Sleeping With ASMR

At the point of writing, I am now four months ahead in terms of written blog articles to those that I have managed to post. One of the aspects of this is that I notice a lot about the dynamic nature of YouTube and the problems with rendering something which is static (i.e. a blog) to cover something that is changing all the time.

Recently as I came to review an article ready to post it, I discovered that the entire channel it had been based upon had been removed. A search of the video titles in that article though revealed that other channels were now hosting the self-same videos. So, whilst the blog article could still be written, the nature of it had changed. Playlists were gone, the channels had changed. The idea of coming back for future reviews was dispensed with.

I fear therefore that even as I publish blog posts they are sliding into the past, referring to places, channels, playlists, even people who are no longer present.

I apologise if you find one of my posts which refers to empty space. I know that all the blog writing guidance indicates that a blog article is the shop window into my site and that it should be polished and up to the minute. Elegantly researched, delicately presented, ruthlessly targeted and so on.

Mine is not going to achieve such pinnacles of God-like wonderment.

If you like it, I hope that you stick around and read some more.

If you don’t like it, then I am continually surprised at the many millions of blogs that do exist and the breadth of content that they represent. I hope that one of those alternative blogs will be a good fit for you.

Occasionally I come across blogs that are interesting (to me) and I will flag them. In just the same way that I am flagging video content from YouTube. Perhaps someone happening across this blog on their journey through the Internet may even find it useful.

Today’s video is from a channel that we have explored a great deal. It again features a very young person. And reinforces the view (I think) that people are much more careful in their handling of the small person in comparison to the fully fledged large person.

This leads me to suspect that videos featuring small people could, potentially be a source of material for this blog. It is not as if age of the “patient” will be obvious when you are trying to get to sleep the as you will be listening rather than watching, however the attitude of the medical professional is, it seems, more likely to be gentle.

Head and Neck-Jasmine

Here we have a medical professional Jasmine who is dealing with someone who is quite early in life. I am terrifically poor at estimating ages but I’ll make a guess at four or possibly five (earlier would not surprise me, much later probably would).

The video is twelve minutes-ish so a pretty standard length for videos we have covered recently. I believe the small person to be called David and David could probably win awards for the best voice heard recently.

The medical professional is a little loud to begin with (which ruins my theory about dealing with young people).

David remains quiet, perhaps I should have been focusing on him rather than Jasmine in this case.

The video quality is towards the fuzzy end of focused, read 1980s straight-to-video kind of quality. However, as you will be listening rather than watching, I doubt that this will bother you that much.

The setting is domestic. There is a large display unit in shot and the two participants appear to be using what appears to be dining room chairs for the examination. This strikes me very much along the line of student videos that we have seen of late.

The channel is one well known to us now which is MGA nursing – we’ve visited here a few occasions now and it remains a source of videos (if not the best ASMR videos we have encountered so far which I still contend is Hollie Berry.

We have established the protocol that once we browse MGA nursing, all other videos by the participants are fair game.

This is confounded in this case because Jasmine, and indeed David, feature in only one video on MGA Nursing and it is the one just covered.

I think therefore it is sensible to make this a short blog post and you can swiftly get back to the thousand things that need doing.

I hope you’ll come back and read the next one.

The MGA Nursing 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 Yerlin Matu on Unsplash

Sleeping With ASMR

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

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

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

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

Paediatric Clinical Examinations – The Abdomen

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

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

“30 Jul 2014

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

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

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

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

Filmed & Edited by Carl Vivian

Written & Produced by Elaine Carter”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paediatric Clinical Examinations – The Respiratory System

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

Again, there are notes: “30 Jul 2014

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

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

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

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

Filmed & Edited by Carl Vivian

Written & produced by Elaine Carter”

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

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

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

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

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

That’s it for this time.

The University of Leicester playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:

The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:

I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.

The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:

I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by Mikhail Tyrsyna on Unsplash

Sleeping With ASMR

Welcome reader, I hope that you enjoy this week’s item. You may well be aware how this blog works but, just in case, here is a bit of background.

Each week I am trying to add to a (what is now quite long) playlist on YouTube. Some time ago, I discovered that I was one of the lucky people who could feel ASMR effects. I also found that I wasn’t alone.

I also discovered that ASMR can help when you’re suffering with sleeplessness. I also found that a number of people suffer with sleeplessness.

If you are not one of the people who are blessed to feel ASMR, then I am hopeful that the fact I seek out YouTube videos which are quiet and restful will be helpful even so. If you lie awake at night, subscribing to the Procrastination Pen playlist on YouTube might be one of the things that you can use for relief.

I seek out videos that are not designed for ASMR (mostly medical videos). I review them for their efficacy and add them to the playlist if they are up to a standard. I then continue reviewing them, by listening to that playlist, night after night. Those that prove to be less effective I weed out to the archive list.

In this way I hope to ensure that the quality of the Procrastination Pen playlist remains high. (Although I am always happy to receive feedback).

This week, a blog item which is a legacy from my previous work in finding medical examination videos. Initially I came across the channel MDforAll when attempting to cover the feedback “Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”. The channel has sixty-seven videos but sadly no playlists. Most of the videos are very short indeed at a minute or less.

Without a playlist it is hard to narrow these down in any meaningful way. However, on scanning them I found that by far the majority are in lecture mode. i.e. the person is speaking quite loudly. After a reasonable sampling, I’ve decided to reject any of the shorter videos as they are designed for instruction and there are few (if any) relaxing moments in them.

Of the remaining set, I tried narrowing to a blog post where only one medical professional is involved and found two featuring the same person.

This is the first one:

Pediatrics-Toddler

To start with (in common with other videos on this channel) it is a bit shouty. However, once the medical professional starts interacting with the young person that starts to settle down.

There are no comments and no notes. It is hard to know if any ASMR people have sought this one out already. Although given that ASMR fans seem to be natural video hunters, it is highly likely. The video quality is on the obscure side of fuzzy, such that determining where and when it was filmed is difficult. Although, given the presentation, probably a while before the 2010 posting date.

The child concerned is “Zack” who is probably an adult now and none too pleased that this video of him as a child still exists.

At one point, the video zooms in and we can see that the badge on the uniform of the medical professional refers to the Midwestern University Physician Assistant Program.

This still exists and runs from somewhere called “the Downers Grove Campus”.

Midwestern (of course) has its own channel.

Three hundred and fifteen videos at the date I’m looking at it and twenty-four playlists but none of them seem to be exactly on the same subject as this first video.

There is a possibility that something ASMR-y (official term now) may be found there and if so, it will appear on a future blog post.

The video has at intervals a pronounced background buzz to it which may indicate either its age or the state of technology of recording when it was filmed (videod).

The second video, and the last by the same medical professional on this channel, is this one:

Pediatrics-School Age

As before it starts rather loud, the medical professional appears more used to projecting their voice to an entire classroom. The child concerned is “Jeffrey” (probably misspelled) who is somewhat older than “Zack” above.

Again, there are no notes and no comments so it is going to be hard to identify who the medical professional is. If anyone knows do get in touch and I will list the details in an updated blog post.

The MDforAll playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by Shona Macrae

Father Christmas

This was part of an exercise designed such that you would write about children.

Unfortunately I have very limited experience with children and apparently it showed. My lack of understanding was about the level that children think at.

From my perspective a child has reasonably little awareness of a world outside of their head. My limited understanding stemmed from the way parents treat children.

Parents insist upon holding a child’s hand (because children have no idea an oncoming car can kill them).

Parents tend to keep children close to them (because children can’t survive alone).

Parents escort children everywhere (because children are unable to do anything by themselves).

So I had the impression that prior to a certain age a child’s perspective was skewed by what was inside the child’s head.

The feedback I received was that the story was unrealistic as the child would not be this naïve.

That shows how little I know.

This underlines the idea that you should try to write about things that you know – or do your research well.

After this I’ve pretty well decided that using children as characters is not going to be something that I’m great at. So probably has no future in the things that I write.

The following therefore is probably only of interest in terms of an example of what not to do.

Story

“Can I have a puppy Mummy? Can I? I want a puppy because I don’t have a puppy”.

“Timmy be quiet can’t you see I’m talking?”

Mummy was talking very loud. Mummy is loud if I am naughty. I think the man must have been naughty. I hid behind Mummy’s legs.

Mummy was very upset –the back of her hand went white. My hand hurts when she holds it so tightly.

“Mummy, Mummy let go, I want to play”.

I looked down at my new shoes. The little lights in the sides came on as I was walking. I was stamping my shoes and trying to see the lights come on.

I wondered if the strange man had sweeties. “Hello” I said from behind Mummy’s legs.

The man bent down and looked at me. He was very dirty, he had strange-looking hair with leaves in it.

“Mummy he smells funny”

Mummy pulled my hand suddenly – it really hurt – I was crying. Mummy was talking very loud now.

The man had Mummy’s handbag. Perhaps he wanted to buy me presents? Sometimes Mummy buys me presents when she has that bag.

Mummy said that Father Christmas would come with presents. Perhaps this man was Father Christmas? He had a wrinkly hairy face.

“Mummy has Father Christmas got me a present?”

“Timmy if you don’t shut up I’ll give you a thick ear, understand?”

Mummy took me to see Father Christmas before; he wasn’t like this Father Christmas. When I went to see Father Christmas before he was shiny, red and happy, he didn’t smell like this man.

I saw another Father Christmas in a shop today. Maybe there are lots of Father Christmas’s? Perhaps I get more presents if there are lots of Father Christmas’s?

“I want a present, I want a present”.

Mummy turned around and smacked me. I started crying. I felt hot and tired

Mummy was very angry now; she was really shouting – her arm had gone stiff and my hand was really hurting.

People were standing still watching me. They must have known that I was with Father Christmas.

It was very quiet now. Mummy was not shouting. A shiny car was there; it was white and had funny lights.

The lights on my shoes are red, these lights were blue, they were very high, I watched them go round and round.

A really big man was talking to Mummy. He had very dark clothes on; he was scary. He had a shiny belt on; I was watching the long stick on that belt. Billy has a stick like that; he got it for his birthday. I don’t think I could have played with this stick. Billy has a puppy, it was all floppy and sleepy – I don’t think Father Christmas had my puppy.

The big man put Father Christmas in his shiny car.

“Mummy can I go with Father Christmas?”

“NO Timmy you can’t”.

Mummy didn’t have hold of my hand now. I jumped in next to Father Christmas.

“Father Christmas, can I have a puppy?”

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