Sadly, as I regularly prove, sometimes nothing at all is going to work in the drive to get some sleep. Some switch in the brain seems to resist getting thrown into the correct position and although you are tired, sleep just will not come.
These kinds of occasions used to drive me up the wall as I fought to get control and tried with increasing vigour to gain that blissful rest. It doesn’t work. The only option is to just let go, 5am is coming round and you’ll still be looking at the ceiling when it does. It is better to fill the time with something restful. The Procrastination Pen playlist is designed for just such an eventuality.
Today’s video is another professionally produced one:
Hip Examination – Orthopaedics
In common with a number of professionally produced videos it has notes with it: “28 Nov 2012 Clinical Examinations
This video – produced by students at Oxford University Medical School in conjunction with the faculty – demonstrates how to perform an Orthopaedic examination of the hip joint. It is part of a series of videos covering Orthopaedic examinations and is linked to Oxford Medical Education (www.oxfordmedicaleducation.com)
This video was produced in collaboration with Oxford Medical Illustration – a department of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust. For more information, please visit www.oxfordmi.nhs.uk.”
So it tells us where it was filmed.
Comments are permitted (brave that) and it turns out that other ASMR fans have been here before me (which is not unexpected).
The video at just over nine and a quarter minutes is not a huge one. There is (thankfully) no introductory music. It begins with narration but no clues as to the participants, the narrator has quite a good voice. The same person talks throughout the examination proper such that we do not hear the voices of the actual participants. This makes their participation seem like that of a mime act or worse some kind of puppet, it is a little surreal. However, if you are listening rather than watching none of this will be obvious.
The channel is Oxford Medical Education. This has thirty two videos and 142k subscribers on the day I am looking at it.
With thirty two videos it seems likely that we would be here a while. There are nine playlists, our video appears to be in a playlist called Orthopaedic Surgery which consists of only three videos including the one I first covered. I’ll focus on this playlist in order to narrow down the choice available.
All three videos exceed nine minutes and are less than ten minutes – I’m guessing there was a target in terms of running time.
The next video in the playlist is this one:
Knee Examination – Orthopaedics
A bit over nine minutes so similar to the last one. Like that one it has notes “28 Nov 2012 Clinical Examinations
This video – produced by students at Oxford University Medical School in conjunction with the faculty – demonstrates how to perform an Orthopaedic examination of the knee joint. It is part of a series of videos covering Orthopaedic examinations and is linked to Oxford Medical Education (www.oxfordmedicaleducation.com)
This video was produced in collaboration with Oxford Medical Illustration – a department of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust. For more information, please visit www.oxfordmi.nhs.uk”
Again, the entire video is narrated. I would say the voice is marginally superior to the last one for our purposes.
Shoulder Examination – Orthopaedics
Nine and a half minutes so slightly longer and in this one the patient changes. In the previous two the patient was the same and the medical professional changed. Now we have a patient change and a medical professional change.
The notes are very similar to what has gone before so I will not repeat them.
The narration is not quite as good for our purposes as the last one. However, as is usual with professionally produced videos, they are amazing in their consistency. In this one (at last!) the medical professional gets to speak for himself and we find that his voice is not at all bad. Part way through, the video goes all sepia in appearance briefly. I’m not clear why, but given you will only be listening this will not be too distracting.
The Oxford Medical Education playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:
I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.
The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:
I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.
I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.
If you liked this blog article why not follow this blog.
Every once in a while I like to remind readers why we are here, what this series of blog articles on the Procrastination Pen is designed to achieve, and why you might want to read, especially if you suffer for sleep.
If you are privileged enough to get ASMR symptoms then you will already be familiar with the fact that certain sounds can have a profound effect. For some people, there are physical sensations (often referred to as tingles). For many, there is a sense of wellbeing or relaxation when a certain sound is playing.
The effect is now well documented and so recognised that even mainstream newspapers have articles on it (and not all of them are critical!)
For those not so gifted it is often the case that quiet and calming sounds can be more effective at promoting relaxation than absolute silence (if there is anywhere in your current environment where you can achieve true silence, then you are truly privileged in any case).
For this reason, websites now carry not just articles about ASMR but videos purported to cause such relaxation or full ASMR effects. Sadly, claims for ASMR are a bit of a stretch as it seems that the sounds that cause ASMR are as individual as the person who is listening to them.
A number of people seem to find slurping noises relaxing, some prefer scratching or the sound of running water. For others, some of these sounds are positively off-putting. One person’s ASMR sound is another person’s grating, irritating noise.
I try, therefore, to mute any claims about ASMR for this blog as I can only comment about sounds that work for me. I like quiet voices, gentle and calm behaviour. I think there is a large subset of ASMR fans who like the same thing.
There is no shortage of videos on the popular YouTube site and many of them claim to be great for ASMR. I have listened to many. I found some were interesting, very few effective, most to be irrelevant to me.
I believe that this affects many people. How to arrive at a situation where you only get to listen to those videos which are genuinely relaxing? I considered that the only method was to listen to many – many videos and to keep a record of the ones that are genuinely relaxing for me.
There are probably several people who do the same thing. We are duplicating the effort in order to arrive at playlists of relaxing videos.
I use relaxing videos to get to sleep, I am old, I do not sleep well. There are many people who are either old or who do not sleep well and some of whom who are both old and who do not sleep well.
I have found that having a playlist of relaxing videos playing actually helps. (It would help even more if YouTube would quit playing loud and intrusive adverts during the night time hours – by which I mean any time between 21:00 and 07:00 – when I assume the majority of people have some kind of sleep window. However, I do not control YouTube or have the power even to make suggestions, so I work with what I have.)
I assume that many people would profit from having a playlist like this available to them. This blog is old and hence the name the Procrastination Pen precedes this idea by many years (Perhaps now I would call it ASMR Sleeping or something – however I assume there are many similar sites out there.)
Hence the Procrastination Pen is this blog, the Procrastination Pen is my YouTube channel which contains the playlists, the Procrastination Pen is the Facebook page which links to them, the Instagram page, the Twitter account and so on and so forth…
All of which is designed to inform people that there is a consistent effort going on attempting to identify suitable videos, to create a playlist of such videos and to share the playlist so that they do not have to do the same thing.
With the many ASMR channels on YouTube, I realised that there is little margin in reviewing those (unless there is demand), so I focus instead on videos which were created for another purpose i.e. whose relaxation effects are an unintended side effect rather than the main aim.
For a while now, the focus has been any variant of a medical examination video as these seem a rich source of material. I make occasional forays into other areas.
The blog allows comments, via which you can make suggestions (sensible ones I may even consider for the playlist).
The playlist is also used by me, regularly. One upshot of which is that if I find any of the included videos are not as relaxing as at first thought they get removed.
This should ensure that the playlist remains true to its original intent which is to help people get to sleep and to drift off again if you, as many of us do, wake several times during the night.
If you are still reading this far, well done, you’ve proven that you have a great span of attention and your reward can be today’s video. Which is this one:
Abdominal Examination – OSCE Guide (Latest)
At a bit less than eight and a half minutes this is not a huge video it is a professionally produced video and so has notes, and what notes, possibly the most extensive notes I have read thus far on any of the videos so far reviewed. For this reason I am only including the edited highlights in this article:
The ability to carry out a thorough and slick abdominal examination is something every medic needs to master. This video aims to give you an idea of what’s required in the OSCE and you can then customise the examination to suit your own personal style.
Check out our other awesome clinical skills resources including:
So unusually for inadvertent ASMR videos this one pins its colours to the mast up front. It’s a medical video but the notes directly state “Some people have found this video useful for ASMR purposes”.
Comments are permitted and as expected some of these comments do not appear to be from medical students. I think we can conclude that ASMR fans are all over this. I rarely find a video where this is not the case. If there is a relaxing video a few hundred or more likely thousand ASMR fans will already have seen it and often have left some very esoteric comments. I guess it is a community thing which I do not fully comprehend.
The video is calm, quiet, methodical and is more or less perfect from our perspective.
The medical professional is “Andrew” and is a final-year medical student. It isn’t clear which course, or where, Andrew is studying.
The patient is “James Alexander” D.o.B 13/12/1989 (that’s December in case you use a different method of describing dates to the UK one). It might be that we select other videos with James in for review in this article.
There are no objectionable background noises and the introductory music is thankfully very brief. However, the abdominal sounds might prove a bit off-putting for some. It might fall victim to a future weeding process but I intend to include it in the Procrastination Pen playlist.
The channel is not an obvious one for relaxing videos (at least by inference from the name) it is: Geeky Medics and it has 1 million subscribers. This has to be something of a record for a channel reviewed on this blog. I was expecting tens of thousands of videos therefore but in fact two hundred and sixteen videos as at today’s date.
Given “James” does not appear in the comments to the video it is probable that a simple search of the channel isn’t going to pull up videos where he is the patient.
Instead, I’ll go the old-fashioned route and scroll through the two hundred and sixteen videos in the hope of spotting him from the image placeholder for the video.
There are some video shorts that feature James, however the first has funky background music and so is not suitable for what we are looking for:
The latter one features some disturbing breathing sounds and so I think we can discount that one as well:
The next video of any length to feature James Alexander is this one:
Cardiovascular Examination – OSCE Guide
The medical professional is again Andrew.
This is consistent with the last one in terms of approach, volume, startup music. The notes are almost the same as before (I’ll cease to feature the notes now as they are much the same between videos.)
This is just over eight minutes and as before is marvellously calm. However, there are some loud heart sounds which might be off-putting.
The next video is this one:
How to record an ECG – OSCE Guide
At just less than 4 minutes it isn’t huge. The startup music remains muted here. The medical professional is “David,” his voice is not as relaxing as Andrew, but it is still pretty good.
The video is predominantly quiet with limited input from participants. It is methodical and thank goodness, because the procedure looks to be a complex one. Thankfully this time there are no noises from internal organs.
The next one is this one:
How to take an arterial blood gas (ABG) – OSCE guide
This is just less than three and a half minutes and we are back to Andrew as the medical professional – welcome back Andrew.
James is a trooper. He gets asked the same questions at the start of each of these and repeats the answers without blinking.
Those averse to needles I suggest that you just do not watch but lay back and listen, it will be certain to put you off if you actually watch this.
Here we get a concluding screen that tells us the medical student was Dr Andrew Pugh.
And the patient was James Lower
Intravenous (IV) cannulation – OSCE Guide
Seriously if you do not like blood do not watch this. Andrew returns and this video might need to be archived from the Procrastination Pen playlist at some stage as I am sure I am not alone in finding blood related videos distinctly uncomfortable to watch. (It may encourage you to listen rather than watch however).
I decided to look for where Graham Bone was senior clinical lecturer and discovered that he is at South Tees NHS Foundation Trust. These support the following universities University of Hull, University of York, Newcastle University, University of Sunderland.
Therefore, it is likely it was filmed in one of those locations.
Modified Allen’s Test
This is a short extract from one of the videos we have already seen. (It’s possible many of the other shorter videos on this channel have been sourced in the same way).
Respiratory Examination – OSCE Guide (Latest)
I do get the feeling that these videos re-use material from other videos, possibly this is why James is able to blithely respond to those early questions in exactly the same way. Here we have a video just over nine and a half minutes and unsurprisingly it is very similar to those already reviewed.
This one has some quite loud (and possibly off-putting breathing related noises).
So where is Dr Gareth Hynes Respiratory Registrar and does this give us any more information about where this was filmed?
It looks like Gareth is at Oxford University Hospitals so that muddies the waters if anything.
Spine Examination – OSCE Guide
Back with Andrew and a video just less than five and a half minutes in length.
So where is Mr Tejas Yarashi Orthopaedic Registrar (ST7)?
Tejas is currently at Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust but it looks like the last time he had (ST7) as a qualifier was at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.
Lung sounds (respiratory auscultation sounds)
This is just less than one and a quarter minutes and mostly off-putting breathing related noises, I suspect we can discount this one.
So was Dr Gareth Hynes ever at Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust? It appears not.
Heart murmur sounds (cardiac auscultation sounds)
Another short one at just over two minutes and is mainly heart related noises, again I think we can discount this one
So where is Dr Matthew Jackson Cardiology Registrar (ST6)? Well it turns out that I can’t locate him so I’m not too certain.
Shoulder Examination – OSCE Guide (Latest)
just less than six and a quarter minutes and as for the previous videos so for this one. Andrew and James again and at this rate the blog post will be encyclopaedic, I think I will split this post into many and cover all the other videos in a subsequent blog post.
An absence of strange noises on this one though makes it a great deal more appealing.
After a period of reviewing videos I suspect that availability of ASMR material within the wider medical examination video material follows something of a normal distribution. I cannot prove it but the occurrence of truly awesome ASMR material such as Hollie Berry or Shane Brun is very rare and so they must be outliers.
More bread-and-butter material occurs somewhat regularly. The huge lift in the curve is of videos which are watchable but unsuitable. They are just not relaxing enough. Right out at the other end of the curve are some rather nasty videos which, thankfully, I rarely come across.
That being the case, the discovery of another Vicki Scott is a matter of trawling through a vast number of videos to uncover the jewel in the coal mine.
You can be certain that should I discover such a person they will be featured in this blog, and no doubt (like Dr James Gill) flagged as a favourite from that point onwards.
Today’s video is at the Hollie Berry standard which is fighting talk ASMR-wise.
Alexander technique lesson with Diana Devitt-Dawson
This is just under fourteen-and-a-quarter minutes so a quite typical length for us of late. The medical professional is Diana Devitt-Dawson the “patient” is Gita (probably misspelled). The film quality is not the greatest which is probably of little concern if you are using this to get to sleep.
Diana has a really good voice for us I think. Another smile-causing aspect is the absence of intrusive background noise which haunts some of the videos I have featured.
Comments are permitted and judging by the feedback, I am not the first person to notice how good this is for ASMR. Many are rating this above professional ASMR artists (I’ve seen a few such videos, and in many cases they are correct).
The sad thing is that the channel Diana Devitt-Dawson contains only one video and this is it.
Diana appears not to have any further entries on YouTube (this has heavy echoes of my experience with Hollie Berry).
There are reiterations of the same video featured on ASMR channels, such as this one:
Legends of ASMR – Diana Devitt-Dawson
So that’s it this time, I’m afraid.
I now think that the Alexander Technique might, potentially, be a source of more ASMR material. I’ll keep my eyes open and my search fingers poised.
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.
I have now been listening to the Procrastination Pen playlist for so long that I have realised that some elements of it are appearing in my dreams. Recently, I was arguing with a person I work with (in the dream) over their rights to reuse the entire text from a video from Moran Core, having convinced myself that it had been lifted wholesale and reused for an education purpose. (In fact, I suspect it was simply playing at the time and I overlaid my dream content with that from Moran Core).
On that basis, I had better be cautious about the material that I incorporate into the Procrastination Pen playlist or some of you may be having nightmares.
Today’s is another video drawn from a rich resource which we have covered before. This is the nursing student video, created as some element of their course. The clues are all present – domestic setting being the main one of course. In this case the use of a dining chair for the patient to sit on, we have seen a sofa even what appears to be the student’s own bed.
At just shy of eleven and a half minutes this is a nice length for one of the videos we commonly see. This one has no comments (phew) the downside of which is that we do not know if the ASMR community has happened across it as yet. (I would hazard a guess in the affirmative).
There are no notes – this happens with professional videos occasionally but more usually is a symptom of an amateur video as we have seen before.
The “patient” introduced as “Mr Evans” and the title of the video is:
S. Evans Thorax/lung Assessment
It is probably sensible to assume the husband of the medical professional involved.
Mrs Evans (I’ll guess that is who it is) starts a little loud.
Matthew Evans is the patient DoB 06/07/1984 (i.e. July in case you are reading this whilst located in the US or are using the US method of describing dates). So, if Matthew is the patient, S Evans must be the medical professional.
This is another one of the videos which has comedy “privacy” at the beginning – i.e. miming providing privacy when none is provided.
In fact, Matthew seems to have a better voice for our purposes than Mrs Evans does and fortunately he gets to talk a reasonable amount (he is subjected to a battery of questions). Interestingly there is no attempt to explore the answers which seems to show the student obeying some hidden checklist as to what has to happen in an examination, rather than using the information for anything useful.
Part way through a baby starts crying in a remote room, which is a tad distracting. I kept hoping that someone would go and find out what was wrong with the baby.
The channel is MGA Nursing, it has just forty subscribers which is to say the least odd. However, it has forty-three videos on it and all of them look to be medical examination videos – i.e. this is good news for us.
Fortunately, the videos are all labelled using an identifier for the medical professional. In this case we have a number of videos for S Evans.
The other videos for S Evans are as follows:
S. Evans Neuro Part 1
This is nearly sixteen minutes long and so it is a bit chunkier there are no comments and no notes so that might well be a theme for all of them.
Again, Matthew has a better voice but here we find out the medical professional is called Susan. Again, the “patient” Matthew is subjected to a barrage of questions and it is, again, not clear why.
Mrs Evans continues a bit loud; it is possible all of these videos will be marginal in terms of the Procrastination Pen playlist. I’m quite active in terms of weeding recently so we’ll see how long they last in the main list.
Susan seems to be consulting a checklist throughout the examination which reinforces the view that a series of steps have to be covered to comply with the purpose of the video (i.e. a requirement of the course in which Susan is involved).
We are quite fortunate in this video in that Matthew gets to talk a great deal more often and his voice is a much more restful one than his wife’s voice.
It is interesting to see Matthew fail some of the tests. This is something not seen before in one of these videos but, again, it isn’t clear what is going to be done about it.
S. Evans Neuro Part 2
This is much shorter at a little less than seven minutes. The setting is relocated to a domestic bedroom this time.
Again, it is a little loud to start. It is interesting that some of the vibration tests just do not seem to work (either that or Matthew is considerably more honest than some participants we have heard in the past).
During the actual examination things are a good deal quieter, however I still rate Matthew’s voice over Susan’s.
S. Evans Abdomen Assessment
This seems to be quieter at the start, there is the comedy privacy mime again, which this time occurs off camera. Again, Matthew is subjected to significant interrogation at the beginning.
At just over eleven and a half minutes this is similar in length to the first one we saw in this blog post. However, it is much better in terms of volume for us I think and makes a better candidate for the Procrastination Pen playlist.
All in all, a more gentle examination than the ones that we have seen previously in this article.
S. Evans Eye Assessment
A little under eleven minutes and we are back to a dining room chair for the patient. Again, with the initial questioning. The great thing is that Matthew gets more time speaking.
However, at points Matthew is a bit loud which makes this less useful from an ASMR perspective.
After this one I am making some guesses because the video titles cease to contain any reference to S Evans. However, I believe that these videos contain the same two participants so I have included them below.
IMG 3025
I would say that this is the same two people, it is just less than nineteen and a half minutes long – but the standard of title naming seems to have been lost. This just looks like a default naming system used by a recording device such as an iPhone. So perhaps this was just uploaded from such a device and no modifications were made to it.
We are back to the bedroom as a setting. This is reasonably quiet and is similar to videos we have already seen in this article previously.
This, again, contains the baby crying which was so off-putting in the first one of this series. No one seems to jump and run, so potentially there is someone else in the house responsible for the baby’s care (or the baby is next door and has blast furnace bellows for lungs).
IMG 2916
Again, this is the same two participants. At the time the video is being shot we learn that although Obama is president Trump has started campaigning. Although Trump became president in 2017, he started his campaign in 2015. It is quite likely therefore the video was shot in 2016 which also fits with when it was posted (September 2016) so the dates line up. This time we have notes (perhaps to compensate for the absence of a useful video title): “26 Sept 2016
S. Evans. Physical Assessment- General Survey September 25, 2016”
Matthew also confirms the date.
The video is a little less than three minutes and so is a very brief one for us.
Matthew gets a reasonable amount of talking time which is good.
IMG 2934
This is slightly over four minutes so again is very brief. It has the same two participants and starts a little loud, I think. Again, Matthew gets to talk a reasonable amount. The actual examination is quite quiet and gentle.
There are baby noises in this one too, and this time the baby sounds to be in the self-same room that the participants are in. I’m assuming that someone nearby is doing the baby soothing, bouncing on knee, or what have you because neither of the participants seems at all bothered by this.
It does get to the level of loud in this one which I think is sufficiently distracting that this one cannot be included in the Procrastination Pen playlist.
Assessment: Ears
The quality isn’t great here but I am making the guess that this is the same two people.
This is a little under eight minutes and so is back to a better length. It has a moderately quieter start than some of the previous videos considered.
Again, there are baby noises but the baby is back to a remote room. I think we can conclude that the baby is in the same house. But possibly not Susan or Matthew’s responsibility.
So overall more the “acceptable” rather than outstanding in terms of relaxation for sleep purposes. I’ll trial them in the Procrastination Pen playlist but the weeding of it continues apace so some or all of them maybe flushed out in a future weeding process.
The MGA Nursing playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:
I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.
The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:
I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.
I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.
If you liked this blog article why not follow this blog.
Recently I had occasion to browse YouTube using a smart TV. The app for YouTube browsing turns out to be a cut down of the version available via a web browser. For a start the shuffle function does not exist, the ability to skip adverts does not crop up and it took some searching to find the Procrastination Pen channel at all.
However, I am pleased to report that despite all that, the playlist still stands up pretty well even when forced to play each video in order. Some of those early videos have become like old friends now.
It also gave me the chance to identify the odd one that is ripe for weeding and push it over into the archive list – by this mechanism does the main Procrastination Pen playlist keep being refined and improved.
Today’s video is this one:
Head-to-Toe Assessment NR 304
Comments are permitted and we can see that ASMR fans have already been here and done that. NR304 turns out to be a nursing exam. The online references to it appear to come from Chamberlain University College of Nursing but that is not to say it is the only university to offer it.
The video is twelve and three quarter minutes long so a good average length for a medical examination video. And this seems to be again another video produced by students as part of their course. (we have a great deal of experience of this now and the results can be somewhat variable).
There is some background noise. There are conversations happening nearby both are quite distracting.
The medical professional is “Nadia”. She has a great voice which is somewhat overshadowed by the other conversations just off camera.
The “patient” is Jackie Santiago (almost certainly misspelled) with DoB 6/9/97. However, thereby is a trap for the unwary, this is the US dating system so almost certainly 09/06/1997, so June therefore.
Each of the participants has a tunic with a crest on it which is just a little too fuzzy for me to make out the name of the institution.
However, the Chamberlain University College of Nursing has a very similar logo.
So it could be that this is the location.
Chamberlain appears to be in Addison Illinois and unsurprisingly it has its own YouTube channel.
This is filled with the kind of promotional videos we have come to expect from such channels.
The channel is Nadia Hussain. This has just one video posted there years ago at the time I am looking at it, yet despite this there are four hundred and two subscribers. This is quite amazing and possibly speaks to the ASMR-y nature of this video.
I would completely be in accordance with that if the extraneous noises were not punctuating this video. It is also a shame, given the nature of her voice, that Nadia did not post any further videos.
In the brief intervals where no conversations from elsewhere are overheard this is a very good video. It even lacks oppressive air conditioning noises (which is very rare as we know).
Sadly, there is no more from Nadia, she does not seem to have any other channel, so presumably she went on to make good her career and never looked back. Good luck Nadia, but very sad for us.
So until next time then.
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.
I am continually reminded that there is nothing new under the sun. I spend so much time on YouTube now that I sometimes inadvertently happen upon something which I was not really searching for. Recently I discovered that the Procrastination Pen is not the only channel trying to put together a playlist connected with sleep. (On reflection I suspect that there are many of these).
I found that the channel Zbizzle has a playlist just entitled “Sleep”. At the time of looking, it has twenty-eight videos and four thousand two hundred and thirty views so none too shabby. I am listing it because you may be interested in checking it out.
The videos seem to be compiled from professional ASMR channels and so quite different to the approach that I have been taking. It might form an interesting contrast to the Procrastination Pen playlist.
Sadly, Zbizzle has not included any details about themselves in their channel (other than that they joined in 2012 – so somewhat before the Procrastination Pen).
I have not reviewed the sleep playlist myself; I’ve been a bit busy reviewing my own list. I can’t either recommend or criticise, I simply offer it up in case you haven’t found it yourself and you fancy giving it a try.
Back to the Procrastination Pen and the video being appraised today, this being:
Hannah’s Head to Toe assessment
At just less than forty-two minutes this one is a real thoroughgoing test. Recently we have been used to videos quite a bit shorter than that.
The title immediately strikes me as possibly being to do with a student assessment video which we have seen a number of in the past.
The focus looks a bit off, the distance of the subjects as if they are at the end of a long tunnel, both participants reasonably young in appearance.
The patient is introduced as “Miss Strickland” but the channel is “David Strickland” – there is no indication as to how that is the case. A possible gender change individual perhaps?
The background noise is not too oppressive thankfully, there is no introductory music for which may the Lord make us truly thankful. The medical professional does not introduce herself but jumping ahead the second video on this channel may iron that one out – of which more later.
There are no notes associated with the video which does indicate a non-professional video as we have noted. Professional videos tend to have notes associated with them.
There are comments, and as usual the comments are unhelpful. (I’ve formed the view that denying comments is probably a wise move with videos on YouTube).
There are no ASMR-related comments which may mean this is a find or it is a terrible video.
The sound is somewhat muted, which we have heard before and might be connected with the quality of microphone employed.
The delivery is as we have grown used to; the individual is assessed and so has to rattle off a certain amount of terminology in order to get a grade. (I surmise this in that most of the videos produced apparently as part of a course all seem to progress in the same way).
Videos of this type always seem to involve the “medical professional” consulting with some kind of mental checklist in a fairly rigid manner, up to the laughable “privacy” provision sections, where the poor student draws an invisible (i.e. non-existent) curtain.
The delivery is slightly loud and a little hesitant. It is obvious that the “medical professional“ keeps forgetting where they are supposed to be in the examination.
Regular readers will now be thoroughly familiar with cranial nerve tests now of course including some that are delivered by professionals.
The medical professional keeps pausing delivery, presumably in an effort to remember exactly what it is that is supposed to come next. Towards the end she actively consults her notes. But of course, for the purpose which we wish to put this to, which is to lie there and to listen, this need not be too distracting.
I love the way that she pronounces “Lazy eye”, a very different way to enunciate those two words to what I am used to.
The channel is David Strickland, perhaps a relative of Hannah Strickland who we saw as the patient in that first video.
The second video features the same participants but in a reversal of the roles:
Danielle’s Head to Toe Assessment
The key is that the medical professional of the former video was Danielle and in this one Danielle is actually the patient. There remain no clues as to where this actual medical establishment is.
The comments remain unhelpful and there are still no notes. The focus remains on the fuzzy side and the background noise is still muted. This one comes in at a little under thirty-eight and a half minutes.
Hannah starts off a little loud. The introductions are somewhat brief and definitely not enough to give much information about course, institution, more details of the participants and other information that I often use to determine that the video is a legitimate one and not from an ASMR professional. (From the appearance of it, I somewhat doubt it is the latter).
Given the paucity of the number of videos and the complete absence of playlists, two hundred and twenty-two subscribers is a really good result. One certainly gets the idea that the video was never intended to be out there in the greater public and, given both videos are both posted in 2014, any related course is long gone by now.
Part way through Hannah’s voice is completely masked by a background noise sounding like the microphone has been placed in a wind tunnel. Almost as if someone was hoovering it with a 1950s vacuum which had not received regular maintenance in the last seventy years. That is really quite distracting.
As before, the presentation is hesitant with some wrong steps being taken and some parts forgotten and returned to later.
There are obvious pauses as elements are recalled. Like the first video of this article in fact.
We discover that Danielle was born April 6th 1994 but the location is given merely as “nursing lab” which doesn’t help much in tracking down the institution – oh for an identifying badge or similar.
The David Strickland playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:
I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.
The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:
I can’t be bothered to stop my listening experience to log on, this interrupts the listening experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.
I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.
If you liked this blog article, why not follow this blog.
If you’ve been reading the Procrastination Pen for a while you will have come across the theory that people have a much more gentle and quiet approach to examinations when dealing with small people.
What could be better to test if this is consistent or just an occasional occurrence than to occasionally feature an examination with a small person and to observe whether such videos are better in terms of volume and method.
Universities have so far been pretty good for videos but they are also often a huge source of self-promotional material involving MGM style soundtracks and Saachi and Saachi motivational messages. There is, therefore, a mass of material to look at and quite a lot of it is unsuitable for us.
The University of Leicester though, in common with Warwick University, who we saw before, has a number of teaching videos and some of those are very good. Today’s video is sadly very brief at just shy of five minutes in duration.
Paediatric Clinical Examinations – The Abdomen
It includes comments and as expected a number of the comments are not helpful. Reading between the lines though, I think ASMR fans are here well before I am. This is something that we have come to expect now.
It is a professional video and so of course it has notes associated with it:
“30 Jul 2014
This is a real-time demonstration illustrating the technique and parent and child interaction involved in the examination of the abdominal system of a child.
The film was produced by a paediatrician to aid the teaching of clinical examination skills. It starts where the history has been taken, and the clinical examination is about to commence.
Written and presented by Dr Elaine Carter, Emeritus Consultant Paediatrician, MA, MB ChB, MRCP, FRCPCH, MMedSci.
This film was produced by External Relations, University of Leicester.
Filmed & Edited by Carl Vivian
Written & Produced by Elaine Carter”
There is no – I mean zero – music at the start of the video – Warwick take note. This is such a welcome difference.
We are introduced to mum Sophie and her son Alex, who, it has to be said, looks suitably anxious. There is limited background noise; no obvious air conditioning noises for example.
The presentation is lovely and gentle. So far, the theory about small people is vindicated yet again.
I never expected a child to be this calm when having his abdomen probed in such a deep manner. Perhaps the presentation is just a little loud but that is a minor criticism and is only possible because other aspects of the video are so right.
Interestingly, I found the video is now in the Internet Archive the first time I have ever found that to be the case.
This channel is simply huge, 1.3K videos at the date I am looking at it. Eighty-seven playlists and few of these are anything that we could use.
However searching the Internet Archive, discovered earlier, we find that Elaine is also involved in another video of a similar type.
This video, as luck would have it, is also present on YouTube:
Paediatric Clinical Examinations – The Respiratory System
This one seems to have been filmed before the previous one in that this is the first time we are introduced to Alex.
Again, there are notes: “30 Jul 2014
This is a real-time demonstration illustrating the technique and parent and child interaction involved in the examination of the respiratory system of a child.
The film was produced by a paediatrician to aid the teaching of clinical examination skills. It starts where the history has been taken, and the clinical examination is about to commence.
Written and presented by Dr Elaine Carter, Emeritus Consultant Paediatrician, MA, MB ChB, MRCP, FRCPCH, MMedSci.
This film was produced by External Relations, University of Leicester.
Filmed & Edited by Carl Vivian
Written & produced by Elaine Carter”
As before there is no startup music. If it wasn’t the fact that there would be so little material to work with, I would only select videos that lacked startup music (and tail end music as well for that).
We are also introduced to Ellie, Alex’s sister, Alex looks suitably bored, possibly because his sister is the focus of attention in this video.
It is another brief one at just less than six- and three-quarter minutes.
The presentation style here, if anything, is quieter than with the previous video. Ellie seems calm, even happy at intervals.
The comments are variable as always but again reading between the lines this is also already known to the ASMR community.
That’s it for this time.
The University of Leicester playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:
I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.
The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:
I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.
I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.
If you liked this blog article, why not follow this blog.
I think I can conclude, after quite a few ASMR articles, that nursing is an absolute gift to the ASMR community. There are nursing students who post assessment videos. There are various nursing disciplines that require additional training. Much of that training apparently needs videos. Then there are the tuition videos designed to help nurses improve their expertise and log continuing professional development hours.
With nursing, GPs, and physicians we have videos which are commonly dedicated to medical examination material and this can be quite restful.
In my one blog post per week, I have hardly scraped the surface of everything that seems to be out there in this area. I may, one day, happen upon an even more productive area (paediatrics currently is a little explored area for example). But for the moment thank God for all the nurses out there and the efforts that they put in.
Today’s is from a channel dedicated to nursing it is this:
01.03 The 5 Minute Assessment Physical assessment
Despite the claims of its title the video is nearly six minutes in length.
There are no notes, which is unusual for a professionally produced video. Comments are permitted. Mostly these are unhelpful, but they do lead me to suspect that a number of people listening to this video are ASMR fans.
Oh no introductory music. Thankfully though, it is brief and unsurprisingly, for a video that declares it is all going to happen in five minutes, the pace sets off pretty rapidly and perhaps not as quietly as I would like.
The patient self-identifies as, I think, “Tammy Hawes” but that is probably misspelled. Once the examination begins things start to quieten down, but the pace certainly does not slow any.
The channel is “Nursing made easy” this has one hundred and seventy-two videos at the time I am looking at it and eight hundred and ninety-nine subscribers. That is rather a lot of videos/subscribers.
There are six playlists. One of these has seventy-four videos in it.
However examining the videos in overview, it appears that the titles denote a series. Posted one year ago are four videos with titles ranging from 01.02 to 01.05.
A quick scan of the remainder reveals that few if any will be suitable for our purposes.
The first is this one:
01.02 Barriers to Health Assessment
At just less than eight and a half minutes, the title doesn’t obviously sound like one for us. There are, again, no notes but this time no comments either. There is introductory music again. Then that frenetic pace of presentation (but this time in roadrunner proportions).
I imagine people actually play this one on half speed if they are trying to study it properly.
This really isn’t for the Procrastination Pen playlist.
01.03 is where we came in of course.
01.04 Adult Vital Signs
This is just less than five and a half minutes so another short one. Again, there are no notes and, perhaps thankfully, no comments either. That, accursed, introductory music of course. But after that start the pace is somewhat slower than with the previous two videos. It still isn’t what you would call slow though.
In this one neither patient nor the nurse doing the examination actually get to say anything, it is all about the narrator.
I think the videos in this particular blog article are probably all borderline restful. They are just good enough for the Procrastination Pen playlist but potentially liable to weeding on subsequent review.
The last video in this particular set is this one:
01.05 Pediatric Vital Signs
This is a bit of a segue in fact; the numbering system obviously linking more to the originating course than to the people delivering the examination, the patient, or even the specific subject area.
This one is just less than six and a quarter minutes long. As before there are no notes and no comments. As before the annoying start up music. As before the pace is pretty fast.
This is more a course-delivery video than a medical-examination video. It is not especially restful (although I’m sure if you are on the specific course, it is very informative).
This is not really for the Procrastination Pen playlist
The Nursing made easy 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.
Once upon a time I had a job which required me to get up at 4am and sadly the habit stays in my mind. This means that if something wakes me close to 4am that is pretty much any sleep done for me. I was awakened by a loud clang in one of the videos recently so I have embarked upon a campaign of weeding the main Procrastination Pen playlist to take loud clang-containing videos out of it.
As I have relayed many times in this blog, if there were a feature to edit the videos down such that removal of the noisy bits were feasible then I would do it.
In some cases, simply truncating the video such that it started later or finished earlier would do that. I do not own the videos. Wars with copyright solicitors sound tiresome (and doomed to failure) and I do not want to act as an archive for other people’s videos.
However, if someone knows of a method by which I can set the start time of the video in the YouTube playlist (and preferably the end time as well), let me know.
It is likely that some of the videos are more likely to survive in the main Procrastination Pen playlist for longer if some of that jarring start-up music were consigned to the bin for example.
Today’s video is continuing in the theme we have enjoyed for some weeks now, which is of medical examinations which may engender relaxation or in some people, ASMR symptoms. The motivation being to get off to sleep more swiftly and to remain asleep as long as your mind will permit you to do so.
The Rheumatology Exam
Slightly less than half an hour so a bit longer than some we have evaluated of late. The patient appears to be yellow, which I assume is a camera artefact rather than some regrettable condition that he has developed.
It is a professional video and in common with a number of such videos has some notes associated with it: “22 Jan 2016
A video on the main points of the rheumatology exam.
The video was created as part of the Top Hat Tutorials app, a new doctor and student designed guide to the clinical examinations in medicine and surgery.
‘TOP HAT TUTORIALS’ is available in the Apple, Google and Windows app stores today.
Reached number 1 medical app in its first week of launch!
A must have for medical students no matter where they are studying.
The URLs have not been tested – but we have found that download links that old are often orphaned – there is no telling where you might end up clicking such things.
Comments are permitted (bring on the trolls) they confirm that ASMR fans are here in number and so this is no revolutionary find on my part (which is also what we have come to expect).
Oh no start-up music, but at least it is muted. Please video-recording-people have mercy on the sleeping.
The medical professional is Dr Tom Brian (almost certainly misspelled). The patient is Luke – I feel on stronger ground spelling wise there.
The narration also appears to be Dr Tom and he has a good voice for our purposes. His approach is methodical and unhurried. Pretty well ideal in fact.
The channel is Top Hat Tutorials, there are one hundred and forty-two videos on this channel and 38.6K subscribers – phewee.
The latest such videos seem to be posted three years ago. The oldest seven years ago.
There are three playlists the shortest of which contains thirteen videos, which might be sufficient to be excessively distracting to anyone popping into this blog for a swift read.
Dr Tom appears in quite a few of them and so does Luke.
Therefore I decided to narrow the number of videos by searching the channel for videos associated with “Rheumatology”. This gives us eight videos of which ours is one of the longest.
These are as follows:
The Rheumatological examination of the Hands
Six and three quarter minutes so it is short even by our recent standards. As before there are notes “23 Jan 2016
A video of the main points of the rheumatological exam of the hands.
The video was created as part of the Top Hat Tutorials app, a new doctor and student designed guide to the clinical examinations in medicine and surgery.
‘TOP HAT TUTORIALS’ is available in the Apple, Google and Windows app stores today.
Reached number 1 medical app in its first week of launch!
A must have for medical students no matter where they are studying.
As before comments are permitted and again many are not helpful. There are no obviously ASMR-related comments this time though. Again with the start-up music, can it people.
This time Dr Tom is narrating (well I’m pretty certain it is him) and the patient is Luke.
It is beautifully measured in presentation and Dr Tom has a great voice. Although this is better in the examination part of the video as it is more modulated than in the narration part (where people always seem to believe that volume is a requirement).
The Rheumatology Exam
This, of course is where we came in.
The Rheumatological Examination of the Ankles and Feet
This one is even more brief at just under three and a half minutes. The notes are pretty repetitive so I will not go into them again for this one.
The comments are as helpful as a person determined to be unhelpful and there are no ASMR-related comments.
These videos are so consistent it is probably of minimum utility to go into each one. However, I feel it important to review them all up front in case of any unwelcome surprises (a brass band playing trumpet voluntary at minute two for example, actually there are some YouTube adverts which are equally jarring).
The theme for these videos consists of: startup music, Dr Tom – narrator, Dr Tom performs examination, Luke patient. Dr Tom has a consistently good voice during the examination, slightly less so in narration.
I suspect all of the videos to be identical in approach and this is one of the great advantages of professionally produced videos – i.e., their consistency.
The Rheumatological Examination of the Back
Unhelpful comments persist. YouTube comments are like the wall in a public urinal, I think. (Although I have yet to find any mouldy and hardened chewing gum remnants, which is something to be thankful for).
This one is a little over four minutes such that we seem to have two types of videos the half an hour ones and the short – barely five minutes – ones. There is probably a method to these given that they are designed for an app and probably have some utility within it. If any app subscribers are reading please write a comment and let me know how this works.
The Rheumatological examination of the knees
This is just less than four and a quarter minutes in length. There are similar notes, few comments worth mentioning, the same approach. It is again a gentle procedure which has the benefit of a quiet voice (louder narration allowing).
The Rheumatological examination of the Shoulders
Four and a quarter minutes and it is exactly the same as those that have gone before.
Indeed some aspects of the video seem to be repetitions of sections from previous videos. I suspect that there is a good deal of overlap between them. It is definitely worthwhile using the shuffle function on YouTube or the watching of this part of the playlist on the Procrastination Pen is going to be somewhat repetitive.
The Rheumatological examination of the Elbows
This is the shortest one so far at just over two and a quarter minutes. Unsurprisingly there are zero comments with this one. Notes, music, style remain as before.
The Rheumatological Examination of the Hips
Four and three quarter minutes, zero comments, startup music, but now you’re in the swing of this of course…
The Top Hat Tutorials 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.
I notice that there is now a lot more traffic in social media sites that utilise pictures or videos than there is in sites dedicated to reading. So, it is feasible that writing a blog (to whatever level of skill) is now something of a dying art (a bit like writing thank-you letters to your aunt because you received a fountain pen for your birthday).
It seems few people write letters now other than solicitors and banks. People using fountain pens do so because they like pens, rather than it’s a thing that you just use.
I assume people still have aunts; however, I imagine any messages of thanks are now received via Signal, WhatsApp or even (the now somewhat dated) SMS.
Perhaps AI will save us by writing all these blog articles for us, however I wonder then who will be left to read them.
So, it is with a sense of some stubbornness that I write (however badly) another article on ASMR for sleep.
Today’s video comes from that very deep mine of videos which we have thoroughly excavated of late which is the video apparently produced as some kind of course work. Sadly, these always seem to be pressured efforts produced in public areas and as such the sound quality is often not quite there.
A number of these seem a great idea at first (to me at least) but have subsequently hit the Procrastination Pen archive list because they do not measure up to the competition we are seeing through continual review of the videos available.
So, it is with a triumph of optimism over experience that we come to today’s:
Head to toe
The sound is flat as if being recorded from some distance away (which may be the reality). The pace is frenetic (is someone timing the participants for some reason?)
From the introductory comments I heard that the medical professional is Carmen, a student (some kind of student but it was too fast for me to catch what).
Similarly, the “patient” could be “Charlene” (but that may well not be correct).
The date it is filmed is 03/08/2021 and they are at LIU campus Brooklyn.
LIU of course has its own YouTube channel. (This must be de rigueur for universities). However, there appear to be only fifty-nine videos here. As we have seen before these tend to be promotional videos for the university, rather than material that an ASMR-related blog can really make much use of.
The video (as is common for such videos) is in portrait mode (presumably filmed on a phone). As we have come to expect, there are various noises associated with equipment. Here, the muted nature of the volume works in our favour.
There are no comments permitted (which as has been pointed out before is probably wise). However, it does mean that I have no awareness as to whether other people have discovered this video and are using it for ASMR purposes. ASMR fans are so good at sniffing out a good video that a tracker dog would do less well. I therefore suspect quite a few have been here before me.
Once the examination-proper starts, things begin to slow down. (Thank goodness, this is supposed to be relaxing).
At nearly forty-two and a half minutes this is quite a long video. One does get the idea with such videos that in order to pass an assessment the student has to rattle through a list of certain phrases as if mentally following a checklist.
This often leads to a quite stilted presentation. (Presumably it is effective for assessment purposes, however).
Charlene (if that is her name) seems as anxious as we have come to expect in such videos. Perhaps the pace has not been relaxing for her either.
There are a number of thumps and bangs from the equipment. As pointed out before medical equipment does not seem to come with the quiet option.
Definition:
JVD: Jugular Vein Distention, bulging of veins in the neck.
The channel is carmen yip which has one video and no playlists. Yet, despite this, it has two hundred and five subscribers, that is quite an achievement I think.
The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:
I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.
The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:
I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.
I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.
If you liked this blog article why not follow this blog.
The Procrastination Pen 
