With articles clamouring about the necessity of getting more sleep to avoid dementia, one can hardly ignore the warnings about insomnia. Get to sleep on time day in day out. Sleep a good eight hours. Do not wake up in the early hours of the morning…
Scant succour to anyone who struggles to get the allotted sleep hours and seems to have an internal clock that wages war against the working day. If you are such a person, welcome. Even if you bounce into bed and fall instantly to sleep, welcome. Perhaps you can provide a contrast to any that are suffering for sleep.
The Procrastination Pen is a resource for those that find ASMR useful as a relaxation aid and potentially a sleep aid as well. For quite a while now it has focused on YouTube as a source of free YouTube videos. Indeed, within YouTube, there are a number of playlists linked to the Procrastination Pen, some of which are designed to assist in this regard.
There is also a weekly article which attempts to find a further video which may prove useful in this respect. This is one such article.
I have also taken out a Calm subscription in the hope that some of the material there might be useful for sleep. (Some of it is helpful, but that doesn’t mean you should all hammer over to the Calm website and lay down your spending loot).
I have also found that a number of audiobooks are helpful if you find yourself lying awake. I personally have enjoyed some of the Miss Marple recordings on CD. This is just because I prefer this approach to a subscription (because I am old). I also am getting tired of the nature of adverts online, in that they have become so intrusive that they now detract from the actual material.
Script blockers are helpful against some of them. A pi-hole (should you be so disposed) can help against others. So far, there is no assistance that I have found with YouTube adverts (I am told that they are incorporated into the stream and so cannot be separated from the videos themselves). However, technology keeps improving so I am certain that someone will crack that problem one of these days…
Meantime, you can subscribe to YouTube if you feel it to be of sufficient value. I’m not sure to what extent it obviates intrusive adverts. One would hope, absolutely.
Alternatively (and I’m sure that it is heavily frowned upon, so I dare not recommend it). I see that certain YouTube downloading softwares will download an entire playlist locally enabling you to bypass the adverts in their entirety. Again, I don’t recommend it. Given it affects a company’s revenue, I can guarantee somebody official in a very expensive suit will be quite upset if I did recommend anything of the sort, so I don’t.
However, if you decide to ignore my advice and download the entire Procrastination Pen playlist, then do feedback what it sounded like and any improvements you would like to hear.
Calm today was very inspirational; it was in fact so energising that I am not clear whether it will be soporific-inducing. I’ll risk it as I rather like Jay Shetty, and I enjoyed the material.
Daily Jay
Chase the Future You
NARRATOR
Jay Shetty
https://www.calm.com/app/player/Ga3PYvH2pG
If you have a Calm subscription, give it a spin and see what you think.
I have been, recently, evaluating a professional ASMR artist in these articles, rather as a counterfoil to the inadvertent ASMR material that I prefer. Today we have:
ASMR Head to Toe Exam [Real Person] Medical Assessment | Cranial Nerve, Feet, Scalp, Abdomen Tingles
This is a little less than forty minutes. One thing we have found with professional ASMR artists is that one tends to get a substantial video. This can be great, but sadly sometimes just means that it seems to go on, and on, and on…
KatieASMR is the channel and this has 415K subscribers (which is a fine achievement I’m sure you will agree). Of course, KatieASMR features in the ASMR Index. We can almost take that as a given nowadays. That ASMR Index site seems to do sterling work, this little blog could aspire so high…
The video has notes: “91,191 views 24 Apr 2025 #relax #asmr #asmrvideo
In this video I give Joyce a head-to-toe exam! This real person role play includes soft spoken tingles to help you relax and sleep. Please enjoy and consider being a patron ❤️🔥
Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/user?u=80985362
TikTok: / katieasmr00
For Business Inquiries: ilovekatieasmr@gmail.com”
Brave putting an email address down I would have thought, as is the decision to permit comments against the video. That said, professional ASMR artists seem to have great loyalty in the comments department and so here. A definite absence of negative and downright nasty.
Of course, again, the participants are attractive in fact it is so common it is barely worth mentioning. If I come across a video with an unattractive guy in his fifties doing ASMR a) it will probably be me b) the comments will most likely be of a calibre that would dissolve rust.
As usual we find that there is background noise, in this video it is rather loud too. An interesting choice for a professional ASMR video. There are also noises coming from outside of the room, potentially from a nearby road.
As we’ve come to expect the participants are vying towards the whispery style of presentation. I suspect that this makes for great ASMR but poor believability. Although if my GP whispers at me the next time I visit, I will at least know that he reads the Procrastination Pen.
As the video advances the background noise drops off, and we get the time to admire the cute dog who is remarkably quiet. There are various intestinal noises, and I’m not convinced featuring them was intentional. It does however, make the presentation a bit more realistic.
Also realistic is the inability of the “patient” to pass the smell test. I have wondered how people manage to distinguish certain smells when challenged. This just proves the test is not as easy as some other videos would have us believe.
The combing (of hair) section I am now convinced appeals to ASMR aficionados that get their ASMR sensations from the sound that comes from combing hair. I’ve come across it before and it never seems to belong in the video. I therefore think it must be included through popular demand…
Sadly, the video is interposed with adverts which appear to pop in at five-minute intervals and, as usual, YouTube does not seem to be selecting them for their restful content, quite the opposite in fact.
The personal attention, of course, is exact. The pace is more or less perfect. I got to like the whispered approach in this one as well.
Anyway, it is worthy of a review I think. Give it a try and tell me what you think.
Moving on to the part of the blog that started the review process all those months ago; the locating of, and the review of inadvertent ASMR videos and to date this has mainly consisted of videos on a medical theme.
This week we are back to a channel that has featured multiple times on this blog here and here and indeed here. It is of course Geeky Medics. The videos so far have featured Dr James Lower and Dr Andrew Pugh.
However, at this point the videos are more recently posted and hence there have been some changes. The first such video is this one:
Peripheral Vascular Examination – OSCE Guide (Latest)
The video notes are all pretty much the same but given some people may not have read those earlier blog posts, I’ll feature the ones associated with this video in precis form, in any case, so that you get an idea:
“444,692 views 14 Jun 2022 Cardiovascular OSCE Guides | UKMLA | CPSA | PLAB | MRCS
This video provides a demonstration of how to perform a peripheral vascular examination in an OSCE station including assessment of key pulses (e.g. radial, brachial, femoral, posterior tibial, dorsalis pedis). Read our guide alongside the video here: https://geekymedics.com/peripheral-va… Check out our other awesome clinical skills resources including: • 🔥 Geeky Medics Bundles (discounted products): https://app.geekymedics.com/purchase/… • ✨ 1000+ OSCE Stations: https://app.geekymedics.com/purchase/… • 🏥 Geeky Medics OSCE Revision Book: https://app.geekymedics.com/purchase/… • 📝 150+ PDF OSCE Checklists: https://geekymedics.com/pdf-osce-chec… • 🗂️ 3000+ OSCE Flashcards: https://app.geekymedics.com/purchase/… • 📱 Geeky Medics OSCE App: https://geekymedics.com/geeky-medics-… • 🩺 Medical Finals SBA Question Pack: https://app.geekymedics.com/purchase/… • 💊 PSA Question Pack: https://app.geekymedics.com/purchase/…”
The startup music on this video is different to that in the videos reviewed in the earlier blog posts. However, it is equally loud and equally unwelcome. The participants seem identical to those in the previous blog posts – I mean in appearance as well as identity. It is as if no time had elapsed between those videos posted some time previously and the more up to date ones featured here. I’ll make a guess that earlier videos have been sampled to create shorter videos focused on a specific subject. Perhaps this is a posting of some left-over older footage.
This video is just over seven minutes in length and so is not huge. However, it is a more substantial video than some we have featured from this channel.
Comments are permitted and we know what that means by now. The commentators are beginning to notice that this pairing has been around for a while. Cue some comments about age and believability. However, surprisingly comments are predominantly positive.
Either there is a great resource of older material which they can keep plundering or James and Andrew are the most diligent pair I’ve encountered in a long time.
Dr Lewis Potter is the founder of Geeky Medics. He is at Newcastle University and it seems sensible therefore to conclude that the filming was completed there. So, we have a where, and a who, but not necessarily a when. However, I think Poirot can safely go back to bed.
There is background noise – I would say it is more the level of a recording hiss than of air conditioning. In my opinion Andrew has the better voice in this one. It is a good voice too (it must be why I keep returning to this channel then).
The examination is calm and well-paced and it takes mere moments to feel relaxed. Shame about that startup music though and the fact that the music comes again at the end of the video. Perhaps surprisingly, the seven minutes were not interrupted by random adverts whilst I was watching. YouTube made up for it as soon as the video concluded though.
Diabetic Foot Examination – OSCE Guide (Latest)
There seems to have been a surge of posting of videos on Geeky medics in 2022. This is another one from that year. As I mentioned there is no point in reiterating the notes here. James and Andrew feature again and I am pretty sure this is a rehash of some older material. The commentators are convinced of that as well. A number of comments focusing on the apparent Peter Pan nature of the participants.
This video is just over five minutes in length and the format is exactly as before (except for the startup music). By now we are used to periods of absolute silence in the video– it is quite a restful approach. We are now used to the voices and remain on safe ground in terms of level, presentation and pace. In this one the background hiss seems more intermittent. There are periods when it actually seems quite a bit quieter.
Sadly, there is still concluding music – shame it doesn’t avoid music altogether.
Measuring Jugular Venous Pressure (JVP) – OSCE Guide (Clip)
This one is just one and a quarter minutes, long so don’t blink. There are various negative comments – so far so normal YouTube, including this time I notice some dissent about the use of the term “tummy”. Crikey, people are fascinated by details.
It features James and Andrew and by now we are used to how it goes. Despite the shortness of the video they still find time to slot in startup music – grrr. Then they go and finish with music as well. Still, that was the perfect introduction to a very loud advert in my case.
Rinne & Weber Test – OSCE Guide (Clip)
This one is a little over two minutes long and has the same two participants as before. I have many more videos on this channel to review but I think I will stop it here for fear of posting a humongous long post. Given how consistent this channel has proven to be I think that I will be back here again (perhaps on several occasions). Notes remain similar, comments remain similar including the fact that people are noticing that Andrew should have aged a good deal more by now (In the comments). It isn’t long enough to provide much in the way of material of course (in common with several other videos on this channel).
It still has startup music of course more’s the pity. I think Andrew has a great voice and I assume someone will chain these together without music and put it up on YouTube somewhere. I don’t usually like such videos but in this case I might be prepared to give it a try if I come across it.
They also publish a guide to these tests if it is of interest. (I’m assuming most people reading this blog are not medical students so I would guess not…
The Geeky Medics playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:
I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.
The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:
I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.
I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.
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The Procrastination Pen 