR

Someone recently bemoaned the decline in evening classes. That back in the 1970s, people would come home from work, head off to a local college and learn to throw pots or paint by watercolours and this now seemed to be a declining art. I am not certain about the statistics, but the account at least seems believable.

There now seems to be this perception that any personal time needs to be snatched from sleep, from lunchtime, or from that ever so useful time originally given over to thinking.

Perhaps, when the engine is running at 6000 revs, then it is hard to let it slow down again to idle, and maybe there we find the current fascination for sleep.

In any case, the Procrastination Pen exists to try to look at sleep. Mainly from the approach that you distract that busy mind through restful background noise.

For a while now, I have been giving the odd recommendation from Calm. I’m not paid by them and I realise that you have to pay a subscription in order to listen. The advantage for me is that you then do not have to put up with the loud and obtrusive advertising that populates the intervals between YouTube videos.

I have seen that it is now possible to pay for an advertising-free experience on YouTube and I have been considering it. However, this would mean that my recommendations would be in ignorance of the reality for most, which is that just after a nice peaceful video something loud and distracting will kick in. There seems to be no allowance for the fact that it is 3am and no consideration that if the video you just listened to is peaceful, why would you want an advert based upon Monsters of Rock circa 1985 to follow it.

Anyway, here is today’s Calm recommendation:

Daily Calm

Interruptions

NARRATOR

Tamara Levitt

AUTHOR

Tamara Levitt

https://www.calm.com/app/player/8szz-qSorG

I like Tamara’s voice and this one is about interruptions and how to deal with them, which I think is likely to be relevant for everyone. If you have access to a Calm subscription why not take a listen. It is a little over ten minutes in length.

I was listening to a video this week as part of the stuff I have to keep up with. It is not medical and so I won’t be listing it in any playlist, but I contend that the voice is just excellent.

Three Decades in Kernelland – Jonathan Corbet, LWN.net

If this is of any interest you might want to give it a review. It is also squarely an “inadvertent” video as it is plainly not designed to be relaxing…

I have been, recently, evaluating a professional ASMR artist in these articles, rather as a counterfoil to the inadvertent ASMR material that I prefer.

YouTube have now decided that as I took a moment to review a steampunk-related ASMR video, now I am the world’s greatest steampunk fan and my usual set of suggestions based upon medical themes have now all got a definite sci-fi tinge to them.

Hey I can live with that. Hence although this week’s professional ASMR review is definitely medical, it is “not as we know it – captain”.

It comes to us from Dreamscape ASMR who most definitely does not need any promotion. The channel has 406K subscribers with one hundred videos and five playlists. This number of subscribers for that output shows a surprising level of efficiency. I am guessing something must be going very right.

The video is this one:

Taking Care of You When You’re Sick 🤒 SCI-FI SOLARPUNK ASMR ☀️ [Unusual Remedies, Deep Resonance]

It is a shorter than I have reviewed of late given that it is a little over twenty-six and a quarter minutes. There are a mountain of comments in the usual ASMR professional adulation mode. I wish I had whatever ASMR artists have…

the notes have the habitual level of self-promotion, so I’ve chopped them a little, the edited highlights are:

“1,286,378 views 4 May 2024 #cinematicasmr #ASMR #asmrroleplay

NO MUSIC VERSION:    • Taking Care of You When You’re Sick 🤒 SCI-… 

You find yourself battling a mysterious illness, one that manifests in an array of strange symptoms—like chromatic sweats, haptic hallucinations, and polarized vision. The city hospital dismissed your case as spring allergies…But I know it’s something more serious than that. After exhaustive research and numerous tests, I’ve begun to suspect that your condition might be a rare sensitivity to the recent solar flares. Here, in the quietness of my eco-friendly sanctuary, I will care for you. Using my scientific expertise, I am committed to unravelling the mystery of your illness and developing effective remedies. You are the most important person in my life, and I will keep you close—watching over you with unwavering vigilance—until we uncover the truth behind these unusual symptoms.

…

I hope you enjoy the ambience section at the end! I love when there’s at least 10 minutes of nothing important happening in ASMR videos so I can actually fall asleep. Scratchy pencil sounds are one of my favourites 🙂

–DREAM”

Even edited that is a healthy set of notes I’m sure you agree.

It starts with music – which is not great – and the music continues during the speech – even less great. I wasn’t taken by the voice to start with (obviously the only person, given the in excess of one million views). I did like the setting but I was less keen on some of the attendant noises, beeps, strange sci-fi related echoes. I did like the running water noises but, for me, it is always about the voice and I wasn’t as enthralled as all of those one million listeners.

I am not as bothered by paper-folding noises, and definitely not keen on the buzzes and hums that were designed to make the sci-fi atmosphere authentic. Of course there are the noises from objects being moved, objects being opened and closed, but there were also artificial voice sounds (which I wasn’t keen on).

I got the feeling that this was a more visual-orientated experience than the title would indicate. For me ASMR is about the sound. By about half way I was looking to do something else which is not a great sign in itself.

So this one is not for me, but over one and a quarter million viewers disagree so why not give it a try.

Moving on to the part of the blog that started the review process all those months ago, the locating of and the review of inadvertent ASMR videos and, to date, this has mainly consisted of videos on a medical theme.

As the weeding process of videos that do not stand the test of time in the Procrastination Pen playlist of ASMR videos, I am finding that I do not share the taste of some sites that exist to curate ASMR videos.

There seem to be videos which are considered good ASMR but which contain loud noises from equipment, distracting background noises, or strange interruptions from people, equipment or even animals.

I don’t think that such videos really belong in a playlist which is designed to provide the background to a person’s sleep time and so, I have been dispatching such videos to the archive list whether they receive a recommendation or not. At the moment I seem to be weeding the average of one video per week in this fashion.

The implication of which is that I had better keep generating more blog posts or that playlist will become so short it will be barely worthy of the name.

For today’s video we are back to an old favourite. She does not have the world’s best ASMR voice, that could easily be someone like Hollie Berry, it is a little too loud for a start. However, I do like her style of delivery and some of her videos have stood the test of time in the Procrastination Pen playlist.

The video is this one:

Eye Examination 2

It has notes which are thankfully brief: “151,236 views  17 Oct 2015

Jessica Nishikawa demonstrates common components of the eye examination. Subscribe at    / jessicanishikawa 

Follow Twitter @JessNishi”

It has comments and some of those comments are from ASMR fans, so with any luck we should be on solid ground here.

The video is a little under four minutes so hardly there at all really. (Lot’s more space for loud and off-putting YouTube adverts (grrr)).

It starts quietly and completely without any startup music. (Heaven be praised).

There is no concluding music, which is no less miraculous. In fact, this little video is more or less ideal.

For regular readers you will have spotted that this is Jessica Nishikawa and of course that is also the name of the channel.

Whenever I review a video from a channel which has multiple videos (this has twenty-six of them at today’s date). I look to see if there are other videos on that channel that could also be useful in terms of ASMR/sleep promotion.

In this case we have a video which is Eye Examination 2 which pre-supposes the existence of a Eye Examination 1 video to match it (and if we are luck 3, 4,5 and so on).

In this case we are not lucky. There is just one other video in the Eye examination series and it is this one:

Eye Examination

This too has notes: “22,511 views  11 Oct 2015

Jessica Nishikawa demonstrates common components of the eye examination. Subscribe at    / jessicanishikawa. Follow on Twitter @JessNishi”

Again, some comments from ASMR fans, so this could be a good thing.

The video is a little over four and a half minutes and there is no introductory music. There is, however, the air conditioning from hell. it is as if the microphone is under the air conditioning outlet. We have encountered this before and it makes for very distracting listening. As if in compensation Jessica is raising her voice here quite a bit more than in the previous video.

Thankfully, there are no equipment noises, and after a brief delay the person recording must have cottoned onto the fact that the background noise is oppressive because the recording volume suddenly decreases. Would that there was an air conditioning sound filter and that it had been applied.

In deference to the fact that this is the only extraneous noise, I am going to trail this one in the procrastination Pen playlist. However, I do not have high hopes that it will persist there for very long.

The Jessica Nishikawa 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 post why not subscribe to this blog.

Until next time.

Photo by DeepAI

Sleeping With ASMR

Unfortunately, the available time for writing articles is shrinking. So I have the benefit now of being fully aware what it is to be under stress and to find that there is little time, post work, for the stress level to abate, before it’s time to close the eyes.

Life did not come with an off switch, and I have not yet developed the mental discipline to force the mind into quiescence against its will, as it were.

Still, this does mean that I can tell you that some nights, no amount of ASMR is going to help. You may have to take refuge in a Nytol or similar, and allow for the fact that you’re going to feel like a hibernating bear in the morning.

In which case, you have my sympathies.

For all those other occasions, can I suggest the Procrastination Pen playlist. If that does not work, by all means, feedback.

I was recently reading about the beneficial effects of certain mind-expanding mushrooms but personally I am way too cowardly to try them. Assuming I even knew where to buy such things. I assume I’m not going to find them in Tescos any day soon. Whether, as a result of all that mind expanding, you also can work out how to step through the doorway to sleep on demand was not made clear. However, if it were a reliable outcome there are some evenings I would be sorely tempted…

Today, again, I am making recommendation from Calm. Given a subscription is required, I am not certain just how useful to you this kind of recommendation is. If you find that such recommendations simply remind you of your impecunious circumstances, do feedback. The feedback is free, of course, and I will try to accommodate reasonable (or potentially unreasonable) requests dependent upon what they are.

Daily Jay

Chase the Future You

NARRATOR

Jay Shetty

https://www.calm.com/app/player/Ga3PYvH2pG

This is about role models and whether you are able to be one. I find Jay Shetty to be very good at inspirational material. Perhaps, though it isn’t always as great as Tamara Levitt in terms of calming. If you already have a Calm subscription, give it a try.

I have been, recently, evaluating a professional ASMR artist in these articles. I tend to be quite tough on them because they are professional ASMR artists. Where I would give latitude to an inadvertent ASMR video, I will not do so when the video is set up to have ASMR content. So far, I have found that many of the problems I find with inadvertent ASMR videos I also find in professional ASMR videos, and I wonder why this is the case. I also wonder if other people have noted the same thing. Please feedback about your own listening and preferences and what you find are the high points/low points of the current professional ASMR video offering.

Today’s selected professional ASMR video is this one:

The Steampunk Orthopaedist | ASMR Roleplay (medical exam, adjustments, personal attention)

It is just shy of thirty-four minutes in length and given it is from a professional ASMR artist it has notes (with the inevitable self-promotional material). Here is a brief extract: “293,422 views 7 Sept 2025

Welcome to a new doctor’s office! Tonight, we will be examining and treating your shoulder, arm and wrist using both classic and more unusual tools.

No music / no intro version:    • No music | The Steampunk Orthopaedist | AS… 

This video includes lots of personal attention, fabric sounds, unintelligible whispers and writing sounds.

Disclaimer:

This video was created for relaxation / entertainment only. For any serious trouble with sleep, stress etc., please consult your physician.

For more information about ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response), please have a look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonom…”

I rather like the disclaimer. I cannot remember seeing anything similar before.

It is from a well-seasoned channel Moonlight Cottage ASMR with 1.49M subscribers, one hundred and thirty-nine videos, sixteen playlists. I can declare straight away that in the past I have spent quite a while listening to videos from this channel and generally quite liking what I was listening to.

No doubt I will feature the odd-one in the future. That bias declaration out of the way let’s evaluate what this offering is like.

It starts with music which has shades of the Harry Potter about it, or maybe Bucks Fizz circa 1981. You know by now that I do not like startup music. As they go, this one is not the most disturbing I have come across. The video incorporates equipment noises, knocks, rattles, vibrations, paper noises, scribbling noises, rustling noises, clicking noises. These are not my preferred content for a video, but, no doubt, there is an ASMR fan out there that laps up this kind of material.

The voice is very good and for once (mostly) avoids whispering. I find the less whispering, the more believable, but perhaps the more whispering the better the ASMR effect…

That is not to say the voice is not intonated quietly. But then this is what we came here for.

The accent is interesting. I’m not sure where it is from but a quick browse tells me that it is France. I do like the sound and I’m sure I am not the only one. As expected, there are comments, equally expected they are nearly all in paroxysms of adulation over the video. (ASMR artists seem unique in holding at bay the darker comments I otherwise see on YouTube). I am not as easily impressed, but pretty close.

I do like the inclusion of the tuning fork. I’m sure there will be some who disagree. Habitually I am all about the voice, and I would say this is a good one. There has to be a reason for that high number of subscribers after all.

There are various beep noises from steampunk equipment and clunks from heavy objects being moved, none of which I find particularly welcome. No doubt it makes the situation authentic and that was the reason behind including noises of this kind.

If you are watching the video (say you were reading this blog and you’re not ready for bed yet) you will find that the presentation is amazing in its care and detail. Moonlight Cottage ASMR could otherwise double as a film set, every aspect is so carefully prepared. This puts many a video filmed from someone’s sofa to shame.

The steampunk era equipment (for that is where the video purports to be from) is very believable. The layout of the room very minutely detailed to present the theme of a mythical time when all medical procedures were somewhat different than we would expect today.

It was so peaceful in fact that together with the absence of any tail end music (heaven be praised), I had a nasty surprise at the YouTube advert which came up immediately afterwards.

I would say that this one is well worth a review yourself.

After a period of listening to the Procrastination Pen playlist I find that it is easy to get certain favourites in terms of videos and to disregard the others. The temptation is to keep only those few and dispatch the others. However, I suspect if I followed that philosophy after a while, listening to the playlist would be very dull indeed with the same few videos repeating over and over again.

The defence against this seems to be to continue to discover restful videos and to add them to the Procrastination Pen playlist, such that each night time’s playing brings a fresh surprise.

Today, we are back with a channel that we have reviewed before and it seems to consistently bring up restful videos. It is quite likely therefore that we will be back here again in the future.

The video is this one:

Approach to Nevi (Moles) – Stanford Medicine 25

and it is quite a short one at just over four- and three-quarter minutes. It is a professional video rather than, say, a student assessment video as such it has notes: “65,987 views  22 Jan 2016

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

Related webpage: http://stanfordmedicine25.stanford.ed…”

(The notes are considerably longer than this, but I have edited them for length. I doubt you will be interested in spending an extensive period reading notes).

The related webpage is this one.

This informs us that the medical professional in the video is Jennifer Chen there appears no record of who the “patient” in this video is.

The video starts with more than one incidence of music which, as usual, is somewhat unwelcome, but at least it is somewhat muted. Jennifer has a good voice for our purposes but her voice is consistently accompanied by that music. I still have no idea why people recording videos do this, it is distracting.

The video ends with yet more music.

The channel, which regular readers will probably already be aware, is Stanford Medicine 25.

This has eighty-eight videos on the day that I am checking it. The video that we looked at above is the first of a playlist called “Stanford Medicine 25: Dermatology” https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE6bR3gooUQvSTs1iQuK6T5eyMTMf2kWl

This contains four videos and we have already reviewed the first one, so let’s cover the remaining three.

Diagnosing Acne vs. Rosacea (Stanford Medicine 25)

A sample of the notes is: “123,974 views 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 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.”

The video is just over three minutes and stars Dr Chen again (the “patient” is not introduced). These videos are certainly fond of their background music, but in this case, Jennifer’s voice seems completely drowned out by it. This is a shame as it is almost the opposite of what we would like to hear. The balance between music and voice is completely off (assuming anyone wanted the music at all). It would have been preferable to delete the background music altogether and just to have Jennifer’s voice here.

Approach to the Dermatology Exam (Stanford Medicine 25)

An extract from the notes is: “154,988 views 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.”

This one is just less than eight minutes in length.

Comments are permitted and as expected they are somewhat variable, with limited contributions which add very much. There seem to be no comments that are feeding back from ASMR fans and given ASMR fans are like a squirrel in a hazelnut store when it comes to ASMR videos, this may not be a great sign.

Again, with the music, sigh. This time our medical expert is Dr Justin Ko. He is again in competition with ongoing background music. On the plus side he has a good voice – well paced in presentation, nice and calm. On the downside, at intervals, the music wins the competition. Please stop doing this Stanford.

The subject matter is quite off-putting. I can’t imagine skin conditions becoming top of the pops on any ASMR review. I certainly recommend that you don’t spend time watching this video, but only listen to it.

Some of the featured images are so unpleasant that I think, despite the quality of Dr Ko’s voice, this one cannot make it into the playlist. Too many people listening are likely to find it disturbing material, I think.

Approach to Multiple Rashes (Stanford Medicine 25)

This video is a bit over four and a half minutes. The (abbreviated) notes state: “57,958 views 22 Jan 2016

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

The comments do not lead us to suspect that ASMR fans have adopted this one (that might not be good for us). The now expected music at the start and, again, it continues as the medical professional is talking. Bernice Kwong who it turns out has a nice gentle voice (at least in this video).

Had the background music desisted, this could well have been a very good video indeed. There is again the finishing music. I am left with the sense that this set of videos could have been so much better without that music. I’ll trial them in the Procrastination Pen playlist, but I have a suspicion that they are going to get weeded in the future.

The Stanford Medicine 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.

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

I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.

Until next time.

Photo by DeepAI

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

Exploring YouTube, as I do now several times a week, leads to many random dead ends. Let’s face it, when faced with a screen full of prospective videos, I am looking at a thumbnail of each video and making a guess as to what the video will sound like for any ASMR fans out there that are reading this blog. Which of the many videos might be relaxing for a person, like myself, seeking more sleep than they currently achieve.

I am not that successful. For every video you have seen, there are many dozens with off-putting noises, strange sequences or that my suspicious senses kick off – thinking that, in fact, they were generated by a professional ASMR artist.

Of those I have evaluated, a subset get into the Procrastination Pen playlist. Sadly after a period of listening, quite a few of those subsequently get archived because they just don’t turn out to be that appealing in the long run.

It is therefore no surprise that once a good video is located by ASMR fans on YouTube a loyal following develops. In some cases, once videos are taken down, ASMR fans recover the video and repost it on their own channel.

(Much as I applaud this from the viewpoint of video availability, it is fraught with risk – out there are some hungry copyright solicitors and they, I am certain, would love to spot infringements of copyright and gain any fees due as a consequence).

Today’s video does not permit comments. From the perspective of defraying the Internet trolls this is jolly good news. However, it does not assist me in determining if ASMR afficionados have found this one already. In most cases, I assume they have. ASMR fans are substantially faster than I am at discovering new content.

The video is this one:

Neuro exam 2

It is just shy of ten minutes, so not terrible in length in terms of a medical examination video. There are no notes, so I suspect an amateur, rather than a professionally, produced video. It starts a bit loud, and straight away we get the impression this is another of those videos produced on a course required as part of a student’s assessment.

That said, background noise is negligible, the volume is not terrible (other than the occasional clang of equipment which is normal in terms of such videos.

Sadly, it is in portrait mode. I assume because it is filmed on a mobile phone but this will not be a problem because you’ll be listening rather than watching.

My viewing was constantly interposed by adverts at an inappropriate level of volume (which seems to be YouTube’s latest thing). I have no hatred of the adverts as such, but if I’m watching a video for ASMR content, an advert some levels of volume louder than the video seems a very bad idea.

But I digress. The pace of the video is slow and the level of speaking is (mostly) quiet. The scene is in a medical room but there are no clues as to where. At intervals there are other people talking in the background which is quite common in this type of video as well.

As we have seen before participants find it hard to take the process seriously and this is also the case here with laughter on occasion (on other occasions obvious boredom).

Someone interrupts the video at one stage (also a hazard in these videos) by knocking on the door. The BBC doesn’t seem to be challenged in this way…

The channel is Anna Cason.

I’ll assume that Anna was the medical professional and given it was posted earlier this year, may well still be on the course that it is a requirement for.

The channel has fourteen videos and no playlists. That is a fair few for one blog item and it looks like the current participant is the favourite “patient” as she appears in the majority of them. So I can’t go for my much used method of only reviewing videos with the same medical professional or same “patient”.

So I’ll go through all of the videos in the channel (as at today’s date anyway). If you haven’t the time for such a lengthy post, scroll to the end and the playlist will be waiting there for you. Hop over to YouTube – click the shuffle function – lie back and drift off to sleep (well in theory at least). Please let me have any feedback (such as favourite videos you’d like including).

The next video is this one:

Peripheral vascular exam 2

I think the patient introduces herself as “Emma Hilt” but it could probably be anything as it passes in a real rush. April 16th 2002 is her DoB, not that it is relevant in checking if this is a genuine medical video.

This video is short at just under three and a half minutes. Again, there is a comforting lack of background noise. No notes, Emma (I’ll assume that is her name) yawns frequently throughout so it obviously isn’t the most compelling thing she has on that day.

There are more equipment noises – I guess quiet equipment just isn’t a priority. Either that or medical professionals are more interested in moving equipment around quickly rather than doing so quietly, which seems a sensible choice.

The next video is this one:

Bedside assessment

This is just over six and a half minutes

I think that Emma tells us that she is at nursing school (although I have no idea which one). She seems either very bored or she’s getting even less sleep than I habitually do. There are conversation noises from adjacent rooms (although it isn’t excessively loud).

There are more equipment noises but mostly a very measured examination.

Nose mouth throat exam

These videos are remarkably consistent given they are produced as part of a student assessment. This, has more laughter and, to me, a more obvious set of air conditioning noises. But at least it lacks the conversation from adjacent rooms. Emma still seems utterly bored. Perhaps she has in mind her own set of videos, yet to be filmed, for the same course.

Hearing exam

The same two participants in what is quite a short video at just over three and a half minutes. No notes and no comments. Background noise, now seems to be a companion – which is something that we are used to of course.

Eye exam

This is almost identical with the previous ones apart from noises relating to what I assume are messages arriving on a mobile phone (perhaps the one being used to do the filming). It is just over four and a half minutes in length. There are air conditioning noises, general amusement in places and utter boredom for the “patient”. It is feasible that these were all filmed at one time and that the process was just a tad wearing.

At one stage Anna forgets her medical terminology and one gets the feeling it’s all getting a bit tiresome for them.

Skin, hair, nails exam

Anna forgets which video she is supposed to be filming. Emma announces she has “KP” which I had to look up.

KP: Keratosis Pilaris painless bumps on the skins – a long term condition.

Anna again forgets where she is going and then gets very loud, perhaps to block out the conversation from an adjacent room. There is a thudding sound at one stage almost as if someone were tapping the phone that is doing the filming.

Abdominal exam

The same participants this video is just under four and three quarter minutes. Background conversation noises are there from the outset and air conditioning is really getting into its stride. Anna sounds fed up with the process already.

Emma states that she has IBS.

IBS Irritable Bowel Syndrome a lifelong condition affecting the gut which can be controlled but not cured.

Anna is again amused at intervals.

The phone is relocated part way through with associated clanging noises. Presumably equipment was kicked at the same time. Anna forgets what she is supposed to say but the approach to the examination is quiet.

It’s quite unusual to see one of these videos in which the person participating seems quite stuck. However, I don’t think this impacts the ASMR-i-ness as such.

There seems to be equipment missing (perhaps a hammer) which is reminiscent of the student who used canteen equipment to film one of these videos. Anna just uses her finger.

Peripheral vascular exam

The same participants feature again, the video is five minutes ten seconds long. If all of these videos were filmed in one session, I assume it took the two of them a very long time. Anna has problems getting through the door initially so there is a loud bang at the start. There is background conversation from an adjacent room and at stages it continues quite loudly. Air conditioning has now fully established itself and is working on becoming a session musician.

Anna forgets what she intends to say (but at least we are fully aware that she is not following notes off screen).

More message noises are heard from the phone being used to film this. There are more equipment noises and Anna is again amused by the parts that are going wrong (mainly where she forgets terminology).

Cardiac assessment

We’re in the swing of this now and all the same symptoms are in this one that were in all the previous ones. The level of background noise merely differs.

Just over five and a quarter minutes so not long. It follows the exact same theme as those we have seen previously. The start is quite stumbly as if Anna is finding her way through it. It remains quiet though apart from overheard nearby conversations and the low roar of air conditioning, which is constant.

I think Anna’s voice is actually improving as we go on and if some of those niggling additional noises were dispatched this could have been a really great video. In any case I’m intending to trial these in the Procrastination Pen playlist with the understanding that some or all may ultimately get dispatched to the archive.

Lungs and thorax assessment

This is approaching six minutes which feels long in comparison to some of the others but for the videos we commonly see is still a short video.

We’re used to the intro now as it runs through exactly the same set of sentences each time. The examination itself though differs (fortunately for us).

Anna appears to be struggling to remember some specific terminology (unclear what). There are noises of doors opening in adjacent rooms so it is feasible that other students are filming vastly similar videos for their courses in the rooms next door to this one.

Overall, though, a good video for the Procrastination Pen playlist I think.

Head, Face, Neck Assessment

Here, Emma is wearing some kind of identity badge which one would hope would give us the institution involved. Sadly, it is too tiny for me to read so it remains a mystery. Just under four and a half minutes, so a short one in terms of this set and the last one in which Anna and Emma appear together.

It seems to start a bit louder than previously and the air conditioning is ever present (or I’m getting tired by now).

However, to have produced this number of videos in such a short period is quite a piece of work.

Definition:

Crepitus – noise when moving a joint

Does anyone not have this?

Neurological exam at home assessment

Anna now has a new “patient”. Michael Atkis (I think) DoB. 02-12-03 (December in case there are any US readers). This, as expected, changes the sound profile markedly as Michael has a much deeper voice than Emma.

However, he does not get to talk a great deal.

The background air conditioning now sounds like it is aiming for some kind of award and the extraneous background talking noises are now quite pronounced.

Michael tells us that we are at “college of nursing” I think – it’s hard to discern. But I cannot make out where that would be.

This is over seven minutes in length. Again, Anna is a bit tentative, apparently as she forgets some terminology.

Having seen this examination done professionally by Vicki Scott we have been a bit spoiled; I think. This one is a bit more filled with humour – especially as Anna forgets the content she needs to perform.

Musculoskeletal home assessment video

the last one in this set and this has been a rather long post for which I apologise. Anna returns with Michael. Almost identical to the previous one in terms of sound – maybe more noise from the next-door room than previously.

Just under seven minutes so only slightly different in length to the previous one. Anna laughs quite a bit in this one too.

Very loud equipment noises in this, I jumped at one stage because I was listening rather than watching the screen.

The Anna Cason 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 Christian Krebel on Unsplash