Tag: All Procrastination Pen

Sleeping With ASMR

As the search for YouTube videos with relaxing content continues, I have begun to build up a bit of a backlog. There are a great many more articles in the draft stage than you have actually seen. There are also many YouTube URLs which I have seen in passing and noted, in case they might be worthy of future investigation.

I am hopeful that if any life disasters happen this will mean that you still get regular content. If I disappear suddenly, you know that I was wrong.

It is sometimes good to come back to the more formal approach of educational institution videos. In general, these have slightly higher (sometimes much higher) sound quality. They frequently have less extraneous noises and, given they are part of a course of education, there is sometimes a nice helpful playlist for evaluation. Many of the members of which may prove to be suitable for our purposes.

Today’s is from a university and as with previous university videos covered by the Procrastination Pen, I have high hopes. It was Warwick where we found the excellent Dr James Gill, for example.

Neurological Examination of the Limbs – Explanation

Judging by the comments, a number of ASMR fans have happened upon this one before.

Posted eleven years ago, the actual video quality is not exactly HD. However, the comments indicate that it is highly relaxing.

As we have seen, professionally prepared videos frequently have very informative notes associated with them and so it is here:

“8 May 2012 Clinical Examinations

This is a detailed explanation of the Neurological Examination of the Limbs illustrating technique and patient interaction.

The film was produced by practising clinicians to aid the teaching of clinical examination skills. It starts at the point when the clinician has finished taking the medical history and begins the clinical examination.

Presented by Dr Peter Critchley MD FRCP Consultant Neurologist. Produced and Directed by Dr Irene Peat FRCR FRCP, Dr Nicholas Port MBChB BSc and Jon Shears.

More Clinical Examination materials can be found at; http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/msce…”

Sadly, the link to further clinical examination videos appears not to work. Otherwise, I can imagine it might have been a resource for future review in this blog.

At twenty and three-quarter minutes it is longer than many we have featured of late.

It starts without music (which is a cause for much celebration) – simply a title page. Dr Peter Critchley has a good voice for our purposes. The approach is methodical and quiet. It is broken into sections with educational notes in the video itself at intervals. It is doubtful that you will profit from this if you are using the video in order to fall asleep. The “patient” is Jake.

The channel is University of Leicester. There are one thousand two hundred videos so it is hard to see how to review them, filter them or otherwise manage them. There are eighty five playlists, some of them containing a great many videos.

This seems to be a channel that is worthy of future attention.

In this case though, I felt we would focus on the medical professional and searched for Dr Peter Critchley (via YouTube search).  A number of irrelevant videos were located this way. However, there is one other (closely related) Dr Peter Critchley video:

Neurological Examination of the Limbs – Demonstration

Again, this has a healthy set of comments and it is the first time in which I have seen the person in the video himself leave a comment. He is Jake Albon. And of course, he has a channel. Jake may be the subject of future review perhaps.

The video also has a healthy set of notes:

“14 Dec 2011  Clinical Examinations

This is a real-time demonstration illustrating technique and patient interaction involved in the Neurological Examination of the Limbs.

The film was produced by practising clinicians to aid the teaching of clinical examination skills. It starts at the point when the clinician has finished taking the medical history and begins the clinical examination.

Presented by Dr Peter Critchley MD FRCP Consultant Neurologist. Produced and Directed by Dr Irene Peat FRCR FRCP, Dr Nicholas Port MBChB BSc and Jon Shears.

For further information visit our Leicester Medical School (link https://le.ac.uk/medicine)”

The above URL is functional but it is not obviously a source of further videos.

The video is just over nine and a half minutes, so somewhat shorter than the first one in this article. It follows exactly the same material and so the comments for the first video in this blog article still apply including the lack of funky music. Please, more video recording persons do this.

I’ll include this one in the Procrastination Pen playlist, but if you play that list in order this could become rather dull. I therefore strongly recommend that you use the shuffle function on YouTube. However, should this video annoy you, by all means feedback and I will consider removing it from the playlist.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by Shona Macrae

Sleeping With ASMR

Since I started writing about ASMR, this blog has been all about the Procrastination Pen Playlist. I realise that people who come here probably get the URL of the playlist and disappear again to listen to what I have found. Some, no doubt, having found the playlist on YouTube, never come back to the blog again.

As a result, I continue to try to locate new videos to keep the playlist updated and I have started to weed out those videos that I think might drive some listeners away. If you find any errors in the process do feedback and I will attempt to rectify.

UTEP Advanced Health Assessment -Lomack

This was first posted in 2015. I think the “patient” Regan occurs again in the video N5382 Mock interview below, so it is possible that Regan and Kelly are related perhaps?

Kelly states that she is attending University of Texas El Paso.

This is not the quietest and it does have background air conditioning noise. So far, so student video.

It is reasonably gentle however and is a decent length at nearly twenty six and a half minutes.

First In Last Out

I think the book under review is First In Last Out by John Salka.

One of the issues is that the text is being read out rather than presented as such. Sometimes when I hear this kind of material on YouTube, I am amazed at the unconscious skill people demonstrate when reading audiobooks. In this case, I do not think the video belongs in the Procrastination Pen Playlist.

Book review-First In, Last Out

This is helpful, it tells us that this is Kelly Lomack (We’d guess that from the name of the channel). It states that she is studying the Masters of Science Nursing at the University of Texas Arlington. the date would be in 2017, the date of her graduation.

The University of Texas at Arlington of course have their own YouTube Channel with four hundred and seventy videos as at today’s date.

As is usual, the videos are dedicated to promos of the university, rather than anything helpful in an ASMR context. This is exactly what we would expect.

Our video is a book review and is a tad monotonal. It doesn’t fit what we are looking for in a Procrastination Pen playlist member.

N5382 Mock interview

The above video is thankfully short. I say thankfully, because the sound quality really isn’t very good at all. It is in support of N5382.

It turns out that YouTube has many videos with N5382 in the title. Some of them refer to a “Health Policy Course” but not where that course is run. It appears the point is to talk to a political representative in a role play situation.

This isn’t really what we’re looking for, so I’ll discount it.

So, one video only for the playlist (but I think it is quite a good one).

Therefore, there will be no Kelly Lomack Playlist created on the Procrastination Pen. The Procrastination Pen playlist (which is no-doubt what you have all been reading this in order to locate) is found here:

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

Quite often the videos getting removed have no faults other than too intrusive air conditioning sounds.

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

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by Shona Macrae

Sleeping With ASMR

By this point in the blogging process, the amount of research in pursuit of possible ASMR videos far exceeds the number of articles that have been produced. One finding has been that medical students produce a great huge amount of video output in connection with their courses. Unfortunately, the majority of that output is just not going to be of much use to us.

Sadly, it appears that students just do not have access to the recording facilities needed to reliably produce a relaxing video. Many of these videos suffer from excessive background noise, strange behind the camera noises, and loud extraneous sounds from the medical equipment that they are using.

It is without much expectation, therefore, that I take a look at today’s video which is this one:

General survey

This features Sandra who initially seems a bit loud for the standard relaxing video. As is usual, there is fake input – sanitising of the hands in this case. The patient appears to be “Avery” (although that is almost certainly a misspelling). The sound is not terrible in terms of one of these videos. But you can tell that the microphone is some distance from the medical professional.

The patient tells us it is 23rd September 2016, Avery also tells us which hospital, although I can’t make out what she says. In any case the surroundings lead me to suspect that this is more domestic than professional medical (flat screen TV on chimney breast, pot plants on a raised piece of furniture, painting on wall behind).

It is quite brief at just over two-and-a-quarter minutes and is marginal in terms of inclusion in the Procrastination Pen playlist.

The channel is MGA Nursing. This has forty-three videos at the time I am looking at it and forty subscribers. The notes against the channel tell me “These are videos for assignments in the course.” This tells me it is for college consumption only, after all, how would anyone else know which course we are talking about.

Middle George State University appears to have a nursing programme at the MGA campus. It is potentially possible this is the course that is being referred to.

They (of course) have a YouTube Channel with one hundred and eleven videos.

From the forty-three videos on the MGA nursing channel there is the usual need to refine down the number such that this does not turn into a huge blog article. Some of the videos include the participant’s names in the title but I notice some do not and yet, by appearance, the same people are participating. Therefore, I’m going to select videos by the apparent participants involved.

I selected the following video thinking that it might also feature Avery, but it turns out not so much.

Peripheral Vascular System

Maureen Bolmgren RN is the medical professional, the “patient” here is Margaret (I can’t hear the surname). We find that she is born 28th January 1996, but the advantage (for this article) is that there appear to be a few videos in which Margaret appears. We should be able to make those the focus of this blog article therefore.

Maureen has a tunic on with Maureen Bolmgren, RN embroidered on it. Maureen attended MGA, graduating in 2017, which fits as the video was posted in 2017.

The setting appears to be domestic as with the previous video in this article.

The strange thing I notice in this video is that Maureen appears to be reading from a pre-prepared script. That’s something I have not seen before.

Maureen seems a little loud initially for a true ASMR video. Margaret has a better voice but of course she gets to have a lot less to say.

Maureen seems quite hesitant, probably unsurprising given this is an assessment video. The advantage for us is that she settles down, becomes a lot calmer and quieter.

Heart and Neck Vessels

From this it is feasible to hear that Margaret is Margaret Taylor. It is otherwise consistent with the last one. Maureen reads from a script again. The sound isn’t as great as a professional video but at least it lacks background noises. The setting is the same as for the last video.

Again, Margaret seems to have the better voice but it might be because she does not say a lot.

Maureen seems to be looking at a prompt off camera for some of the video. Not that you’ll notice if you are using this to get to sleep. The approach is quite gentle but as before Maureen does not have your typical ASMR voice. It is quiet enough to be restful though, I think.

Neurologic Assessment-Maureen Bolmgren

As I said before, some of the videos include the participant’s names in the title, in this case of the medical professional. But there is no consistency in this naming convention so I cannot rely on it.

This is the Maureen – Margaret partnership again. By now the location and process are quite familiar. I’m not sure if I am now used to her voice, but Maureen seems less loud to me in this one. Margaret still seems to have a better voice.

One more Maureen – Margaret combo video remains. However, the MGA Nursing channel may be worth another visit to sample some of the remaining videos.

Last, but by no means least, we have this one:

thorax and lungs-Maureen B.

This seems familiar as if I have reviewed it before, so it is to be hoped I have not entered a duplicate video. I’m sure regular readers will let me know pretty swiftly if so.

There is the odd intrusive noise (including what sounds like a clock at one stage) but I think this is still worthy of inclusion.

The Procrastination Pen playlist is reviewed frequently so some of the less worthy videos get dropped to the archive list at intervals. Those with intrusive noises are ones that are most likely to get chosen for this “demotion”. The archive list only exists in case I remove somebody’s favourite.

The MGA Nursing playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by Shona Macrae

Sleeping With ASMR

I’ve mainly been editing older material of late because I had (have) developed quite a backlog of articles on an ASMR theme. It is therefore good to be writing something new for a change.

Welcome to the Procrastination Pen, which for several months now has been the home to a blog about ASMR, ASMR videos and ASMR playlists. However, I appreciate that only some people have any ASMR feelings at all. For this reason, from the outset, my emphasis has been on calming videos that anyone could use to relax and perhaps to drift off to sleep.

I have focused on ASMR videos that were designed to do something entirely different, rather than the ASMR videos produced professionally by ASMR artists. That is not to say that I may not write the odd article about such videos but I have limited experience of them as it stands (and there seem to be a vast great number to choose from).

The outcome of this endeavour has been a large playlist consisting of the videos I have reviewed so far that were worth listening to. There is also a set of playlists relating to each channel I have reviewed (if you like a particular channel).

I always include the details of the latest playlists at the end of each blog article, so if you’re not keen to read about the review process, you can scroll straight to the end and pick them up there.

The theme has tended to be about medical videos mainly because medical professionals seem to take a calm approach to their work and often therefore speak slowly and quietly, which is I believe fundamental to a good voice for ASMR.

This week an institution which we have featured before, and I have no doubt will be featuring again.

At that time, I picked up a video directly from the Stanford Medicine Channel on YouTube. This time I have come across the page in which they embed all of their videos, which is this one:

https://stanfordmedicine25.stanford.edu/videos.html.

As we can see there is a range of videos separated logically into subject areas and all referencing a location on YouTube. However, for our purposes logical is all very well but are they any good ASMR-wise.

Choosing at random we can see that Dermatology Exam is a subject area that has just four videos, which seems a nice small number to review in a concise Blog post, so let’s see what they have to offer.

The first video is this one:

Approach to the Dermatology Exam (Stanford Medicine 25)

which is just shy of eight minutes in length.

In common with a number of professional videos this one has notes, a précis of which is:

“22 Jan 2016

From our dermatology series, this video covers all the basics you need to accurately describe and diagnose any skin lesion.

The Stanford Medicine 25 program for bedside medicine at the Stanford School of Medicine aims to promote the culture of bedside medicine to make current and future clinicians and other healthcare provides better at the art of physical diagnosis and more confident at the bedside of their patients.”

From memory of the last article the notes tend to get a bit repetitive, so I will only feature elements which might be of interest.

Bravely they are permitting comments and as expected not all of the comments are positive. There are no obvious comments from ASMR fans which given how effective ASMR fans are at finding videos is possibly not a good sign.

The video starts with the bugbear of any ASMR video devotee, the peppy start up music, applied I’m sure more through branding or marketing considerations than anything to do with quiet relaxation.

The medical professional is Dr Justin Ko, (which the automatic subtitles render as “Justin Cohen”!). Straight away we realise we are not dealing with any Dr James Gill in terms of voice but the introductory piece is relatively muted. However it gets louder, I mean a whole lot louder. In addition the background music continues and persists throughout the rest of the video. In addition the subject matter is a bit distracting.

I think this prohibits this one from becoming a member of the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Approach to Multiple Rashes (Stanford Medicine 25)

The relevant part of the notes are: “22 Jan 2016

From our dermatology series, this video covers all the basics you need to accurately describe complex and multiple skin lesions.”

This is very short at a bit over four and a half minutes. Again, with the music, sigh. This time Bernice Kwong who is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Dermatology.

The video starts quietly and Bernice seems to have quite a good voice, relatively quiet and calm. However, again, the music persists throughout the video – why, why, why? This video is also not useful for us.

Approach to Nevi (Moles) – Stanford Medicine 25

At four and three quarter minutes it still isn’t a long video. The relevant notes are “22 Jan 2016

From our dermatology series, this video covers all the basics you need to accurately describe complex and multiple skin lesions.”

Again, the comments are not at all helpful. So far, so YouTube. The start-up music remains. This time Jennifer Chen is the medical Professional; a Clinical Assistant Professor.

The start is promising, a quiet beginning but again continuous background music – how frustrating. This video is just not for us.

Diagnosing Acne vs. Rosacea (Stanford Medicine 25)

Just over three minutes so the shortest so far and featuring Jennifer Chen as in the previous video. The relevant part of the notes is: “22 Jan 2016

From our dermatology series, this video covers all the basics you need to accurately differentiate between regular acne and acne rosacea.”

The comments are nearly totally irrelevant or unhelpful but there are clues that some of the listeners are ASMR fans. mostly, it turns out, frustrated ASMR fans due to the background music.

So we know what is coming sadly.  Unfortunately, Dermatology is a strike-out ASMR wise despite some great presenters. The decision to have music throughout is really very distracting.

However, all is not lost – there are those other videos to draw on, of course.

I think a visit of the Ankle Brachial Index category is worth a try particularly as it contains only two videos.

Ankle Brachial Index (ABI) Test: How to Perform

For once, the comments appear to be universally upbeat, positive and supportive (wonders will never cease). The video is close to seven- and three-quarter minutes and sadly still incorporates that music at the start. This time the medical Professional is John Cooke who actually seems to have a good voice and a very relaxed style of presentation – heaven be praised.

In addition, the muppet with the music mania has not decorated this with background noises. In fact it is marvellously quiet and calm. Unfortunately, there are some additional noises coming from an handheld doppler device, employed as part of the video. I don’t think these will exclude this video from the Procrastination Pen playlist, but it might mean that the video gets dropped to the archive list on subsequent review.

Venous Testing

This is just over five minutes so not long. It starts with the familiar music (spit spit). John Cooke and again he starts with a good delivery well measured and low toned. The doppler device is heard as before. I’m not certain if that might not prove noisy of a night time. I’ll include the video in the playlist but it may suffer transfer to archive if it proves excessively distracting.

So the Ankle Brachial Index category came to the rescue, (marginally).

The Stanford Medicine playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by Shona Macrae

Sleeping With ASMR

As at today’s date the Procrastination Pen playlist has one hundred and sixty two videos and, of late, I have not felt the need to migrate any of them to the archive list due to strange noises, background buzzes or sudden alarming thuds of equipment.

I probably need to be a great deal more critical of this list. However, I always welcome feedback so if you find the playlist to contain items that it should not contain, by all means, tell me. I might even agree and make the changes.

Welcome to the Procrastination Pen. For several months now the site where reviews of “inadvertent ASMR” videos happens. I have been focused mainly on YouTube (because that’s where the playlist is). The idea is to create a playlist of videos that you can listen to when you desperately need to sleep and when no sleep is coming.

If you’re a person who gets ASMR feelings from videos, then welcome. If you don’t get such feelings, welcome too. The idea is that the videos should be relaxing enough that anyone can use them to relax to.

The mission so far has been to find videos that were not designed for the relaxing content but cause relaxation despite their original intent. This has meant that the majority of videos covered so far have been to do with medical examinations. People undergoing medical training seem to be as gentle, careful and thoughtful as they are reputed to be. This greatly helps when you’re looking for an ASMR video.

However, there are other avenues out there and I will always take suggestions, anything that appears sensible I may even try and see how it fits.

I’ve been reviewing ASMR YouTube videos for a while now and given I have predominantly been on one subject (inadvertent ASMR deriving from videos designed for medical tuition) one hazard is that I start to re-review videos that I have reviewed previously.

This has happened once or twice. In one case, I prepared two articles on the same video and they got all the way through editing before I realised my mistake.

Today’s video has the worrying feel of familiarity about it. If anyone spots that I’ve prepared something on this one before please let me know.

Macleod’s examination of the cervical spine

This is very brief at just over 2 minutes.

The introduction screen states “Video taken from Macleod’s Clinical Examination 13th Edition By Graham Douglas, Fiona Nicol & Colin Robertson.”

Given this is a professional video it also has some notes associated with it:

“New! Macleod’s Clinical examination 13th edition

This video demonstrates clinical examination techniques as described in Macleod’s Clinical Examination. The textbook with access to the full set of videos is available at www.elsevierhealth.co.uk/macleod”

Comments are permitted but there are few of them.

The two participants communicate in a very stilted manner and I think this might be a video in which the audio is machine generated, possibly the video as well. Alternatively, the audio of the participants was dubbed on afterwards without much reference to the video itself. The commentary is the main feature of the video and this starts a little loud.

The Channel is Farsight Channel and we have encountered this one before.

There are fifty-nine videos and five playlists. The playlist: “New! Macleod’s Clinical examination 13th edition” contains twenty-four videos. The safest way to narrow these down to the number we can cover in one blog article is to select them based upon the participants in the video. In this case, the “patient” occurs in a number of the videos and so does the medical professional.

Therefore, I will select videos where both the medical professional and “patient” appear.

The patient is “Omar” but in a number of videos he is examined by another medical professional (perhaps we’ll come back to those in a future blog post). The medical professional in the above video is “Ben”. There are relatively few videos in which both Ben and Omar appear.

Macleod’s examination of the shoulder

Another brief video, just less than five minutes. The audio of the participants is again a bit strange. The narration is quieter and more suitable to the purpose we are looking for, i.e., getting some rest.

Macleod’s examination of the hip

The theme with this set is that they are all brief. They all have a stilted strange feel to the interaction style between the participants.

This one is a little over six minutes.

The narrator sounds a lot more like a normal human being. It’s hard to describe the problem. The intonation and the timing seems all wrong as if created artificially rather than recorded from an actual interaction.

Definition:

Lumbar lordosis inward curve of the lower back.

Macleod’s examination of the thoracic and lumbar spine

This one is a little under five and a half minutes.

Definition:

Lipoma a fatty lump growing under the skin.

Dimples of Venus, a picture seems best for this:

Dimples of Venus while seated (with arrows)

Macleod’s examination of the motor system of the upper limbs

The one advantage of videos prepared professionally is that they are quite consistent. In this case there is no background noise, no people wandering across the camera and no noises coming from the camera operator.

This video is again brief at just a little over six minutes. This seems to be a feature with this particular set. The advantage is that when watching on YouTube and using the shuffle option you will not get a continuous repetition of videos with similar content (which otherwise might get a little trying). The disadvantage comes if you do not choose this option in which case these occur one after the other in the Procrastination Pen Playlist. It may quietly drive you mad.

I recommend you choose the shuffle option.

Macleod’s examination of the motor system of the lower limbs

Definition:

Clonus – condition causing involuntary muscle contractions.

Here we end the videos featuring “Ben” and “Omar”

The channel seems fairly uniform in terms of quality so I’ll be back in the future with another set of videos from this channel.

The Farsight playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by Shona Macrae