Agatha Christie – The Procrastination Pen

Sleeping With ASMR

Of late I am becoming as good at procrastination as the title of the blog would lead you to suspect. I am not writing and yet, perversely, when I am writing I don’t find the process that unpleasant. So it is rather odd that I am choosing to avoid writing in this fashion.

However, apart from getting you a blog article this has nothing to do with ASMR (well as far as I am aware anyway).

Of late I have been falling asleep to Paul Temple who is a character that I came across quite by accident. There is a whole set of Paul Temple playlists on YouTube like this one:

and this follows on rather nicely I think from the Agatha Christie material that I used to dose off to:

There are even more of those, for example:

and in fact, as part of my material that is not on YouTube, I can choose one of those that is in the Internet Archive such as:

https://archive.org/details/ATTWN_AC_DS

https://archive.org/download/ATTWN_AC_DS/01%20-%20And%20Then%20There%20Were%20None.mp3

https://archive.org/download/ATTWN_AC_DS/02%20-%20Ten%20Little%20Soldier%20Boys.mp3

A bit of a cheat in that it has nothing to do with ASMR but as a mechanism of falling off to sleep, I do find that the occasional audiobook is a great way to ring the changes from ASMR every once in a while.

This week’s Calm offering is this one:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/D1jDKA6-QE

Daily Calm

The Place

NARRATOR

Tamara Levitt

AUTHOR

Tamara Levitt

This explores the tendency of grasping.

Calm is not free. I feel a tad guilty about suggesting something that isn’t free in that I am certain it will therefore appeal to very few people, so moving right along.

Today I decided I’d ring the changes in an entirely selfish fashion given that I have been trying to learn Italian for years without success and in my YouTube recommendations I found an Italian teacher who does ASMR. This is not at all medical. It is therefore not on theme for what I have been doing and I apologise for that. Normal service will be resumed soonish.

ASMR Your Italian Teacher Explains Italy Geography Lesson

It is a little less than twenty two minutes so somewhat shorter than some we have been used to. There are comments – a fair few of those and mostly positive too which bodes well. The channel is AppleWhispers ASMR. I am pretty certain I have not been here before; it has 4.15k subscribers, four videos, no playlists and there is even a medical themed video:

So, I may be returning to review that if nothing else. With only four videos over the course of very few blog articles I could review all that there are. Assuming the present one is impressive, at any rate.

There are notes with the channel (of course):

“AppleWhispers ASMR

Description

🌙 Welcome to AppleWhispers ASMR! Hi, I’m Elena! 🤍 I’ve been creating ASMR videos for over 6 years, helping people relax, unwind and fall asleep. I also run one of Italy’s largest ASMR channels, AppleTingles ASMR, and I finally decided to create a space for my English-speaking audience. Here you’ll find: ✨ Soft spoken & whispered ASMR 🩺 Medical roleplays 💆 Personal attention 😴 Sleep & relaxation videos 🎧 Tingly sounds and cozy atmospheres Thank you for being here. I hope my videos can bring you a little peace, wherever you are in the world. Whether you’re here to relax after a long day, reduce anxiety or simply fall asleep, I hope you’ll feel safe and welcome. Sweet dreams, Elena 🍎 🇮🇹 My Italian ASMR channel: https://www.youtube.com/@AppleTinglesASMR“

So that is interesting. This is just a sideline channel o the main feast as it were. I may be reviewing that other channel in future then.

The video (of course) also has notes:

“72,761 views 10 Aug 2026 #asmr #sleep #relax

Today we’re taking a relaxing journey across Italy, exploring the geography, history and fascinating facts that make my country so unique.

Many people know Italy for pizza, pasta and beautiful cities, but there’s so much more to discover.

In this ASMR geography lesson we’ll explore:

🇮🇹 Why Italy is actually a surprisingly young country

🏔️ How the Dolomites were once ancient coral reefs

🌋 Italy’s active volcanoes

🏛️ Vatican City and San Marino

🌊 Italy’s incredible geography

🏞️ Mountains, lakes and coastlines

…and many more fascinating facts!

So, sit back, relax, and let me guide you through one of the world’s most beautiful countries.

If you enjoy this video, let me know in the comments! I’d love to continue this series and explore more of Italy together. ❤️

🍎 Welcome to AppleWhispers ASMR!

Hi, I’m Elena! 🤍

I’m so happy you’re here.

My goal is to help you relax, unwind and fall asleep through gentle whispers, personal attention and immersive ASMR roleplays.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

🎧 For relaxation purposes only.

Please do not listen while driving or operating machinery.”

I’ve truncated those a lot.

The warning is amusing, who knew that ASMR could be as powerful as a bottle of Night Nurse.

The video starts without music and surprisingly to me it is in English. OK, English teacher teaching Italian, makes sense.

Even for ASMR it seemed a bit slow to me. Despite that, the voice level is ideal, calm, quiet but not a whisper – quite a rare thing.

However, as far as the teaching Italian goes – no Italian. Some details about Italy but not the language as such. OK, serves me right, I should have stuck to the blog theme and stopped dithering about.

At least there aren’t any gloves-related noises in this one. There is the occasional stoke of the map (fingers on paper). But mainly this is all about the voice which is just the way I like it. After a while I found myself adapting to the slower pace and it became ever more restful as I kept listening.

I rather liked this one (as I am certain you understand from that review). Why not take a listen for yourself.

The inadvertent ASMR video this week comes from a time when I was doing the odd diversion from medical themed ASMR videos and so I had a listen to a woodblock carving video and I rather liked what I heard.

I sent myself a reminder to look it up again (Three years ago now) and so here I am with not one but two videos delivered to you in the form of a playlist:

The channel is David Bull with 192k subscribers, One hundred and forty seven videos, seven playlists of which (unsurprisingly) none at all are on a medical theme. I really am taking a foray to stage left this week.

The channel has notes “

“David Bull

Description

Tokyo-based woodblock printmaker David Bull has created a number of video presentations of his work, including a number of videos showing the complete process of making his prints. A highlight of the channel is the series of videos chronicling the production of prints in the Ukiyoe Heroes series – his collaboration with US-based illustrator Jed Henry.

A great deal of the work for producing these videos is recently being assisted by the Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/mokuhankan/   Thank you very much for your support!

Dave streams three times a week from our Twitch account: https://www.twitch.tv/japaneseprintmaking

Links

Mokuhankan workshopmokuhankan.com

Our Patreon pagepatreon.com/mokuhankan

Woodblock.com websitewoodblock.com

Twitch livestreamingtwitch.tv/japaneseprintmaking”

The first video is this one:

Japanese Woodblock Printmaking Workshop – Hakobi

It too has notes:

“50,125 views 27 May 2021 TOKYO

This is the first in a series of videos demonstrating various traditional techniques and tools in the Japanese mokuhanga woodblock printmaking industry and how we use them today here at Mokuhankan.

Today’s video is about the pigment brushes our printers use, known as ‘hakobi’ (運び) or ‘tokibo’ (解き棒). First Suga-san tells us a little bit about what hakobi are for and why she makes her own instead of only using store-bought ones, and then she demonstrates the whole process from start to finish. Finally, we have a slideshow at the end going over the tying steps again for you to follow while making your own.

We have a list of ideas and have started the process of making more of these – but please feel free to leave a comment about what techniques and tools you are interested in learning about so we can consider your ideas for future videos.

Narration and demonstrations: Natsuki Suga

Cinematography: Yasuhiro Aoyama and Cameron Hilker

Editing and Subtitling: Cameron Hilker

Hasegawa Typeface: Markku Mujunen (https://mokuhankan.com/fonts/ and http://markkumujunen.com/)

On Dave’s personal website, there is more information on making these tools:

http://woodblock.com/encyclopedia/ent…

http://woodblock.com/manga/hakobi/ind…

The Mokuhankan Twitch channel (where you can watch Dave use the tools shown here):

/ japaneseprintmaking

The Mokuhankan website:

https://mokuhankan.com

Our Patreon campaign:

/ mokuhankan “

There are a large number of comments and a number are positive. Some lead me to suspect that ASMR fans are already well aware of this one.

It is a little over fifteen and a half minutes so not huge but bear in mind this week we have two of them to listen to.

It starts with the weather and the weather is rather blustery. There is the sound of crows, of the wind, and the rain. We find that this video is actually in Japanese and is being subtitled. The person presenting has a good voice and the pace is excellent. I love the intonation of the Japanese language and given the subject matter I have some assurance that no rude words have snuck in (despite the fact I have no comprehension of the language personally and I am relying on the subtitles).

There are some random noises, which we’d expect given the subject matter is about woodblock printing not ASMR. There are water noises, paper-related noises, scissors cutting noises, a background noise which sounds like sanding (by hand). The end is a series of instructions with no voice; there is just some background noise, which sounds like cleaning activity to me. If anything, this section of the video is more restful than the rest.

The credits indicate that the narrator/presenter was Natsuki Suga and it may well be worthwhile keeping an eye open for further videos from this source.

The second video is a little alike the first, it is this one:

Japanese Woodblock Printmaking Workshop – A Printer’s Tools and Workspace

it too has notes: “64,382 views 21 Jul 2021 MOKUHANKAN (JAPANESE WOODBLOCK PRINTS AND MORE)

This is the second in our ever-growing series of videos demonstrating various traditional techniques and tools in the Japanese mokuhanga woodblock printmaking style and how we use them today here at Mokuhankan.

Today, Natsuki Suga gives us a tour of her printing bench and surrounding workspace. Watch to learn a bit more about each tool she uses in her daily work as a printmaker. We hope you will enjoy this overview and learn something along the way, as well.

Printmaker and Host: Natsuki Suga

Video and Photos: Cameron Hilker

Hasegawa Typeface: Markku Mujunen (https://mokuhankan.com/fonts/ and http://markkumujunen.com/)

To see Suga-san actually using this space, watch this video:

• Woodblock Printing Process – A Japan Journey

The Mokuhankan Twitch channel (where you can watch Dave use many of the tools shown here):

/ japaneseprintmaking

The Mokuhankan website:

https://mokuhankan.com

Our Patreon campaign:

/ mokuhankan “

It is little less than fourteen- and three-quarter minutes. The comments are still largely positive and again some of the comments lead me to suspect that ASMR fans have come visiting. It starts loud though, with the sound of a train and various city related noises. Again, we have Natsuki Suga as the presenter, same great voice, same peaceful style. If anything, less background noise. This time Natsuki is not on the floor. I did fear for the knees in that position but less fearful when sat at a desk. The subject in itself appears to me fascinating but of course we are here for the sound and I would say we are well served in that respect. I like the intonation; I like the pace. There is the overarching sense of peace about the entire presentation.

So, two whole videos this week and a playlist thrown in for fun.

I wish you well in your drive to get more sleep.

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

See you again next week.

The David Bull 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 Deep.ai

Sleeping With ASMR

I am getting the opportunity recently to converse with people who are a generation older than I am, and the news for people reading this blog is not very settling. I’m afraid the interruptions to sleep get worse. The length of sleep gets shorter. The feelings of tiredness persist. It therefore seems to me that there is some value in The Procrastination Pen, in that this blog keeps pursuing restful sounds that can assist a person into sleep.

I have been exploring audiobooks of late (there seems a rather vast amount of Agatha Christie on CD, for instance). Those so disposed can probably get something similar from Spotify or some similar subscription service. I am actually finding that a story droning away in the background can be quite restful. However, it is a good idea to miss out on books that might include elevated, dramatic noises. A sudden loud noise probably having completely the opposite effect to that which one desired, by listening to such a thing at bedtime, in any case.

I notice that Calm is pushing its sleep app. I have found the material in the Calm App dedicated to sleep a bit variable. I find much of the material dedicated to sleep actually has no such effect on me. Regular readers will have noted that where I do make recommendations from Calm, it tends to be the Daily Calm meditations that I draw from. I find these superior in sound content, but sadly they are designed to be around ten minutes in length. That is probably an insufficient length to drop off to and, so far, I have not found a method to chunk then together into a vast long playlist.

I have now subscribed to the regular Calm email in the hope that it will produce great material, and I notice that this one has been in this email of late:

Rainy Day on the Farm

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

This is thirty minutes in length but on a loop, so it appears everlasting. No artist is given. I do not really find rainy backdrops to be that restful. However, a number of people seem to do so. There are a number of offerings on YouTube in the same vein.

For example, this one:

It is all a bit noisy and stressful in my opinion to be really conducive to sleep. However, if this is your thing, by all means, fill your boots.

I have been trying to find material that does not depend upon YouTube (because I’ve decided that I do not like the adverts). This is purely an addition to the YouTube-based material because, for the moment, there is little else that is free and has a ready supply of sound-based material which you can use to distract the mind addicted to wakefulness.

I remember that during lockdown I used to receive emails from a site called Mindful on which a number of people published meditations. Sadly, this does not line up into a playlist and, from memory, they did not offer a download option. So, it may be of only passing interest. I also know that I followed specific artists at the time and one of these was Elaine Smookler. It turns out that Elaine does a few twelve-minute meditations such as this one:

https://www.mindful.org/a-12-minute-meditation-for-embracing-your-inner-mountain/

and this one:

https://www.mindful.org/a-12-minute-meditation-for-navigating-grief-anniversaries/

and of course there is a great deal of material on YouTube:

and I also see that MP3s can be obtained from here:

https://player.fm/series/the-mindful-podcast/gratitude-practice-savor-the-moment-by-tapping-into-your-senses-with-elaine-smookler

As expected, if you choose that route you will need to download the MP3s and assemble into some kind of playlist yourself. The advantage being that you can normalise the inter-MP3 volume so you don’t get any mid-sleep nasty surprises.

At this point, for some weeks, I have been reviewing professional ASMR videos. Akin to the mindful material I can remember, some videos that I have listened to in the distant past including this one:

🌿 Relaxing Naturopath Visit 🌿 ASMR 🌿 Doctor RP

Gentle Whispering ASMR

2.41m subscribers

Gentle Whispering ASMR is one of those powerhouses of professional ASMR artists. there are 2.41m subscribers and eight hundred and twenty six videos, there are fourteen playlists of which the odd one is on theme for material we have been covering of late. For example:

and

This week’s video is an oldie as you can tell by the notes:

“8,059,900 views 16 Jan 2018

Hello sweetheart! 🙂 Today I welcome you to my naturopathic medicine practice 🌿 I will shortly give you an overview of your visit then at 03:00 I will perform a check-up of your hair, your ears 06:30 , I’ll put on my gloves and examine your skin 08:50 , your sinuses 11:25 , your lymph nodes 13:03 , neck muscles check 14:10 , I’ll gently test your eyes reflexes with a flashlight 16:56 , I’ll tell you about Eyeology 19:29 and check your eyes 22:26 , then I will perform a check of your tongue 29:55 after I explain how you can read your health by your tongue 27:47 , I’ll tell you a bit about tension headache that you’ve been experiencing and how to deal with it 32:32 , I’ll recommend you some essential oils 34:34 , and herbal supplements 36:16 that even sound good and at the end I will relax you deeper with gentle hand movements to help you doze off 38:29 . Enjoy ♥ Thank you for watching! 🙂

Email: MariaGentlewhispering@gmail.com

Gentle Whispering ASMR

2.41m subscribers”

So the standard professional ASMR huge set of notes then. As usual I have trincated these a whole lot as they really are very long. In this case comments are not only permitted the first comment is also from GentleWhisperingASMR:

However this comment simply replicates a good deal of the notes so I will not repeat it here.

There are literally thousands of comments and a number of these are the standard YouTube level of strange. A number of them are the standard professional ASMR artist level of sycophantic. We are on familiar ground here.

The video is forty-one and a half minutes long, so of a reasonable length. There is no startup music and the presentation is the now familiar professional ASMR artist level of whispery. I would not say this was my favourite voice, but it is restful. There are of course extraneous noises, rustling, equipment noises, writing noises, keyboard noises, clothes brushing against other clothes, breath across the microphone noises, mouth clicking noises, glove-related noises, paper-related noises, rattling noises.

It gets a bit breathy and there are those mouth-clicking noises I have noticed some similar videos using before. I don’t find a need for them but you may love this sort of thing (close to two and a half million people obviously do so). I would say that this one requires a small increase in the volume, when listening. Another one where the disgruntled listener is rolling over and thumbing the volume up button. I’m also not that certain how well it works without the video content. Obviously, you don’t want to be watching if you’re also trying to close your eyes. There are also a few close-to-microphone moments where the sound seems more abrupt and louder and I would think that might not be a pleasant surprise if you are already snoozing.

I’d say that this one is certainly worthy of a review.

This week’s inadvertent ASMR video is this one:

HEENT Assessment Part 1: Head, Face, and Neck

Straight away we can see that this forms part of a series. Even though this blog post is already on the long side, I therefore feel I’d better review all four of the videos in this series.

It comes from the channel NursingYOU 2.0 this has 3.7K subscribers nineteen videos zero playlists. It is not the hugest channel we have ever reviewed. The channel description is: “NursingYOU 2.0

Description

This is a nursing education channel led by a Masters prepared Nurse Educator. This channel offers videos on health assessment, skills, lecture series, and NCLEX test taking strategy. The videos presented by NursingYOU 2.0 are intended only for education of healthcare professionals. Previously called Nursing YOUniversity. See the updates!! Enjoy.

More info

http://www.youtube.com/@nursingyou2.073

Joined 5 Jul 2017

3.7k subscribers

19 videos

1,126,488 views”

A quick scan indicates that all of these videos were posted eight years ago. So, it also appears to be a channel that is no longer maintained. Grab your video views while ye may.

The video itself has notes: “319,367 views 5 Jul 2017

In this video, the head, face, and neck are assessed on an adult client. This video is part 1 of 4 for the Head Ears Eyes Nose and Throat (HEENT) system of a complete health assessment.”

The comments are, as usual, of various types including the off-the-wall. Some ASMR fans are here way before me, though I notice.

The video is just slightly less than six minutes in length. It starts with no startup music but an absolute ton of background noise. Also, the presentation is pretty loud as well. Currently I am less than clear why ASMR fans have been listening to this. I would say that this is not classically ASMR. For example, there is a fair amount of background chatter going on. Simply turning down the volume is not going to eliminate that. There is also the sound of paper being rustled throughout (although I know this is a sound that some ASMR fans go in search of). There are sounds from motion – the participants moving around. There is, at one point, the sound of a prop driven aircraft passing over head. For me this is all a bit busy to be that relaxing.

Onto part 2:

HEENT Assessment Part 2: Nose, Mouth, and Throat

The notes are similar to the last set of notes so I won’t go into them here. The comments are the usual level of unhelpful and no ASMR-related comments this time, which is not uncommonly a bad sign. It is five minutes in length and starts without music. The background noise remains but at least the background conversations seem to have abated. Again, it is a bit loud for me. The voice of the medical professional isn’t ASMR-y from my perspective. However, I would say that this one is a slight improvement on the previous video in this series. Part way through the background noise gets substantially worse, as if the air conditioning has been switched into turbo mode, this obscures the voice to some extent and is moderately distracting.

HEENT Assessment Part 3: Ears

Three and a third minutes so quite a bit shorter than the two previous ones. This one starts with the level of background noise where the previous one left off i.e. quite substantial. The medical professional now sounds to be at some distance from the microphone as if the entire video was shot in a tube station. In fact, I think it is an open area within a hospital, a hospital with very powerful air conditioning.

The noise is now getting quite distracting. This one has minor and brief equipment noises.

HEENT Assessment Part 4: Eyes

The last one in the series and, at just less than six and a half minutes, the longest video as well. The voice is now quite subdued and distant in relation to the background noise. This really does sound like the medical professional is at the end of a long tunnel. If you get your feeling of restfulness from air conditioning noises this is definitely the video for you. This time you can hear background chatter at a reasonably elevated level. This is quite distracting as well. There are equipment noises as the “patient” moves around. Due to the muting of the entire soundtrack these are not excessively loud.