Doctor – Page 2 – The Procrastination Pen

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.

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

With articles clamouring about the necessity of getting more sleep to avoid dementia, one can hardly ignore the warnings about insomnia. Get to sleep on time day in day out. Sleep a good eight hours. Do not wake up in the early hours of the morning…

Scant succour to anyone who struggles to get the allotted sleep hours and seems to have an internal clock that wages war against the working day. If you are such a person, welcome. Even if you bounce into bed and fall instantly to sleep, welcome. Perhaps you can provide a contrast to any that are suffering for sleep.

The Procrastination Pen is a resource for those that find ASMR useful as a relaxation aid and potentially a sleep aid as well. For quite a while now it has focused on YouTube as a source of free YouTube videos. Indeed, within YouTube, there are a number of playlists linked to the Procrastination Pen, some of which are designed to assist in this regard.

There is also a weekly article which attempts to find a further video which may prove useful in this respect. This is one such article.

I have also taken out a Calm subscription in the hope that some of the material there might be useful for sleep. (Some of it is helpful, but that doesn’t mean you should all hammer over to the Calm website and lay down your spending loot).

I have also found that a number of audiobooks are helpful if you find yourself lying awake. I personally have enjoyed some of the Miss Marple recordings on CD. This is just because I prefer this approach to a subscription (because I am old). I also am getting tired of the nature of adverts online, in that they have become so intrusive that they now detract from the actual material.

Script blockers are helpful against some of them. A pi-hole (should you be so disposed) can help against others. So far, there is no assistance that I have found with YouTube adverts (I am told that they are incorporated into the stream and so cannot be separated from the videos themselves). However, technology keeps improving so I am certain that someone will crack that problem one of these days…

Meantime, you can subscribe to YouTube if you feel it to be of sufficient value. I’m not sure to what extent it obviates intrusive adverts. One would hope, absolutely.

Alternatively (and I’m sure that it is heavily frowned upon, so I dare not recommend it). I see that certain YouTube downloading softwares will download an entire playlist locally enabling you to bypass the adverts in their entirety. Again, I don’t recommend it. Given it affects a company’s revenue, I can guarantee somebody official in a very expensive suit will be quite upset if I did recommend anything of the sort, so I don’t.

However, if you decide to ignore my advice and download the entire Procrastination Pen playlist, then do feedback what it sounded like and any improvements you would like to hear.

Calm today was very inspirational; it was in fact so energising that I am not clear whether it will be soporific-inducing. I’ll risk it as I rather like Jay Shetty, and I enjoyed the material.

Daily Jay

Chase the Future You

NARRATOR

Jay Shetty

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

If you have a Calm subscription, give it a spin and see what you think.

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

ASMR Head to Toe Exam [Real Person] Medical Assessment | Cranial Nerve, Feet, Scalp, Abdomen Tingles

This is a little less than forty minutes. One thing we have found with professional ASMR artists is that one tends to get a substantial video. This can be great, but sadly sometimes just means that it seems to go on, and on, and on…

KatieASMR is the channel and this has 415K subscribers (which is a fine achievement I’m sure you will agree). Of course, KatieASMR features in the ASMR Index. We can almost take that as a given nowadays. That ASMR Index site seems to do sterling work, this little blog could aspire so high…

The video has notes: “91,191 views 24 Apr 2025 #relax #asmr #asmrvideo

In this video I give Joyce a head-to-toe exam! This real person role play includes soft spoken tingles to help you relax and sleep. Please enjoy and consider being a patron ❤️‍🔥

Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/user?u=80985362

TikTok: / katieasmr00

For Business Inquiries: ilovekatieasmr@gmail.com”

Brave putting an email address down I would have thought, as is the decision to permit comments against the video. That said, professional ASMR artists seem to have great loyalty in the comments department and so here. A definite absence of negative and downright nasty.

Of course, again, the participants are attractive in fact it is so common it is barely worth mentioning. If I come across a video with an unattractive guy in his fifties doing ASMR a) it will probably be me b) the comments will most likely be of a calibre that would dissolve rust.

As usual we find that there is background noise, in this video it is rather loud too. An interesting choice for a professional ASMR video. There are also noises coming from outside of the room, potentially from a nearby road.

As we’ve come to expect the participants are vying towards the whispery style of presentation. I suspect that this makes for great ASMR but poor believability. Although if my GP whispers at me the next time I visit, I will at least know that he reads the Procrastination Pen.

As the video advances the background noise drops off, and we get the time to admire the cute dog who is remarkably quiet. There are various intestinal noises, and I’m not convinced featuring them was intentional. It does however, make the presentation a bit more realistic.

Also realistic is the inability of the “patient” to pass the smell test. I have wondered how people manage to distinguish certain smells when challenged. This just proves the test is not as easy as some other videos would have us believe.

The combing (of hair) section I am now convinced appeals to ASMR aficionados that get their ASMR sensations from the sound that comes from combing hair. I’ve come across it before and it never seems to belong in the video. I therefore think it must be included through popular demand…

Sadly, the video is interposed with adverts which appear to pop in at five-minute intervals and, as usual, YouTube does not seem to be selecting them for their restful content, quite the opposite in fact.

The personal attention, of course, is exact. The pace is more or less perfect. I got to like the whispered approach in this one as well.

Anyway, it is worthy of a review I think. Give it a try and tell me what you think.

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.

This week we are back to a channel that has featured multiple times on this blog here and here and indeed here. It is of course Geeky Medics. The videos so far have featured Dr James Lower and Dr Andrew Pugh.

However, at this point the videos are more recently posted and hence there have been some changes. The first such video is this one:

Peripheral Vascular Examination – OSCE Guide (Latest)

The video notes are all pretty much the same but given some people may not have read those earlier blog posts, I’ll feature the ones associated with this video in precis form, in any case, so that you get an idea:

“444,692 views 14 Jun 2022 Cardiovascular OSCE Guides | UKMLA | CPSA | PLAB | MRCS

This video provides a demonstration of how to perform a peripheral vascular examination in an OSCE station including assessment of key pulses (e.g. radial, brachial, femoral, posterior tibial, dorsalis pedis). Read our guide alongside the video here: https://geekymedics.com/peripheral-va… 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/…”

The startup music on this video is different to that in the videos reviewed in the earlier blog posts. However, it is equally loud and equally unwelcome. The participants seem identical to those in the previous blog posts – I mean in appearance as well as identity. It is as if no time had elapsed between those videos posted some time previously and the more up to date ones featured here. I’ll make a guess that earlier videos have been sampled to create shorter videos focused on a specific subject. Perhaps this is a posting of some left-over older footage.

This video is just over seven minutes in length and so is not huge. However, it is a more substantial video than some we have featured from this channel.

Comments are permitted and we know what that means by now. The commentators are beginning to notice that this pairing has been around for a while. Cue some comments about age and believability. However, surprisingly comments are predominantly positive.

Either there is a great resource of older material which they can keep plundering or James and Andrew are the most diligent pair I’ve encountered in a long time.

Dr Lewis Potter is the founder of Geeky Medics. He is at Newcastle University and it seems sensible therefore to conclude that the filming was completed there. So, we have a where, and a who, but not necessarily a when. However, I think Poirot can safely go back to bed.

There is background noise – I would say it is more the level of a recording hiss than of air conditioning. In my opinion Andrew has the better voice in this one. It is a good voice too (it must be why I keep returning to this channel then).

The examination is calm and well-paced and it takes mere moments to feel relaxed. Shame about that startup music though and the fact that the music comes again at the end of the video. Perhaps surprisingly, the seven minutes were not interrupted by random adverts whilst I was watching. YouTube made up for it as soon as the video concluded though.

Diabetic Foot Examination – OSCE Guide (Latest)

There seems to have been a surge of posting of videos on Geeky medics in 2022. This is another one from that year. As I mentioned there is no point in reiterating the notes here. James and Andrew feature again and I am pretty sure this is a rehash of some older material. The commentators are convinced of that as well. A number of comments focusing on the apparent Peter Pan nature of the participants.

This video is just over five minutes in length and the format is exactly as before (except for the startup music). By now we are used to periods of absolute silence in the video– it is quite a restful approach. We are now used to the voices and remain on safe ground in terms of level, presentation and pace. In this one the background hiss seems more intermittent. There are periods when it actually seems quite a bit quieter.

Sadly, there is still concluding music – shame it doesn’t avoid music altogether.

Measuring Jugular Venous Pressure (JVP) – OSCE Guide (Clip)

This one is just one and a quarter minutes, long so don’t blink. There are various negative comments – so far so normal YouTube, including this time I notice some dissent about the use of the term “tummy”. Crikey, people are fascinated by details.

It features James and Andrew and by now we are used to how it goes. Despite the shortness of the video they still find time to slot in startup music – grrr. Then they go and finish with music as well. Still, that was the perfect introduction to a very loud advert in my case.

Rinne & Weber Test – OSCE Guide (Clip)

This one is a little over two minutes long and has the same two participants as before. I have many more videos on this channel to review but I think I will stop it here for fear of posting a humongous long post. Given how consistent this channel has proven to be I think that I will be back here again (perhaps on several occasions). Notes remain similar, comments remain similar including the fact that people are noticing that Andrew should have aged a good deal more by now (In the comments). It isn’t long enough to provide much in the way of material of course (in common with several other videos on this channel).

It still has startup music of course more’s the pity. I think Andrew has a great voice and I assume someone will chain these together without music and put it up on YouTube somewhere. I don’t usually like such videos but in this case I might be prepared to give it a try if I come across it.

They also publish a guide to these tests if it is of interest. (I’m assuming most people reading this blog are not medical students so I would guess not…

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 article why not subscribe to this blog:

Photo by DeepAI

Sleeping With ASMR

Some things are changing locally for me which might impact the ongoing nature of this blog, or perhaps the regularity of updates. If I can, I will flag if updates are likely to slow down.

Meantime, I will continue with today’s item.

I have been trying to get more disciplined with my approach to Calm. i.e. to do one of the Calm daily meditations once per day. In general, they are ten minutes in length and one would imagine that ten minutes is going to be available every day, right? Hmm, the resolution is only so-so effective, I have to say.

However, I can say that I found the following one of interest:

Exploring Anger

Tamara Levitt

https://www.calm.com/app/player/5PLKQJSzYP

Tamara has a great voice and I think this one is a great one to play before sleep. Should you already have a Calm subscription, that is. As I’m sure I’ve said before, I am not a salesperson and no one is likely to be paying me to flog their specific pro-meditation product. Also, I know that other products exist (I spent a while in the past using Headspace, for example).

At this point, I have recently been reviewing a professional ASMR artist and in some way determining how well it stands up to my inadvertent ASMR video reviews. This week I have come across a channel that is dedicated to Unintentional ASMR videos. In fact, it is called

Pure Unintentional ASMR and has 398K subscribers (wow). I have had reservations about hosting videos originally belonging to other people (given I am not a copyright solicitor and what I don’t know might cost me).

However, this channel has no such reservations one hundred and forty-seven videos made by a number of different people. There is no way I could deliver this breadth of material in terms of a blog or a playlist. It is possible that I may browse back here again, but probably not for this blog, as all the work has been done. What can a humble reviewer add?

If, like me, you like inadvertent ASMR material it looks like you could do worse than browse this channel of an evening quite possibly as an aid to sleep. However, just because this channel is doing something so well is not going to cause me to stop reviewing ASMR videos – some people may like to read the reviews after all.

It is necessary to choose one artist from amongst the many. Completely arbitrarily, I have chosen this one:

VERY Soft-Spoken Engineer talks about her career while you sleep

This video is just under one hour and twenty minutes in length (wow). It was posted very recently.

Comments are permitted and these are largely positive, some seem to refer to a previous incarnation of this channel. It would seem it has been taken down before (at least once).

There are (I’m afraid) a very large set of notes, with an element of self-promotion for the channel amongst them so this is the edited highlights:

“Cynthia Barnhart is an award-winning engineer who has studied and now works for MIT. She also has a ridiculously soft-spoken voice for you to fall asleep fast too. Perfect for unintentional ASMR!

So we’ve combed through this interview to cut out as many unwanted sounds as we could to try and create the best unintentional ASMR experience possible. Hope you enjoy and find this unintentional ASMR interview as relaxing and interesting as I do.

A huge thanks to the MIT Infinite History project for the video. You can learn more about that here: https://infinitehistory.mit.edu/

Their channel: / @infinitehistoryprojectmit8815

🔴 In case this channel is removed, please subscribe to our newsletter for updates on new videos locations: http://eepurl.com/ds-orr. We will never email you about anything other than a new channel.”

The original video is here:

and it is not one I’ve come across before, a great find by this channel. It is interesting that they are preparing already for the channel to be taken down. Something which I fear may happen, given the many sources of the videos. I suggest if you like this sort of thing fill your boots quickly.

Given the video has been edited to enhance the ASMR attributes, it is no surprise that the voice is excellent. There is no startup music – hurray. There is no terrible background noise – hip-hip, no hesitation, no staccato delivery, in fact it is pretty nigh perfect for this kind of video.

A further attribute that I like, in this context, is the lack of whispering. There is, I am sure, a place for whispering in ASMR videos, but there seems rather a lot of such videos. It is refreshing to find one that does not take refuge in whispering.

So onto my own inadvertent ASMR candidate and this one perhaps a bit of a cheat as he was a personal favourite from back when I first featured him (greater than two years ago now, which seems, to me, rather difficult to believe). It must have been fun. The time passing oh so quickly.

This time we are looking at this video:

Clinical Skills: Cervical Spine Assessment – Dr Gill’s Neck Examination

The site, subscribers, playlists and so on are, of course, familiar. However I’ll take a look again in case there are some new visitors to the Procrastination Pen.

There are notes:

“1,088,598 views Premiered on 12 May 2023 #asmr #neck #DRGill

Neck Examination – Cervical Spine Assessment – Clinical Skills – Dr Gill

Compose a new pain within athletes is cervical spine discomfort, thankfully in the vast majority of cases when the neck is examined the cause of the neck pain is found to be muscular.

However, pain can also refer from the neck to the arm, in which case it is important to be able to assess for cervical radiculopathy prior to gaining more information which may indicate an MRI is needed

We assess for radiculopathy by doing Spurling’s test, an often overlooked part of the neck examination, but it should be included for completeness and reassurance of the patient – not forgetting the athlete or not, neck pain can be a considerable source of distress, so it’s vital to be able to get information from the neck examination which allows you to safely reassure a patient when appropriate, or comment that neck exam found evidence that needs further investigation

#DRGill #neck #asmr”

There are comments but, of course, given it is Dr Gill we can take it as read that the majority of these are positive.

The video itself is a tad on the bijou side given it is only a little over six minutes long. Sadly it starts with music. The voice of Dr Gill needs no introduction (well at least if you are a regular reader in any case). It is restful, not given to whispering, and is at a lovely measured pace. Without the starting music this would be a perfect video. (Well if we could also add about thirty minutes to its length at any rate. Sadly, despite its short length, it still finds time to end with further music.

The playlists on the channel do not seem to be a great deal of assistance in narrowing the field for the location of any related videos.

At the present time there are nine hundred and sixteen videos and it would probably be foolhardy to cover even a reasonable fraction of those in this blog post.

Scanning through the videos for ones which appear to feature the same “patient” reveals quite a number. My thoughts are, therefore, we’ll cover a few here and go on to cover the remainder in a future blog post.

Taking these videos in the order that they appear (from the channel search) we first get to this one:

Ulnar Nerve Examination – Clinical Skills – Dr Gill

Again, it is very short at a little over four minutes. The patient announces her name – possibly Megan Struthers? Even the captioning struggles to capture it so possibly my ears are not solely to blame. The video has music again. I think we can take that as ongoing, as will the existence of notes and comments. Dr Gill’s voice continues as great to listen to. I could probably spend a great deal of my blog just reviewing Dr Gill videos – I won’t – it would make very dull reading. Of course, if you find it very dull reading anyway do feedback and I’ll try to come up with something more stimulating.

Lower Limb Neurological Examination – Clinical Skills – Dr Gill

This one is a little longer at just over nine and a half minutes. Comments are the usual level of variable but not (as far as I can tell) at the level of abusive that is often seen. Such is the power of Dr Gill.

In this one even I can tell the “patient” is Megan Struthers, awards to me for hearing that correctly the first time.

There is another “in” ASMR joke going on with this video in that anyone observing notices that, at intervals, Megan is wearing socks, then not wearing them, then wearing them again.

The “socks” comment seems to be another of those “in the know” comments such as “sandwich breath” which I have referred to before. I suspect it is fun if you enjoy that kind of thing.

Checking a Patients Vital Signs OSCE – Clinical Skills – Dr Gill

Just three and a quarter minutes and still a few seconds at either end given to music – boo.

It is very quiet this one, it would be ideal for sleep if only it was many times the length. As it is in a playlist it should not matter, apart from the opportunity for YouTube to insert as many adverts as it physically can, and at a volume so different to the video springing awake is a not improbable outcome.

General Examination – Clinical Skills OSCE – Dr Gill

A little over five and a quarter minutes in length, the consistency is the thing that stands out and highlights the quality of these videos. If you heard the first video you could more or less assume all the remainder are the same. Much as I hate videos that have been hijacked and concatenated, in the case of these short videos of Dr Gill’s, I can see the point. At least it would keep the intrusive adverts to a minimum.

I think we’ve hit the point where enough videos have been reviewed for one post. Although the total length of this week’s videos is not huge and it will not take you long to review them all for yourself. There are a few more videos featuring Megan and I propose that we come back to those at a future post. Certainly, Dr Gill is a gift that keeps giving, ASMR wise.

The James Gill 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.

Picture DeepAI.org

Sleeping With ASMR

For a little while, I have been reviewing a professional ASMR artist with the understanding that as they have set themselves up to produce ASMR material, that material had better be top notch. That is, I am disposed to be more critical of such videos than I would be of a similar inadvertent ASMR video.

This one caught my eye because it is seeking to emulate the very type of video that I habitually review i.e. the inadvertent ASMR video:

ASMR Head to Toe Medical Exam | Cranial Nerves, Physical Assessment | “Unintentional” Style

It is not completely quiet I notice; there are equipment noises, background noises, noises from participants moving around and using medical equipment. In all, not as quiet as I would expect for a professional video. The voices are of course as close to perfect as you can achieve and we’d expect that. It is setting its stall by the ASMR flag after all.

It is odd to find the participants whispering, but not unwelcome in the scheme of things. It does make the occasional noise seem louder than it would do otherwise.

The video is just under forty four minutes and so quite long compared to a lot of the inadvertent ASMR material we have been reviewing of late.

There are notes “308,882 views 16 Nov 2024 #asmrunintentional #asmrmedical #asmrheadtotoe

Let me know if you can spot the surprise towards the end!!! ASMR Head To Toe Medical Exam | Cranial Nerves, Physical Assessment | “Unintentional” Style

SUBSCRIBE FOR DAILY VIDEOS https://bit.ly/Subscribe2MadP

my personal insta: / just_madspam

asmr insta: / madpasmr

For collaborations: madpasmr@gmail.com

Wear Headphones

This is an ASMR medical role-play, I’m not a real doctor and if you have a medical condition please consult with your physician. This video does not display accurate information therefore none of the information should be taken as accurate/truthful facts.

#asmrheadtotoe #asmrunintentional #asmrmedical”

The channel is MAD P ASMR. This has 603K subscribers and 940 videos (no one need say that ASMR is not popular).

I found that MAD P ASMR also has an online review. It is good to see that there are other bloggers involved in a similar area.

As with other professional ASMR artists we have so far seen, the attractiveness of the participants tends to be towards the well above average level and so I remain unclear if it is the quality of the sound that is the main appeal (and quite probably it is not).

There are comments, of course, and surprisingly they predominantly are positive. MAD P ASMR is obviously a well-respected contributor.

As we have seen before in a video of this length, YouTube is going to hammer in advertising as frequently as it can get away with and quite a lot of that advertising is not going to be restful. This is a major downside of using YouTube for this kind of material.

Around the twenty-seven-minute mark the video continues but one of the participants has left and a new one has joined. That seems odd and usually I would have thought this the perfect cue to start a whole new video.

I’ll refer to this as the second half of the video (although it’s more like the final seventeen minutes) and it seemed to me to start a little louder. However, this, for me, makes it seem a bit more realistic as all the whispering did not seem the kind of thing your average medical professional commonly engages in. The voices are still muted and probably still much too whispery to be considered a model of real life medical professional behaviour.

At least the part where the patient is talking but the medical professional is just typing into a computer seems representative of real life. (I’m not certain the typing noises are exactly what I would call restful though).

There are various unwrapping noises, which perhaps some people will find appealing. They don’t really appeal to me that much. There also seems to be a quite elevated set of blood pressure instrument noises. The sound of palpating the back sounded more like someone hitting a drum, so I am not sure how the microphone was set up for this.

In the final moments the medical professional starts spraying the back of the “patient” with something which appears to have a glitter-like substance in it. A bit surreal for a medical exam.

In all though, this just adds up to my being extra critical because this is a professional ASMR video after all. I still think it is worthy of review and I am going to add it into the Sweetie Jar list.

Well, that has been a somewhat lengthy diversion from the real meat-and-potatoes work of this blog which is to find inadvertent ASMR videos. (i.e. real videos which may have some relaxing effects rather than ASMR professionals playing doctors and nurses).

Today’s material follows on from an earlier blog post. In this, I introduced the Geeky Medics channel and we got to see videos featuring Dr James Lower and Dr Andrew Pugh.

My preferred method for refining which videos we would review from the channel was to look for videos that featured James.

This led to a very long blog post and enough extra videos for several more blog posts besides. I arbitrarily divided them up for part 1 and this is part 2.

Hip Joint Examination – OSCE Guide (Latest)

There is startup music but different startup music to the videos we saw in the last article. James is in for another examination with Andrew. This time all kinds of leg manipulations are seen but what we hear is similarly quiet and methodical to all those videos that went before.

As we saw in the previous article there are notes – but I won’t repeat them here. Comments are permitted and as before some of those comments are not fully helpful.

This video is just over four and a half minutes. It is so speedy that it is hardly there at all. There is of course background (air conditioning) noise. It is almost rude to have a video without it. Although when it does happen, it is so – so welcome.

Knee Joint Examination – OSCE Guide (Latest)

The video is six and three quarter minutes this time and if you read the previous article, this video will be familiar. (Some elements of the video are obviously just repetitions of filming completed for other videos).

Selecting James as a method of thinning out videos has resulted in a sample of a good percentage of the videos on the website. Overall, this will bulk out the playlist (which really wasn’t the aim).

In order not to tax your reading patience, I think six videos is going to be sufficient for this article.

Dix-Hallpike Test & Epley Manoeuvre – OSCE Guide

This is just under two and a half minutes so it is not hanging around this one. Andrew and James appear again but James appears different and the video is posted much more recently up to now the videos have been six years old but this one is a slimline five years ago.

The new startup music is firmly established and dogging the start of the videos. Andrew’s voice seems to be at a higher volume for some reason and the background hiss a little more established.

Here we have Mr Ben Cosway as ENT Registrar for the first time in the credits at the end of the video as “Reviewer”.

Lymphoreticular Examination – OSCE Guide (lymph node, spleen and liver examination)

This one is a little over four- and three-quarter minutes in length. Startup music, tick, Andrew and James, tick, hissing background noise, tick, initial pre-amble, tick, move onto actual examination, tick, (of which a fair amount is actually in silence – heaven be praised no background noises). In summary, it is just like those we have already seen.

This time the reviewer is Dr Adam Gibb Clinical research fellow in Lymphoma, he seems to be at the Christie NHS Foundation Trust which is in Manchester.

Subcutaneous Injection (SC injection) – OSCE Guide

This one is not brilliant if injections are really not your thing (don’t watch!) It is just two- and three-quarter minutes in length. Andrew and James continue their merry dance across the screen. (To be fair it has all been relaxing so far, apart from the odd extraneous noise in videos which we can afford to dismiss from the playlist, given the resource of videos on this channel is just so large).

Otoscopy and Hearing Assessment | Ear Examination | Rinne’s & Weber’s test | OSCE Guide

I’ll make this the last video in this blog article but there are quite a few more for a future article or articles. It is slightly more than three-and-a-quarter minutes so none of the videos today will waylay you for very extortionate periods of time. It features Andrew and James again, the Morecombe and Wise of medical examinations. There is whispering, so I take it all back, medical examinations really do feature whispering, but perhaps not for the entire length of the examination.

There are a few disturbing ear related images, but as you will be listening rather than watching, you should be well placed.

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 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.

Picture DeepAI.org

Sleeping With ASMR

I have been considering a move towards reviewing some meditation material on YouTube as I know that I have been reviewing inadvertent ASMR material for a very long time now and possibly a change may not go awry.

However, that will be for a future date. Today we are back to an old favourite voice which we have covered in a previous post:

Abraham Verghese: “Cutting for Stone”

A bit of a diversion but only because we encountered Abraham Verghese in our review of the Stanford material.

There are notes of course: ”22,835 views 13 Jul 2011

“Patients require that one-on-one encounter, the Samaritan function of being a physician,” says writer and Stanford Medical School professor Abraham Verghese. “I’m convinced that when the physician examines the patient, this is an incredibly important ritual.” Watch more of Fred de Sam Lazaro’s conversation with writer and Stanford Medical School professor Abraham Verghese, author of “Cutting for Stone.”

Watch our full profile of Abraham Verghese:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandet…”

the URL for the profile by the way leads here: Abraham Verghese.

The video is a bit over twenty-seven minutes (so longer than we have been covering of late).

It starts without music and this makes such a positive difference in contrast with some we have reviewed where the music is the major distraction that eventually consigns the video to the archive list.

Abraham Verghese (when not undercut with peppy music anyway) has an awesome voice, mellow, measured, dignified in fact. I intended to listen whilst typing but instead found myself focused on the video, this points up the quality of the sound we are dealing with here and contrasts strongly with some of the more borderline items we have listened to of late.

The channel does not strike me as very much medical and not very much ASMR either, it is Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. This channel has six hundred and ninety-one videos at the time I am looking at it. That is quite a few to search through in the hope of finding medical/ASMR videos. There are fourteen playlists and as luck would have it one of them is entitled “Health and Medicine” which seems squarely in the sights of material that we have recently been covering:

Health and Medicine consists of the following videos:

Affordable Heart Surgery in India

This has age verification against it and so it is just not going into the Procrastination Pen playlist.

It is just less than nine minutes, and as a professional video has notes associated with it:

“1,297,372 views 10 Sept 2015

Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty, a heart surgeon in India, runs a network of for-profit hospitals that perform world-class operations at a small fraction of what they would cost in the U.S. He is driven by his belief that even the most sophisticated surgery should be available to the world’s poorest people, and he says that “if a solution is not affordable, it is not a solution. It’s pointless if we talk about huge developments in cardiac surgery or a brain operation or complex cancer surgery if [the] common man cannot afford it.”

Watch this story on our website:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandet…

—

Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly

http://www.pbs.org/religion”

Comments are permitted and for a change these seem to be universally supportive. No obvious comments from ASMR fans though and that is a bad sign, given an ASMR afficionado makes a ferret look uninquisitive.

The video starts without music but has the style of an interview for a news programme. Not a style that lends itself to a blog on ASMR. It is not immediately obvious why age verification was necessary – perhaps operations are viewed as off-putting content. Sadly, it discounts it from inclusion in the playlist so I include it simply out of interest.

Kidney Donors and Faith Communities

This one did not challenge me to login to verify my age so that’s a more reassuring start. There are notes but they are pretty samey with the previous notes we have seen, so I won’t delay you with more of them.

It is a little less than eight and a half minutes and so again not a huge length for a video. There is a fairly substantial level of background noise but again the presentation as a news story is not great in terms of ASMR. It’s a shame, because some of the participants have a great voice. But these are interspersed by voices that are less suitable.

The Dalai Lama’s Doctor

Less than seven minutes and so far, I am quite impressed with the somewhat diverse nature of the videos in this one playlist. I am less impressed that they all seem to be in the format of news. This one is in the same format. It’s sad because the presenter’s voice is great. However, it is interspersed with traffic noise, wind noise and of course other voices. As such it does not have a place in the Procrastination Pen playlist, however if you are seeking videos with calm voices I recommend that you review this one.

Death with Dignity

A fascinating subject certainly, and this time a video which is a little less than eight and a half minutes.

Again, this is in the format of a news programme. This time the included voices are excellent and, had it been a medical video, this would have seen it included in the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Like the previous video, I would recommend a review of this as the voices included are calm ones and it won’t feature anywhere on theprocrastinationpen YouTube channel.

Here, there will be no new playlist and I do not think that the Abraham Verghese video belongs in the Stanford Medicine playlist. Therefore, I think it will simply feature in the overall playlist.

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.

Picture DeepAI.org

Sleeping With ASMR

Recently I have been thinking about the various ways that I have tried to assist sleep over the years. Some of those have, of course, been chemical and only one of those was truly effective.

For the briefest of occasions, I did receive genuine-prescribed-by-a-doctor sleeping pills. These definitely work and I seemed to have none of the side effects detailed in the included pieces of paper. However, I suspect they are addictive as the prescription covered a bare few days and then it was back to one’s own devices.

The night before days in the office, I commonly have problems sleeping. For that I have often taken Nytol. Nytol is odd stuff. Some nights I take it and I barely make it upstairs before my eyes are closing. Then I am zonko. Some nights it is as if I have taken a sugar pill and I am laid there counting the marks on the ceiling. I have often wondered if there is some circulation problem in the manufacturing plant and the odd pill has zero active ingredient in it. No doubt the manufacturers of Nytol would have a completely different take on it.

Some years ago, I saw a YouTube presentation by a UK sleep expert who recommended popping a melatonin pill about half an hour before sleep and there would be no need for counting sheep.

The problem being it is almost impossible to get in the UK. I have taken some when travelling in either North or South America (where it is widely available). I found it rather like the Nytol. Sometimes it is as if the doors of sleep have wanged shut all of a sudden and somedays it is as if I had an unhealthy caffeine habit. It has been recommended to take it in association with 5-HTP and I did try that. I’d say the efficacy is improved but marginally in my experience.

I have tried standard Kalms and night-time Kalms, Bach Rescue Remedy and the herbal version of Nytol. These seem to have limited effects other than sometimes the nature of my nightmares were much more vivid and therefore more nightmarish… (However, if you love a good nightmare, it is as nothing compared to St John’s Wort which could win records).

The issue with all such remedies to my mind (and was not shared by the genuine sleeping pills) is that they get you to sleep but do not keep you there. Marvellous being in zzzs land at 9pm. Not so marvellous when you spring wide awake at 3am despite feeling that you have done so from the bed of a river. Worse that, having thus sprung awake, no other remedy is available to get you back off to sleep before the inevitable alarm at 5am.

It was for this reason that I went in search of a soothing backtrack. If I have to lie awake in the early hours of the morning, better to do so calmly and in as relaxed state as I can possibly accomplish than to lie fretting about all the sleep I am not getting.

Most recently I have been using Calm, for this to a greater or lesser degree of efficiency. I am going to start making recommendations from there. I have hesitated only because it is a paid-for option and I hate to leverage people into paying for anything. I am no salesperson and have no ambitions to become one.

Of late, I am making the odd foray into professional ASMR artists in these articles, if only to contrast with the inadvertent ASMR that this blog has specialised in for so long. I haven’t been featuring the many that are frankly awful. (There seem to be a fair few of these). I have the bias that if you set yourself up as a professional ASMR artist, then your offerings should be excellent. At the very least, they should be consistently restful.

Of course, YouTube now has adverts shoehorned into every corner and most of them are about as restful as a thoroughgoing slap.

This video is a foray away from the medical theme that I have stuck with for a long time. Mainly because I am having trouble finding a good one on the medical theme. I thought the tone of this video rather good; you may not share my opinion on it.

ASMR | Night massage with gua sha, herbs, natural oils (soft spoken)

I am always nervous about anything massage in case that is a euphemism for some other kind of video (which hopefully I don’t need to define). Both participants have clothing, excessive skin does not seem to be exposed and there are no offers to see more on an OnlyFans site somewhere.

This is a bit breathy for me but at least it does not seem to involve fingernails on fabric, strange vocal intonations into a microphone or bizarre squelching noises coming from who knows where.

It eschews music (hurrah) but there are some noises coming from brushing hair. (Perhaps that is even your thing, who knows).

Itsblitzz is the channel and it has 840K subscribers and three hundred and eighty videos. I see that there are three playlists. However, beware, some of these videos actively promote certain products. I have made this an attribute which embargoes a video from featuring in this blog. They will start with “the sponsor of the video this week…”. At which point I just move on.

The video is a little over forty-two minutes in length (hopefully enough to get you nodding off) and contains notes:

“29 Jan 2019 #guasha #massage #ASMR

In tonight’s video, I have brought back one of my favorite humans to experiment with some new techniques and tools (our other video can be found here: ASMR | Head massage and energy healin… ). This was a spur of the moment session, and I am happy that Elizabeth was free to come over. She is such an easy person to be around, and everything felt very natural and relaxed. I use some gua sha tools in our session as well as some natural sprays and oils. Gua sha is a skin scraping technique used in traditional East Asian medicine that can also be performed with a spoon or other smooth object. Typically, it leaves marks (petechiae) but tonight I will just be using the tools to aid in massage. I am using light to medium pressure to avoid abrasions. I will demonstrate and discuss other gua sha techniques in the very near future on my channel.”

There are of course comments, and as we have noted, where comments are permitted there shall ye find less than helpful comments. So here too.

Anyway, that was the distraction of the week, onto the main feature which takes us back to the world of YouTube medical videos.

MRCP Paces: Station 1, Neurology section (Upper Limbs)

This is fifteen- and three-quarter minutes long and surprisingly for a video from a hospital has no notes. Less surprisingly it has no comments either. I can probably by now guarantee that if it has ASMR content then ASMR fans have already discovered it.

It features Dr Shuja Punekar who straight away has a good voice. It also features air conditioning noises which are less welcome. It does not have start up music which is great.

The feedback section of the video which occurs at eleven minutes has air conditioning noises akin to the sound of the M25 at rush hour. It is actually loud and would have discounted the video had it been there from the start of the video. It also serves to partially mask the voices of the participants.

This one is from Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust YouTube channel. There are five hundred and fourteen videos, twenty-six playlists (one with one hundred and eight videos in it). So, there is hope that this channel might be an ASMR resource for us for a lengthy period of time.

MRCP Paces History

Again, this features Dr Punekar and is very similar at the start as the last video. If anything the background noise is higher and the voices of the participants sound more distant than in the previous video.

There are various background noises which sound rather like doors opening and closing (possibly in an adjacent room).

The participants voices are calm and measured, with just the air conditioning for company.

This time the post-mortem phase in which progress of the student is discussed does not appear to have any higher participation by the air conditioning.

MRCP Paces Station 4: Communication and Ethics

This is a bit over nineteen and a quarter minutes and features Dr Punekar again. Again, the introduction is calm and quiet. The air conditioning’s participation is not excessive.

However, this is really quite stressful, not the kind of video that I think we will want in the Procrastination Pen playlist.

There are a lot of videos in the MRCP Paces series and so I use this as a whet your appetite introduction and we can return in the future and hopefully do a few more.

The Blackpool Teaching 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.

Picture DeepAI.org

Sleeping With ASMR

Recently, I have noticed that YouTube is just not cracking it on the nights when I am really fearsomely awake. In fact, it is just wise on those nights to get up again, pad downstairs, and watch some late-night nonsense whilst listening with the headphones.

Fortunately, TV now seems well supplied with some barely-watchable early morning viewing. (It’s almost as if they realise that a group of insomniacs are the only people awake in the early hours and that the last thing such people need is something actually interesting).

Sadly, those who turn their channels over to teleshopping are not so enlightened. My advice (if you are forced to resort to similar tactics due to sleeplessness) is to avoid at all costs surfing channels. There is a real risk that you will you happen upon channels trying to keep you awake in order to drive the purchases of mattresses, power washes or strange pruning devices.

You may also wish to give thought to the shape of your spine. For, if you do happen to drop off to some 1980s B movie, it is likely that the sofa will not turn out to be the most comfortable of resting places.

If you are intending to persist with the YouTube playlist as the source of restfulness however, I think I can be confident that you have come to the right place.

Regular readers will recognise the channel N Sight, because of course we have been here before.

Today’s video has a set of notes which are thankfully brief but which indicate that this is a professionally-produced video.

“13,274 views 2 Feb 2017

Michael Stone, MD demonstrates correct technique for blood pressure measurement with automatic and manual BP cuffs, and when to use each type of cuff. He also demonstrates simultaneous BP measurement (to assess autonomic dysfunction), and supine arm and leg BPs (for the ankle-arm index). N Sight is presented by the Institute for Functional Medicine. Learn more at nsight.org.”

Comments are thankfully not permitted – no requests for free medical advice, no disparaging remarks about the participants but sadly no indication as to whether other ASMR fans have been here before.

I would guess that they have.

The video is this one:

Blood Pressure: Demo Exam, Part 1

It is a little shy of eleven minutes long and so it is not going to be your nighttime companion for very long.

Sadly, it starts with some loud and rather too energetic music – so far, so normal, we have found. Sigh.

The patient is introduced as “Steve” the medical professional is not introduced (well outside of those notes anyway). However, we do find that he (the medical professional) has a great voice, very calming and measured.

Today was the first time I tried the transcript facility in YouTube, and it is so very useful for me. Now I can get a visual check for things like the spelling of people’s names, which I am often convinced I have got wrong.

The medical professional seems quite happy with a reading of 128 (systolic) when I was pretty certain that 128 was pretty high…

The video then repeats the blood pressure test but this time manually, rather than with a machine. It is a little quieter but sadly, it means there is yet more music (as an introduction to this section). Comparatively the cuff looks like something unearthed from a Victorian sanitorium but as you’ll be lying down trying to get some sleep I very much doubt that you will notice this.

Yet more upbeat music and then there is a blood pressure test in both arms simultaneously (this is a test I have never seen). This time the automatic machines are in use and so there is the sound of the cuffs being inflated.

Upbeat music again and back to the manual cuff. I do prefer the sound of this being manually pumped vs the electric pump sound on the automatic machine. However, your preference might vary.

Yet more upbeat music and this time the blood pressure cuff is around Steve’s leg. Again, I have never seen this in use before this.

More upbeat music and then the video concludes. And cues straight into the next video which is this one:

Blood Pressure: Demo Exam, Part 2

There are notes “6,172 views 2 Feb 2017

Michael Stone, MD, demonstrates the correct techniques for measuring the ankle-arm index, dorsalis pedis & posterior tibial pulses. He then performs the raised leg oxygen saturation test, followed by carotid and radial pulse comparison. Finally, he concludes with the appropriate orthostatic hypotension exam. N Sight is presented by the Institute for Functional Medicine. Learn more at nsight.org.”

This follows the same scheme of the previous one, same music, same participants. It is a little shorter at just less than nine and a half minutes. The sound of the doppler at the start of this video may be a little off-putting to some people (I didn’t find it so).

Straight into funky music again and this time the pulse is checked in Steve’s feet.

More music, then a check on the carotid pulse.

Music again, then a check inside the mouth. With emphasis on strong dental hygiene.

Music, and a check as Steve changes position from lying down to standing up. And onto tail end music again.

These two form part of a playlist on N Sight Blood Pressure Exam.

They appear mid-way through the playlist which consists of six videos in total.

The first video is this one:

Blood Pressure: Introduction, Equipment, and Patient Positioning

In which we find that the medical professional is Dr Michael Stone. Initially it is not a medical examination as such but a monologue. Despite this his voice is not elevated. Some people in this situation become a tad “shouty” as if projecting to a room. Dr Michael Stone does not fall into this trap.

The video is a little over sixteen and a half minutes so the longest we have seen so far.

However, the chance to punctuate the video with the same music track is not to be missed apparently. perhaps they paid a lot for it and want to feature it as frequently as possible.

It’s a shame as Dr Stone really has a very good voice for our purposes.

The notes have follow the same theme as the others: “3,422 views 2 Feb 2017

Michael Stone, MD, introduces this blood pressure measurement series, including key nutritional considerations for treating patients with abnormal blood pressure. He describes the necessary equipment, calibration needs, and changes in BP measurement over time. He then demonstrates appropriate patient positioning for sitting and supine blood pressure exams.

N Sight is presented by the Institute for Functional Medicine. Learn more at nsight.org.”

As we are not learning to take blood pressure, I will discontinue including them as I’m sure they are of partial interest.

Blood Pressure: Demo Exam, Part 1

Blood Pressure: Demo Exam, Part 2

These two are where we came in.

Blood Pressure: Teaching Exam, Part 1

Like a number of professionally produced videos these turn out to be consistent. This can be great if the first one is marvellous. Less great if it was less than perfect. In this case it means continuation of that annoying music. Set against this, it means the continued exposure to the great intonation and measured delivery of Dr Michael Stone. Not for the first time I am lamenting that I cannot isolate this and remove the little musical interludes.

This one is just under sixteen and a half minutes, so one of the longer ones we’ve seen and in all other respects is similar, same doctor, same patient, same approach, similar notes, same approach to comments and so on.

Definition:

Insufflation: is the act of blowing something (such as a gas, powder, or vapor) into a body cavity

Blood Pressure: Teaching Exam, Part 2

Consistent with those we have seen, nuclear blast needed for the music track, embrace needed for the quiet voice of Dr Michael Stone. This one is nearly twenty minutes in length which is the longest so far. It has some unsettling doppler noises which might be off-putting to some people. There are also some loud car-related sounds indicating that a nearby road can’t be far outside of the building where this was recorded (or someone has a really loud exhaust). Long videos are also an excuse for YouTube to insert an annoying advert and they seem to have made good use of that facility here.

Blood Pressure: Nutritional Factors and Conclusion

This one is a bit less than six minutes and otherwise has little to distinguish it from those that have gone before. I just wish that Dr Michael Stone could produce a music-free version of each of these videos. That and drop some of the louder doppler noises. However, I still maintain that these are all worthwhile trialling in the Procrastination Pen playlist. (However, as you know, every once in a while I’ll get tired of the ones with irritating noises and drop them into the archive list. There is some chance one, some, or all of these may suffer that fate.

The N Sight 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 Shona Macrae

Sleeping With ASMR

For those people who actually read my blog articles at intervals, yay, welcome readers. You will notice that I am drawing again at the well of a popular channel for this blog. This site is designed for education purposes. However, it turns out to be pretty good in terms of relaxation as well.

Judging by the comments I am confident that I am not the only one to think so.

The video is this one:

Examination of the Spleen (Stanford Medicine 25)

The great advantage is that it already comes as part of a playlist i.e. this one

Stanford Medicine 25: Abdominal Exam

I also notice that all of the videos in this playlist are short ones, so this is not going to keep you for very long.

This first video is just over three and a half minutes long so blink and you’ll miss it, in comparison to some we have covered.

Initially the video starts quietly but just when I was ready to give thanks for the lack of startup music, some startup music begins. Fortunately, it is brief.

The person giving the examination (and commenting at the same time) has an excellent voice for our purposes. In this case it is Dr Verghese – who we have encountered before.

The next video in the same playlist is this one:

Percussion of the Spleen (Stanford Medicine 25)

The notes for these videos are very similar to those for the Stanford Medicine 25 videos that we have previously featured:

“17 Mar 2014

This Stanford Medicine 25 video was created in conjunction with Stanford’s AIM lab teaching the percussion of the spleen.

The Stanford Medicine 25 is a Stanford School of Medicine initiative to teach and promote the bedside physical exam. Here you will find videos teaching bedside physical exam techniques.

Please subscribe, like and visit our websites:

Main Website: http://stanfordmedicine25.stanford.edu/

Blog: http://stanford25blog.stanford.edu/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StanfordMedi…

Twitter: https://twitter.com/StanfordMed25

Google+: http://goo.gl/UBM7SP”

It is an advantage of professionally produced videos that they tend to have notes and, in a number of cases, the notes are even helpful.

Again, we have startup and tail end music, which I’d prefer wasn’t there, but isn’t hugely intrusive.

The last video in this playlist is this one:

Diagnosis Anterior Cutaneous Nerve Entrapment Syndrome (ACNES) with Carnett’s Sign – Abdominal Pain

This time narrated by Dr George Meyer Gastroenterology the University of California, Davis.

This time the startup music has a life all its own and just will not be suppressed. It is louder, longer and more energetic than previous videos in this article. There’s also an introductory narrator who is too loud and therefore not at all restful. In an ideal world this front part of the video would be cropped right off. The reason it is worth persisting with is that Dr Meyer’s voice is every bit as good as that of Dr Verghese.

The video is just over three and a half minutes so you haven’t got a great deal of time to enjoy the experience.

It’s quiet, methodical, instructive (should you want that) and then goes and spoils it all by having the peppy startup music repeat at the end and to top it all that loud narration, followed by a jarring copyright announcement as well.

Despite that I like Dr Meyer’s voice so I am going to give all three of these a try in the playlist.

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.

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 Luiza Sayfullina on Unsplash

Sleeping With ASMR

A minor deviation in terms of videos this week. Still on a medical theme, so I have not wandered too far from the fold. However, this one is for people involved in sports. Presumably an area with a great propensity towards injury, given there is an entire discipline dedicated to it.

The video is this one:

Examining The Wrist: A Guide for Sports Physicians and Physiotherapists

As we have established previously professional videos have a higher tendency towards having associated notes. We’ve also established that within a playlist on a channel of this type all the notes have a tendency to follow a theme.

The notes with this video state “

199,898 views 10 Dec 2013

Roger Hawkes, Chief Medical Officer, European Tour Performance Institute, and Doug Campbell, Wrist and Hand Surgeon, Leeds Teaching hospitals NHS Trust, guide you through examining the wrist.

Having studied the wrist on the European Tour (golf) for the last four years, they show the simple tests to use in day-to-day practice, and the common pathological findings.

For further resources, see the BJSM special edition on the wrist: http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/47/17.toc

Chapters:

– Taking the history (1.26)

– Initial inspection of the wrist (3.00)

– Assessing the range of movement (5.00)

– Anatomy (5.55)

– Assessing flexibility (7.16)

– Locating pain (8.12)

– Assessing stability of the distal radial ulnar joint (9.22)

– The extensor carpi ulnaris tendon (10.27)

– De Quervain’s tendonitis (13.00)”

The video permits comments and there are a number of those. As expected, ASMR fans are here well before me. I wonder if there is some secret channel where all of these videos are already listed and I am merely repeating in an amateur fashion the indexing work of some ASMR-associated professional.

The video is slightly over fifteen minutes, so not huge, and it has the bugbear of all ASMR fans, startup music. Worse, energetic startup music. This is not immediately a video designated to assist you off to sleep. The first presenter Roger Hawkes Chief Medical Officer European Tour Performance Institute starts off a bit loud. Whilst he is talking the music is still hanging in there like yesterday’s intransigent flu symptoms.

The second Presenter is Doug Campbell Consultant Hand and Wrist Surgeon Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

As soon as Doug starts to speak, we feel we are on a surer footing ASMR-wise as he has a substantially more gentle voice. If only the start of the video hadn’t been ambushed by marketing and brand identity.

Still, we have given videos a try with more challenging beginnings.

At one and a half minutes into the video the examination begins and for me the entire video should have begun here. It would then have been much more suitable for ASMR. However, so far I have not found a setting for truncating videos so that the startup nonsense can be dispensed with.

As expected, the portion of the video in which Doug appears is much more relaxing than the portion in which Roger presents.

For ASMR purposes it would be great to take the video and chop out of it the extraneous loud bits. However, I do not own it, and so sadly we’ll have to run with it as is.

Including the equally jarring tail-end music.

The channel is British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM), which has one hundred and thirty five videos – a fair number to cover I’m sure you’ll agree.

There are twelve playlists and a number of those contain only one video.

Our video is contained in one of these, a playlist called Examining the wrist.

Checking through the remaining one hundred and thirty four videos we find that neither Doug, Roger nor the “patient” appear in any further videos on the site, so it appears this is the only one this week.

Why not use the time to get some more sleep.

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 Ray ZHUANG on Unsplash