Sleeping With ASMR

For newbies to the blog, a quick guide. As an old codger I am finding it increasingly difficult to sleep. After messing about for a while with different solutions, I found that a number of YouTube videos were relaxing. Even if I could not get off to sleep, they distracted me from the anxiety of realising I would be tired in the morning.

Sometimes this was enough to get to sleep. Sometimes if I woke up in the night, it was enough to get back off to sleep again. Sometimes I could content myself with lying there just watching the video.

I came across the “unintentional ASMR” category whilst searching YouTube and discovered there is a whole resource of videos which engender ASMR effects in those who are fortunate enough to feel them.

This started an idea, what if I went in search of videos that might be suitable for ASMR or at the very least be relaxing enough for sleep. What if I tried to find videos that did not appear to be listed on existing ASMR channels. I would then have a long playlist of relaxing videos and maybe some of them would not have been found by some people looking for ASMR videos.

I thought that my research may help other people – those who perhaps do not want to spend time finding relaxing videos but just want to get some sleep for goodness sake.

As I come across more videos I review them, post them up here and add the good ones to an ever-expanding playlist. Every so often I review the playlist and archive those that have not stood the test of time. Hopefully, eventually, the playlist will just consist of quality ASMR videos. I always welcome suggestions for membership/deletions.

Today’s was covered previously but in that case consisted of a compilation video (which was the following three videos somehow welded up into one. I usually dismiss these compilation videos but in this case the join was largely unrecognisable so I let it pass. After this blog article I may well be weeding out the compilation video in favour of the following (On the assumption that they are any good of course)).

NEU_General Exam – Part 1

Those who read the previous blog article will be familiar with the participants. If you haven’t read the previous blog article, I’m pleased that you are a new reader and why not go take a look.

As usual we look at the video and we look at the YouTube channel where it is found (in the hope other juicy ASMR videos might be discovered).

The channel is redbreadproductions it has fifteen videos as at today’s date and it would appear that we have snaffled the only three worthy of greater attention. Yay us and onto the review.

This video is Part One of a three-part video series

The intro helpfully tells us it is the Northeastern Physician Assistant Program 2010, which appears to be this one.

Northeastern has its own channel replete with the kind of self-promotional videos which regular readers will now be familiar with.

However I was amazed to find this one amongst them:

It is not exactly a positive endorsement but hey it is early days yet – some ASMR videos have only been up for 5 years for example.

Our video has a rather too funky intro music track – it’s a shame but not the first time we have seen this.

The intro then goes on to say “The General Physical Examination”.

The whole video is only six minutes and twenty seven seconds.

It suffers with a humongous amount of background hubbub. It seems to be extremely loud and the weighing scales even more so. Clang, bang wallop and so on.

It sounds like the examination is next to a staff canteen in which some truly hot gossip item is doing the rounds. The kind of thing where it would be tempting to open the door and yell “shut up” quite offensively only the lull would last all of half a second and then resume even more loudly.

In any case, for our purposes, this is a tad distracting especially when the background discussion descends into laughter.

The rapport between medical professional and patient is excellent so the associated noise is even more distressing.

NEU_General Exam – Part 2

Thank (pick deity of choice) the background gossiping has abated – perhaps between videos the participants went out with some duct tape and taped their mouths up. The video is just over nine minutes, so a bit longer than previously, and is so much quieter and more attentive it is like we’ve started a whole new series.

The aircon is of course a constant companion but it is almost welcome after the unwelcome additional noise of that first video.

I also like the noise of the tuning fork in this one which I have never noted before despite watching a large number of similar videos.

NEU_General Exam – Part 3

Some of the conversation has returned – a little more muted like a room full of children a fraction of a second after an adult has really screamed at them. (Just like that event – expect the noise to build and build).

However, the medical professional’s voice is truly excellent. It would be great to find further instructional videos in which she features (preferably in a quieter room). However, I have not been able to do so.

I notice she says “doing good”. I assume this must be correct although I would have thought “doing good” was being saintly and in this context I would have thought it was “doing well” i.e. in good health. I am obviously too awake whilst writing this else I would not notice things like that.

Right at the end we get thanks to Rebecca Scott, Ph.D, PA-C (I assume she was the medical professional) and Rebekah Saunders, PA-SI (I assume she was the patient)

That’s all folks. A brief one this time, so you can get back to work and stop procrastinating. More next time.

These three just barely squeeze into the playlist as the quality isn’t amazing – they may well be subject to a future weeding process.

I’ve created a NorthEastern playlist for them here:

The overall playlist of videos covered so far in this blog is here:

The archive playlist of videos that were in the above playlist but found after lengthy review not to make the grade, is here:

I keep this in case people have personal favourites that they want to hear.

The playlist of videos regarding age verification is here:

I dislike these as they require me to stop and verify my age, I cannot be bothered to do this when I am trying to sleep. You may differ, in which case this playlist is for you.

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Photo by Joe Cleary on Unsplash

Sleeping With ASMR

Continuing the mission to identify videos with possible ASMR effects (or at the very least ones that can lull you off to sleep) I have come across today’s video.

This one is acronym city – I doubt you’ll need to understand much of them to enjoy the video. However, if, like me, you find it annoying that you do not understand what things mean, here are a few of those that came up:

OSPE – office of standardised patient education

UAB the University of Alabama at Birmingham

HEENT Head Eyes Ears Nose and Throat

(Knees and toes, knees and toes)

Ahem, so with the preliminaries out of the way, let’s progress to the video and what it does for ASMR.

This is todays’ video:

The HEENT Physical Examination

Mark has an excellent voice, if a little nervous in this one. In fact, at intervals, he seems to be looking to the student for reassurance.

The channel (unsurprisingly) is Mark Pepin, MD, PhD (The photo on the channel indicates that this video was recorded some time ago – he’s older on the photo than he is in the video). In fact, the video was posted in February 2018.

The channel has fifteen videos in total and only some of these are to do with medical exams. This is probably a number of videos that might prove tedious to read about in a single blog post (attention spans being what they are at the current time).

There are seven playlists and to be honest, different ones appear appealing from our perspective. (This is another channel to return to I suspect). However, the playlist Clinical Physical Examinations

includes the one selected. There are ten videos in this playlist which does not seem excessive to cover here. (If you’re bored already scroll to the end of this blog post where you will find the relevant playlists).

The Cardiovascular Examination

Mark with Erin again, this time Erin is a clinical skills trainer. Mark is still good in this video, whilst Erin again doesn’t get to say anything.

It is going in the Procrastination Pen playlist.

The Pulmonary Physical Examination

I notice that Erin has an escalating involvement in these films – now she is helping with filming and editing. Heather Hallman PA and Shawn Galin MD are presenting in this one.

If anything, Heather Hallman has a better voice than Mark Pepin. Slightly energetic in places perhaps (for the purpose of getting off to sleep) but excellent for relaxation. There appears to be a background click playing in the video which is initially a bit distracting but is significantly better than some of the air conditioning noises we’ve had previously. Shawn’s voice is not the greatest fit for ASMR but he doesn’t get to say a lot here (thankfully for us).

This one is going in the Procrastination Pen playlist.

The HEENT Physical Examination

This is where we came in of course. Made at the University of Alabama at Birmingham they have a channel with a very large number of videos, thirty-three playlists – at least one of which is seventy-four videos long. This may be worthy of exploration in a future article.

At intervals the video is really deeply restful. As before it is Procrastination Pen playlist bound.

The Neurologic Physical Examination

Dr. Victor Sung and Erin returns. Sadly, Dr Sung is not so great in ASMR terms. I’m sure it’s a very instructive video but that isn’t why we are here.

It is also the longest one we have encountered so far, in excess of fifty-nine minutes.

If you persist with it, Dr Sung has a much gentler voice at intervals. So, the default voice must be Dr Sung in instruction mode. I’m not sure how I would subdivide the video to isolate only those moments. What we’re looking for is an exam video for Dr Sung which would also be a lot shorter.

This video is not going to make the Procrastination Pen playlist.

The GI/Abdominal Physical Examination

Erin again but with M. Tosi Gilford this time.

M. Tosi Gilford is not as good as Heather Hallman in terms of voice. However, the video isn’t loud or shouty. It is definitely an instruction video rather than a true examination and that is probably why the tone is different.

Once the actual examination proper commences it is a lot better. On balance I’ll include this in the Procrastination Pen playlist – although it might suffer archiving in a future weeding process.

Gastrointestinal H&P (Part 1/3): Taking the History

This feels a bit odd here and in fact is from another playlist in the Mark Pepin Channel i.e. this one:

This is Mark Pepin with Corey Duke. It’s got some kind of overlay happening in that the side of Mark Pepin is cut off entirely by the scenery in places. However, hopefully you will have your head on the pillow and you will not notice this.

It is remarkably calm given the subject matter (Corey in particular has a very good voice). Unfortunately, Corey does not seem to have his own YouTube channel because that would be one worthy of further exploration.

It’s shorter than the ones so far at seven minutes fourteen seconds.

The concluding sounds though are not at all restful.

Gastrointestinal H&P (Part 2/3) – Physical Examination

Introductory noises are rather familiar from other medical videos we have so far seen. But thankfully that is soon over. Then it gets very gentle, which is pretty well ideal for us. At four minutes thirty-three seconds it is regrettably brief (not that atypical) but is a very good Procrastination Pen playlist candidate.

Again, it concludes with a loud noise which it would be great to do without.

Gastrointestinal H&P (Part 3/3) – Presenting the Patient

This is more of a presentation. It is not loud though and there are no objectional background noises.

Until the end – when it gets all funky. I’ll put it in the Procrastination Pen playlist for now, but it might become a fatality at a future playlist review.

The Musculoskeletal Physical Examination: Part 1 – Upper Extremity

Mark returns with Erin Dorman again. We are back on form as for the first video of this article.

It is eighteen minutes thirty-four seconds long and so it is a more thorough exam. The background noise (air conditioning again) is none too intrusive.

This is very calm; not loud, and seems a good fit for the Procrastination Pen playlist.

The Musculoskeletal MSK Physical Examination: Part 2 Lower Extremity

This is a follow on from the previous video but this time with Mark and Erin standing.

As in the previous video the tone is great in this one.

There’s rather a lot of information in these. Usually when I am awake enough to take in the video content I learn something. In this case I felt a bit swamped. If you’re like me and the purpose is to use it to get to sleep, the approach seems to let all the technical terms wash over you. However, perhaps after a number of plays you may even learn something.

At just over nine minutes police sirens start, that is a shame but I still think I’ll keep this in the Procrastination Pen playlist – at least for now.

I notice that the list is flagged as last being updated four years ago, this seems a shame for our purposes as more contributions from Mark would definitely be appreciated. The Mark Pepin Playlist is here:

The playlist of all videos reviewed on the blog so far is here:

The archive playlist (of videos previously in the above list but which eventually were found to be less great than hoped – retained in case you still find them useful) – is here:

I hope that you find the videos restful.

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Photo by Caleb Woods on Unsplash

Sleeping With ASMR

The video quality for this one is a tad poor. And perhaps I don’t mean a tad. However it is quite different to what we have had before and it is partly because of its age and its purpose. This one is recorded (to video cassette tape I assume) in 1996 and reflects its time I think.

The sound quality is actually not as bad as in some of the other videos I have already featured on this blog (and no doubt many to come). There is no loud equipment noises in the background for example.

It is designed to inform/educate and as such is calm and unadulterated by extraneous sounds (such as a snazzy backing track for example). It’s recorded at the University of Michigan – Department of Neurology, February 16th 1996.

The Neurologic Exam part 1

This video is of sufficient quality that it crops up in a number of ASMR video compilations which are the kind of ASMR videos I do not watch anymore. It is too much like a box of sweets in which a good twenty percent of the sweets you do not like. Compilation videos are complicated by the fact that no one seems to be able to get the inter-clip volumes to agree. If you start off at a quiet sleep-friendly volume you can be woken sometime later by an individual with a predisposition to bellow. This is John Wald and Douglas Gelb in a demonstration of how to run a Neurologic Exam but who (presumably inadvertently) have good voices for ASMR. In this I feel that Douglas edges out John slightly. Which is good news because in this video he also does the majority of the talking.

Johnwaldmd is the channel (presumably the John Wald MD in the video footage although somewhat more advanced in years I would suggest). I’m guessing a great many of the people who watch the ASMR video compilations were probably as yet unborn when this video was first recorded.

There are only seven videos in this channel and it is obvious that we will not be looking at many of those; some of them appear to appeal to quite a narrow audience (probably family and friends).

I think we can consign four of these into the metaphorical ASMR bin without further review, leaving the above one and two others. Part two of the above presentation:

The Neurologic Examination part 2

This is the “review” section which effectively is giving instruction on how to perform the neurologic exam. In my view this is not as wonderful from an ASMR perspective so I think it won’t make the grade for the playlist.

There is also this video:

VTS 01 0

This is both silent and only 30 seconds long so it may have been some kind of test…

So one video only this time around folks.

On that basis I have not created a playlist for johnwaldmd.

The overall playlist containing all the videos featured in this blog is here:

I hope that you find it relaxing.

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Sleeping With ASMR

I recently had a nasty shock when posting an ASMR article. For each embedded video, rather than a nice image of the video from YouTube there is a rather abrupt message from YouTube stating that the content of the video can only be shown on YouTube itself.

I don’t see this as a problem. I was anticipating that in reading this you were eager to get to the playlists at the end and see what new joys of ASMR I had found for you. However, it does look rather unattractive.

I apologise for this. I do not know a workaround other than to delete the video from the blog altogether. That seems a bit counterproductive since you wouldn’t get to experience the video at all.

If anyone has any suggestions as to how the ugly warning box can be dispensed with and something more attractive put in its place, I would welcome that kind of input.

Today’s video subject is another nerve examination – they are a rich source of ASMR material. I have no idea how the medical education process seems to churn out so many people with calm quiet voices but long may it continue and long may they continue to post their videos.

Quick Neurological Screening Examination

Judging by some of the comments I am not the first to divine that this is a great ASMR video. I’m hopeful that you find it soporific, if you’ve decided to use the playlists to get off to sleep, as I do.

Prashant for that is the YouTube channel has posted just ten videos but has 4.06K subscribers as at today’s date. This makes me wonder if there are a shed-load of ASMR devotees out there.

A number of the videos could have been effective but they are in a language I do not understand and hence there is a risk I’m posting something that I shouldn’t. Therefore, I have discounted them.

This next one features Dr Prashant himself. He has quite a good voice, but I’m not sure the coronavirus is a very restful subject so I am discounting it from the playlist.

Corona Virus (COVID-19) Pandemic

Which leaves only one video:

Mental Status Examination

This takes a while to wind itself up, the exam proper does not really start till six minutes five seconds into the video. Sadly whilst it is the sole remaining video in this channel worthy of consideration, I don’t think it really made the grade. (Your experience may differ). So one more video for the playlist, remember it is found here:

I hope you find it restful.

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