Tag: Caffeine

Sleeping With ASMR

This week I was thinking how easy it is to feel that people are not being supportive. The mind can fancy a journey of its own. Simply not hearing from someone can do it. Finding that some significant life event occurred and they did not tell you, perhaps. It is not surprising therefore, that the mind can go on a restive journey just as you’re trying to get some sleep.

Those with mental discipline instruct the mind to obedience, no doubt. The less self-controlled do well to distract it with something restful. For such a purpose did the Procrastination Pen first start reviewing restful videos, many moons ago now.

This week, for the first time, a Calm track that is dedicated to getting you off to sleep which has some possibility of doing that:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/pBsp3Sb6MT

Yours, Finn

Andrew Scott reads a series of letters from a writer to his long-distance lover — pondering place and time, longing and belonging, and the meaning of home.

NARRATOR

Andrew Scott

AUTHOR

Florence Skelton

It is calm, the voice has a great tone, there is an absence of music (God be praised). I’d say this one is well worth a review on the assumption that you can. Calm is a paid-for offering and I’m not about to recommend that you shell out for it, if you haven’t already.

Each week, I check out an offering from a professional ASMR artist to see if it is a big improvement on the inadvertent ASMR videos that I set up the blog to review; goodness knows how long ago now.

This week I thought I’d review the following:

POV assessing your spinal function, flexibility assessment & neurological exam | cranial nerve test

It is from the channel asmr august. That channel has 252K subscribers, two hundred and eighty-seven videos, eighteen playlists. Quite a few subscribers, so I, for one, have very high expectations.

The video is a little over thirty-two and a half minutes long. Given it is a professional ASMR video you will be unsurprised to realise that it has notes:

“506,222 views 7 Apr 2025 #asmr #sleep

soft spoken assessing as you sit still

• palpation of the cervical, thoracic, lumbar spine

• testing your nerves

• checking for slipped discs

• ligament and muscle touching

• movement camera tilting

• reflexes testing

• cranial nerve exam

• neurological exam

• video to sleep

*My content is for entertainment purposes and should not be taken as actual medical/beauty advice. I am acting and not a professional.

#asmr #sleep”

Fortunately, not the great long tortuous notes which we sometimes come across.

Comments are permitted and given this is a professional ASMR artist, it is unsurprising that they are predominantly positive. That just seems to be how it goes with professional ASMR artists.

There is no startup music, thankfully. There are however equipment noises, paper noises, clothing rustling noises, scribbling noises, noises from the donning of gloves, noises from spraying, quite loud blood pressure cuff sounds.

It is not the most whispery presentation I have heard and as we would expect, the voice is excellent. It occasionally descends into breathy. None of this is obtrusive or excessive. In fact, I think asmr august is worthy of a future visit.

Recently, I have been finding that the playlist just is not working for me at all. In fact, several nights I find that I sit in front of the television until finally sleep comes and then it does not seem to last long.

For this reason, I am thinking of waging war on the playlist to ensure that only the highest quality items remain in there.

Today’s blog item comes from an area that is well-established in this blog now, that of eye-related examinations.

Qpercom presents Observe in Action: Eye Exam OSCE Station

It is five and a quarter minutes long and bravely supports comments, a number of which (as we have come to expect) are critical. The Internet, and more particularly YouTube, generating a number of experts who know much more than the ones who actually create content.

It’s a professional video and so, as we would expect, it has notes: “24,624 views  23 May 2013

Homepage

This video demonstrates how examiners use Qpercom Observe to assess medical students during an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). For further information or to schedule a demonstration at your institution please visit http://www.qpercom.com

Contact:

Tel: +353 91395416

info@qpercom.com

What is an OSCE exam?: https://www.qpercom.com/what-is-an-os…”

In case you are interested that final URL is: https://www.qpercom.com/what-is-an-osce-exam/ which should help clarify an OSCE for those (like me) who have not been exposed to one.

It starts without music, which is fantastic., However there is a sound like a football whistle at the start which is most disconcerting. The medical professional announces herself as “Elaine” (possibly misspelled). The patient is “Francis”. Both participants appear to have Irish accents. In fact, the voices here are the true highlight. Both are very relaxing to listen to.

People wander across the camera. Hopefully no one will actually be watching though but lying there listening and trying to get some rest. There is the constant background hum (almost certainly air conditioning) – we’re getting used to this. There is then a further whistle sound after the initial examination concludes (about 3:35 on the playing time).

I often complain that a bit of editing would make some videos perfect and so again here. Eliminating that damn whistle would be a true asset.

The second part of the video is intended to be a contrast with Dr Macdonald the medical professional (again, this may well be misspelled).

Despite the fact that this is supposed to be a bad exam, it is equally good sound wise. Immediately afterwards, there is yet another whistle sound.

I have a feeling despite the great presentation this extra whistle noises are going to consign this to the archive list at some point in the future.

The participants are documented. The “Patient” who announces himself as Francis is in fact Michael Browne. Elain Loughlin is the first medical professional and Niamh Mc Donnell the second.

The channel is Qpercom and it has thirty eight videos, and most of these do not appear to be that useful from our perspective.

There is one playlist QPC https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy-XOfRwSfY6II-w_4sDlCl4kPmWEgFMu

Which seems to focus on videos that are not useful for ASMR (eight of them). It appears to be a collection of videos to sell the Qpercom product. Good for them, not so useful for us (particularly as it seems to feature a great deal of enlivening music, the last thing that you want when trying to get to sleep).

Therefore, in this case I think it best to restrict myself to videos in which there is actually some kind of medical examination taking place. This restricts those that are available (and those available are short, in terms of duration).

Of these, we have:

Qpercom Basic Life support

One- and three-quarter minutes and sadly it starts up with that whistle noise again. Otherwise, there is an ongoing background noise (a low hum which could well be air conditioning). However, if it were not for that whistle noise it would be great for our purposes. Then they commit the offence of repeating the whistle noise – twice at the end. I will trial it in the Procrastination Pen playlist but I’m pretty clear that if it becomes irritating, it is going in the archive.

Qpercom Basic Life Support- Short

Only forty-five seconds surely this time they cannot be including a blasted whistle noise. Oh but they do. It is basically a cut down of the one featured just previously and all of the comments above for that one apply here as well. Although at least there is only one whistle noise in this one.

Qpercom presents Observe in Action: Breaking Bad News OSCE Station

A little over nine minutes, but that gives time for the initial whistle noise again. There is a small background noise (a hiss). It is quite muted, the voices of both participants are excellent. Without the whistle this would probably be premier class.

There are further whistles as there is a transition between participants. And just to round it off a further whistle noise.

Qpercom presents Observe in Action: Handwashing OSCE Station

Just less than two and a half minutes. The whistle noise as expected, and a lot of noise which I think is the sound of running water hitting the bottom of a stainless-steel sink. There are equipment noises and a whistle noise as there is a transition between presenters. To conclude another whistle noise.

I notice the credits refer to NUI Galway, as expected this has a YouTube channel it has 1.2K videos and 5.51K subscribers, but history tells us that the videos will be about promoting the University (quite rightly) so I will not be investigating that any further.

Qpercom presents Observe in Action: BMI OSCE Station

A bit less than seven and a half minutes. Comments are of course critical. There is that whistle noise again but otherwise it is calm. Again, the voices of the participants are excellent, if only the whistle wasn’t included. There is another whistle as we transition between presenters (roughly half way through the video). A further whistle noise at the end.

Really the whistle noises ruin what is otherwise a good experience.

Qpercom presents Observe in Action: An electronic OSCE Solution

A little less than five and three quarter minutes and the last possible candidate on the site I can currently find. None of these have been ideal, with the whistle noises, and this one has additional noises from a slamming door and a very echoey track. Presumably the action was filmed in a large space with minimal sound deadening in place.

I’m going to run them in the Procrastination Pen playlist but only because the voices of the participants are great. The additional noises distract from the experience and, to be fair, it will probably result in all of them hitting the archive list before too long. However, you will get the time to review them before it does so…

The Qpercom 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.

Photo by DeepAI

Sleeping With ASMR

I am poised to go on a trip. As with every trip that anyone takes anywhere, the payment in cash is a mere fraction of the payment that is required. There is the use of time you do not have, for booking, for checking, for verifying, for transferring and/or for communicating.

There is the dedication of additional time in the workplace to prepare for what will be an onslaught of material that you will have been unable to manage during your absence. There is then the consequent impact on sleep, for if your day was already busy (and whose isn’t), where is all that additional time coming from?

If you have a similar experience you may retire in a state of higher “excitement” than is useful for proper sleep. You may have spent longer than recommended on the screen evaluating places to stay or flights to catch. You may have some bad news about some aspect of the trip that has left you disappointed.

You may be concerned that the funds you thought were available are now going to have to be found via credit card, overdraft, or borrowing elsewhere.

Each item in its own way can impact your sleep. So, if you find yourself decorating the nighttime air with expletives over your inability to sleep, perhaps it is time to distract yourself with something restful.

For just such a purpose did this range of blog posts commence, rather a long time ago now. Just occasionally I receive feedback, even more occasionally it isn’t of the scam variety. If you feel the blog has strayed from where you would like it to be by all means feedback about it. I might even do something about it.

Of late, I have been linking to a meditation on Calm. I have a Calm subscription, and I rather like it. The reason I like it particularly is because I am fed up of the loud and intrusive adverts that are thrust into a great deal of web-based browsing. In particular, if you are relying on a playlist of restful videos, the inclusion of intrusive adverts is just not going to help.

The downside of Calm is that you have to pay for it. The slightly more minor downside is that the web-based version has no way of chaining the material together (say, in way of a playlist) and so it is strictly one thing at a time.

Given my recommendations of late have been meditations of no greater than ten minutes then I think (rather like this article) anything I have mentioned from Calm recently would be something of an appetiser. The YouTube content (which is generally longer) very definitely forming the main course.

Here is today’s Calm recommendation:

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

Daily Calm

Thinking

Narrator

Tamara Levitt

Author

Tamara Levitt

Tamara’s voice is one of the voices I prefer on Calm, it is very restful. Some of the other artists produce material that I prefer, but Tamara would be my go-to voice for relaxing most often.

This one is a little less than eleven minutes, so you’ll need to be quick if you’re going to fall asleep to this. It is about obsessive thinking, which maybe something keeping you from sleep and so probably directly of relevance.

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 Roleplay | Your First Therapy Session (help for stress, anxiety, intrusive thoughts)

Straight away we get the impression that is going to be one of the more whispery of offerings. Nothing spectacularly wrong with that. However, I often remark that if this is supposed to be a genuine therapy session I’d be quite surprised if anyone providing therapy did so by whispering at me. But I live to be surprised and Whispering Bob’s therapists could turn out to be a genuine thing.

It is nearly forty-six minutes long, so substantial amongst videos we have recently reviewed. And it has notes: “996,903 views 15 Dec 2022

Hi guys! This is a roleplay I’ve been wanting to do for a while now! It’s a therapist roleplay in which I whisper, type, ask lots of questions, calm you down, give you mental health tips, light a candle, do breathing exercises, flip through a workbook with you, write notes, demonstrate EFT tapping, and much more. 💜

Please note that this ASMR video is a *roleplay* – I’m not a mental health professional. I did try to recreate how my first ever therapy appointment went though. 🙂

Until next time!

🌱Socials🌱

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☀️Support☀️

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As is usual for a professional ASMR video, a healthy set of notes and a healthy set of self-promotion. So far, so expected. Comments are permitted and as you’ll know (if you have read any other articles recently on this blog) the aura around professional ASMR artists is such that all commentators seem to have left their nastier tendencies at home and praise is heaped upon the video.

It comes to us from: Sarah Lavender ASMR, with 474K subscribers, three hundred and seventy-five videos and ten playlists. Sarah Lavender is a hard-working ASMR artist.

There is a whole playlist dedicated to medical style videos:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLymIhVfp2ZPx4yTyy4412qeylQ1YjI0bi

This is a subject which has been the grist to our mill for some months. It might be that you’ll want to give that playlist a try.

All that being said, I tend to have high expectations of professional ASMR artists and, of late, those expectations have not really been met. There are some interesting decisions around sounds which I do not like (but I am sure only exist because so many ASMR fans do like them).

In this case the voice is excellent, and often I wish that the video would stop right there in terms of included noises. Here we have ceramic noises, clothing-related noises, various clicks, taps, crackles, keyboard noises, clucking noises, writing noises, scratching noises, liquid noises, even fingernails on glass. I’d prefer that none of these had been included but I think I’m safe in assuming there will be an ASMR devotee somewhere that loves every one of those noises.

It has a tendency to be a bit on the breathy side. However, on the plus side, it seems a lot less visual-orientated than videos reviewed on this blog of late. This makes listening to it as an aid to sleep substantially more worthwhile. Sadly, it ends with music but it is neither loud nor extended. You might want to give this video a try.

The core purpose of this blog article like the many before it, has been to focus on inadvertent ASMR videos – i.e. videos that are restful despite the fact that they were created for quite another purpose (of late, habitually videos on a medical theme).

I think the Procrastination Pen playlist is beginning to graduate into the more serious leagues given how large it is getting and the number of videos that I have now archived from it in the drive to capture continued quality from it.

Hopefully you are finding this to be the case, and I would encourage you to comment if you are not finding it as workable as you would like.

I thought I should explain the named playlists as these are not as dynamic as the others, and this has always been by design. The rules have been that where I find a YouTube channel which has more than one video that might be useful for sleep, I create a playlist which is named such that it references the original source of those videos. This is not as common as you would imagine. Not infrequently I find that there is one gem of a video on a channel which is the sole diamond in the coalmine. Hence no named playlist is created.

Where named playlists exist, however, they remain static as at the point the blog item is published. There is no further reviewing of it and no attempts to weed from it. This was by design. I reasoned that people who choose the named playlist over the main Procrastination Pen playlist are doing so because they have a fondness for that set of videos and probably do not want to have anyone messing with them.

I still recommend that you focus on the Procrastination Pen playlist as this has the focus of attention. It gets updated regularly and videos which turn out to contain irritating noises are despatched to the archive list. The aim being that it remains pristine, usable, restful.

Today we are back to eye exams with this video:

Easier Ophthalmoscopic exam

A little over six and a quarter minutes so it isn’t one to delay you for long.

In terms of a playlist the length of the video matters little as the next video pops up automagically. I have noticed two downsides of short videos however:

One is that the volume of any two videos is unlikely to be the same, meaning that as the new video pops up there is a possibility of being deafened. Or worse, woken up just as you were drifting off.

Secondly, YouTube tends to choose the between-video moments to slot in some of its louder and more energetic adverts. These seem not to take into account time of day, video theme, (if I’m watching relaxing videos do I really want a video to start loudly or at two hundred miles an hour?) or, despite apparently using your info for advertising purposes, the preferences of the viewer. It surprises me the number of adverts I get that are totally of no interest whatsoever and loud, so – so loud.

Therefore, these shorter videos may expose you to more of the energising, “crush your goals” nonsense that seem to act as click-bait on such adverts. If so, I apologise.

For this week’s video, notes do exist, but are refreshingly brief: “76,075 views 27 Jul 2017

This video shows how to easily find the optic disc in less than 5 seconds”

Comments are permitted and for a change are mostly positive. However, there are no ASMR-related comments – which is usually not a good sign, frankly.

The medical Professional is M. Kyu Chung MD. Dr Chung has a great voice. The video starts without startup music, there is not background noise discernible – so far, so good. The “patient” is not introduced.

The Channel Myung Chung for that is where this video is found, contains playlists which are really of no assistance to us. There are five videos including the one first reviewed, so it is quite within the scope of this one article to cover them all.

I notice that none of them are particularly long either. I hope the adverts that you are “gifted” are restful ones…

Korsakov method dilutions

This is just under eleven and a half minutes long. There are brief notes: “7,401 views 18 Mar 2020

Demonstration on how to make a Korsakov dilution for virus management.”

As usual the comments have somewhat variable (and not always helpful) content. This time the microphone seems to be fighting against a very large space. The video sounds distant and muted. An alarm starts to go off and no one attends to it. That is quite distracting.

I’m also not clear whether homeopathic content is likely to encourage many readers to listen to it. The evidence against homeopathy seems to have been overwhelming.

There is no medical examination here as such. Adding those factors together I do not think that this video is a suitable member of the Procrastination Pen playlist.

How to use the otoscope/pneumatoscope

Just slightly over five minutes, so we won’t be held up long in listening to it. The notes associated with the video are equally brief: “84,702 views 27 Feb 2018

This video describes a neat trick to effectively use the pneumatic insufflator.”

The usual array of comments, some affirming a number less so, some just whacky, no ASMR related feedback though I notice.

The video starts without introductory music – which is a plus. The sound is a bit muted as if a less than optimum microphone is in use, possibly use of the inbuilt microphone rather than a lapel mic, for example.

Mr Chung’s voice is a good one. It isn’t loud, fast or hesitant.  However, on the downside this is more of a tips for using equipment video rather than a medical examination video as such.

Easier IV Placement

Just a little less than six minutes. Already, I am feeling that the subject matter might not be that restful. The notes are again brief “4,687,387 views 17 Feb 2017

Easier technique for IV placement”

The comments are variable as expected but a number of commentators report that they did find it off-putting.

Dr Chung remains consistent voice wise. But again, this is a description of a technique rather than a medical examination as such.

Although there is no extraneous noise in the video and the presentation is as measured as in previous videos featured in this blog post, I think the subject matter is such that it will not be a comfortable member of the Procrastination Pen playlist. Therefore, I am discounting it.

An Easier Thyroid Exam

Just over seven and a half minutes. The notes continue to be brief: “683,734 views 17 Dec 2014

A demonstration of a more accurate method of performing the thyroid exam using an anterior approach.

By M. Kyu Chung MD

http://www.chunginstitute.com”

Which makes a change from the enormous number of notes used to market a product.

It is quite refreshing in fact.

The comments if anything are more unhelpful than associated with other videos in this blog post, including the odd comment which indicates a person really should be consulting a medical professional rather than watching videos on YouTube.

The video starts in a muted fashion, which is very welcome given we are so used to funky start-up music.

Again, Dr Chung has a great voice for our purposes. There are elements of the video which are silent which might be distracting (these are used for explanatory content, but you won’t know that if you are listening rather than watching).

The examination is gentle and careful. The explanation of what is happening seems to be thorough (and some of the comments confirm that to be the case).

Occasionally the microphone sounds like it is a long way from the Dr (a lapel mic would have helped, I suspect).

The Dr Myung Chung 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.

Photo by DeepAI

Sleeping With ASMR

A narrowing amount of time to deal with blog posts as I am about to be out of the country for a while. I was reflecting this week on the stresses of being able to travel. All the documentation, insurance, tickets, booking forms and online details. Then there are the things to remember, the money, the property information, the boarding passes, the passports, the details of the rental car. There’s the need to be up-and-Adam at stupid-o-clock. A lengthy journey to an immense building designed to beat the resistance out of the most chipper individual. The interminable queues. The seating crammed with strangers’ backsides. The security akin to an abattoir holding pen.

After all that the wedging into a tiny space for hours entertained by a constant background droning, coughing, sneezing, snoring and children crying. Pitching out somewhere strange. The need to find the car rental, the place you are staying, the negotiations over check in. Then and only then the rest that this entire process was supposed to promote.

And I reflect that every one of these is a first-world problem that many in the world would fight to have the possibility of.

I begin to see that it is all kind of mad and perhaps we are all a little mad for continuing to indulge in it.

Perhaps when such events are normal it is unsurprising that life is not that beneficial for sleep and many of us have to adjust in any way we find feasible to get what shut-eye we can. If we just can’t get enough sleep to afterwards compensate with any legal chemical (such as caffeine) to keep going when getting enough sleep is looking unlikely.

In such circumstances if you have managed to find even a few minutes to look at the Procrastination Pen I reflect upon the miracle that must have relied upon. I welcome you, however briefly.

If you have not been here before, this little blog really tries to find anything that is restful. To review it for its restfulness and to present it as a possibility to listen to when your mind is racing and will not be assuaged by visions of jumping sheep.

As is usual this week I have a track from Calm. Calm is a paid-for service and I appreciate that you probably pay for way too much already. The advantage, for me, is that it does not have advertising. You will not be interrupted whilst you are trying to get some sleep. The disadvantage is that it does not provide a mechanism for assembling playlists that I have been able to ascertain (In the web-based version at any rate) and of course the need to pay before listening.

This week’s Calm track is this one:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/PTAKI4ZSz_

Daily Jay

Self-Stories

NARRATOR

Jay Shetty

It is about the stories that we tell ourselves. How these stories influence our self-image and self-worth. It isn’t obviously sleep material. To date though I have found the Calm dailies to be better in terms of restfulness than the Calm material that is supposed to be about sleep. Jay isn’t the most restful voice on Calm; I think that is Tamara Levitt. However, Jay does great inspirational material. I find myself listening to him more often than not.

Recently I have been reviewing YouTube videos for professional ASMR artists and being hyper critical. Often finding much to be critical about. As I review professional ASMR artists I find that the inadvertent ASMR videos, I have been looking at, have actually been maintaining a higher standard than I had previously given credence to. With this history in mind, I approach this week’s video. I had noticed that since I reviewed an ASMR video with a steampunk theme the purely medical nature of the YouTube videos that appear in my recommendations has filtered down somewhat. Perhaps the variety will appeal to my audience. Then again perhaps it will not. Feel free to let me know if you are not really appreciating the direction of travel.

This week’s is

[ASMR] Vintage Reverie | Traditional Scalp Healing Ritual

straight away I realise that the video is not going to be merely based upon speaking. There are occasional taps, hisses and noises of items being moved.

It is twenty two minutes long and so positively whistling past in comparison with some we’ve heard. There are notes and refreshingly these are kept very short: “21,293 views 10 Sept 2025

Back to 1920s again~

==============================

Hello Guys!!! I’m Miranda, if u like my videos, u could click “LIKE”. More videos of mine, “SUBSCRIBE” and watch more~!!! LOVING U~

我是MT，喜欢我的影片的话，希望大家按下【喜欢】，想收看更多我的影片请【订阅】哦~~感谢大家的支持~

微       博：MTkoala

bilibili：https://space.bilibili.com/6881318

网易云音乐：http://music.163.com/#/djradio?id=662…

荔枝fm：http://www.lizhi.fm/1256826/”

The clue is right there; the video is not in English. However, I do rather like the voice and, although the presenter could be swearing for all I know, I’ll blithely assume it is all relevant material. Just not in a language I can understand.

The site is Mandarin Whispers 官方频道 with 69.6K subscribers there are three hundred and forty eight videos and three playlists so this site also seems to be punching above its weight in terms of subscribers. There are comments but a number of these have responded in Chinese characters so I have no idea if they are positive. Given the halo around ASMR professionals I will make a guess that they are.

The voice tends towards the whispery but is a good voice nonetheless. There are ceramic noises, hair brushing noises and a noise of a stone being applied to skin. There are liquid noises and cloth rustling noises. These additional noises seem to me distracting. Others may find them the bread and butter of what they are looking for in an ASMR video. Personally, the video wasn’t the greatest. I would have preferred the same thing but just with the voice. At least some of the more irritating aspects of other videos are missing (such as startup music or air conditioning noises). It’s a bit of faint praise though I fear.

Based on that, let’s move onto the normal Procrastination Pen material, which is all about inadvertent ASMR videos. (Videos designed with a different purpose in mind but which nonetheless turn out to be restful). Habitually, I select these based upon the voice of the participant.

Another week, another video, another chance for rest and relaxation. Perhaps a good alternative to the Friday evening glass of wine for relaxation. Given the usual posting date more likely a Monday evening, but I’ll gloss over that; who knows when you might be reading this.

This time a video that comes from a technique to which I have not given much time on this blog (that might be about to change).

The Alexander Technique

This one is incredibly brief at slightly over three minutes. One would hope it does not have time to do anything too loud or off-putting. It is a professional video and hence it has notes: “54,429 views 30 May 2014

http://www.concordmedia.org.uk/produc…

A demonstration of the Alexander Technique.

A clear demonstration of the Alexander Technique. Dr Barlow uses a young woman previously unfamiliar with this therapy to show how posture has to be learned, and the great benefits it can bring.

Distributed by Concord Media

Website: http://concordmedia.org.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/ConcordMedia

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ConcordMedia59”

The comments reveal that this is a snippet of a much longer video available for purchase from here http://www.concordmedia.org.uk/products/the-alexander-technique-by-dr-wilfred-barlow-210/

But I would not be able to share the purchased version with you, so for our purposes, there is not much point in going down that route.

It is (as commentators have noted) a shame that more is not available on YouTube as Dr Barlow has a great voice. It was apparently filmed in 1990 so it has been around for quite a while.

There are no extraneous noises – material like this is the reason that I keep looking each week on YouTube. Sadly, it is all over so quickly.

The channel is Concord Media. It has 1.4K videos and 13.8K subscribers – wow.

There are a number of playlists but none at all seem to be concerned with The Alexander Technique. Therefore, sadly this one is it. More next time.

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 DeepAI

Sleeping With ASMR

Recently I have been including a cameo role for a professional ASMR artist. I’ve limited my adventurings to videos where they are playing a medical professional to fit in with the ongoing blog theme, which has focused on medical-themed ASMR videos for well over a year now.

Once a person strays into this area though, you very quickly realise that there are a huge number of medical-themed ASMR videos and the scope for spending hours on really quite unsuitable videos is commensurately high.

After trying a few, I also happened upon another hazard which is that the first several minutes of the video is given over to the junk the sponsor of the video wants to sell. Quite a lot of heinous-instantly-disposables in such videos. It convinces me that any video organised this way is unlikely to get much space on this blog. There is quite enough intrusive time given over to advertising as it is, without it forming a part of the video itself.

This one seems to escape some of these problems:

ASMR Head to Toe Assessment 2024 [Full Body Medical Examination] | ‘Unintentional Style’ Roleplay

Sadly, there is the ever-present air conditioning noise which I would think a professional ASMR artist could ensure was dispensed with. There are also some equipment noises, including some loudish beeps, whirring equipment and clunks from moving equipment around. This is rather like many of the genuine medical videos we have reviewed. There is the sound of rubber gloves which is quite off-putting. The video is a little over forty minutes so quite substantial and as expected the tone of the presentation is nigh on perfect. In this case two recognised ASMR artists are collaborating so in a sense it is two for one in that both voices here are excellent (if they weren’t then the number of subscribers would be something of a surprise).

The channel is Ivy B ASMR it has 350K subscribers and 1.9K videos so someone deeply loves this ASMR artist (or rather quite a number of someones).

So, well worthy of consideration, I think. I will place it into the sweetie jar list. However, bear in mind this list does not receive anything like the attention of the main Procrastination Pen playlist as it has not been the focus of this blog (at least so far).

So, after that brief sojourn into videos created deliberately for ASMR, back to the inadvertent ASMR video and, perhaps the slightly more difficult task of finding a video with potentially relaxing effects amongst the large number of videos which are unsuitable.

Today, we return to Stanford, which has been a rich well of restful videos.

Venous Testing

This is just a little over five minutes in length, so blink and it is already gone. It is a professional video and so, as we would expect, there are notes. “4 Jul 2012

Visit: stanfordmedicine25.stanford.edu

This video is from the Stanford Medicine 25: an initiative to enhance the culture of bedside medicine and physical diagnosis. Visit our website to learn more. The ankle brachial index is one of our “25” diagnostic techniques that we teach.”

There are no ASMR-related comments and quite frequently this means it isn’t a desperately great video.

It starts with the standard Stanford musical intro (boo hiss). The medical professional is John Cooke MD and John has an excellent voice. There is a slight background hiss which is unfortunate, but nothing as bad as some of the air conditioning we have heard.

There is a doppler device in use which some people might find off-putting. The noises from this device seem to get louder and more explosive as the video goes on. There is also the standard Stanford end music as well.

We have visited the Stanford Medicine 25 channel prior to this and we know that the videos tend to be divided into playlists.

This video comes from the playlist Stanford Medicine 25: Ankle Brachial Index. There is only one other video in this playlist, and it is this one:

Ankle Brachial Index (ABI) Test: How to Perform

The notes do not introduce anything substantially new. This one is also presented by John; this time the video is seven- and three-quarter minutes long. There are comments and this time, the odd one might be ASMR-related (the comments as usual are variable). John continues to have a great voice in this video. But we know what is coming when the doppler device is produced again.

The doppler device does produce the odd distracting noise. This is a shame because I do like John’s voice and the pacing of the presentation. It is only because of this that I am considering running with these two in the playlist to begin with. Sadly it is quite likely that both will ultimately get culled for the archive list.

The Stanford Medicine 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.

Picture DeepAI.org

Sleeping With ASMR

For a little while, I have been reviewing a professional ASMR artist with the understanding that as they have set themselves up to produce ASMR material, that material had better be top notch. That is, I am disposed to be more critical of such videos than I would be of a similar inadvertent ASMR video.

This one caught my eye because it is seeking to emulate the very type of video that I habitually review i.e. the inadvertent ASMR video:

ASMR Head to Toe Medical Exam | Cranial Nerves, Physical Assessment | “Unintentional” Style

It is not completely quiet I notice; there are equipment noises, background noises, noises from participants moving around and using medical equipment. In all, not as quiet as I would expect for a professional video. The voices are of course as close to perfect as you can achieve and we’d expect that. It is setting its stall by the ASMR flag after all.

It is odd to find the participants whispering, but not unwelcome in the scheme of things. It does make the occasional noise seem louder than it would do otherwise.

The video is just under forty four minutes and so quite long compared to a lot of the inadvertent ASMR material we have been reviewing of late.

There are notes “308,882 views 16 Nov 2024 #asmrunintentional #asmrmedical #asmrheadtotoe

Let me know if you can spot the surprise towards the end!!! ASMR Head To Toe Medical Exam | Cranial Nerves, Physical Assessment | “Unintentional” Style

SUBSCRIBE FOR DAILY VIDEOS https://bit.ly/Subscribe2MadP

my personal insta:  / just_madspam 

asmr insta:   / madpasmr 

For collaborations: madpasmr@gmail.com

Wear Headphones

This is an ASMR medical role-play, I’m not a real doctor and if you have a medical condition please consult with your physician. This video does not display accurate information therefore none of the information should be taken as accurate/truthful facts.

#asmrheadtotoe  #asmrunintentional #asmrmedical”

The channel is MAD P ASMR. This has 603K subscribers and 940 videos (no one need say that ASMR is not popular).

I found that MAD P ASMR also has an online review. It is good to see that there are other bloggers involved in a similar area.

As with other professional ASMR artists we have so far seen, the attractiveness of the participants tends to be towards the well above average level and so I remain unclear if it is the quality of the sound that is the main appeal (and quite probably it is not).

There are comments, of course, and surprisingly they predominantly are positive. MAD P ASMR is obviously a well-respected contributor.

As we have seen before in a video of this length, YouTube is going to hammer in advertising as frequently as it can get away with and quite a lot of that advertising is not going to be restful. This is a major downside of using YouTube for this kind of material.

Around the twenty-seven-minute mark the video continues but one of the participants has left and a new one has joined. That seems odd and usually I would have thought this the perfect cue to start a whole new video.

I’ll refer to this as the second half of the video (although it’s more like the final seventeen minutes) and it seemed to me to start a little louder. However, this, for me, makes it seem a bit more realistic as all the whispering did not seem the kind of thing your average medical professional commonly engages in. The voices are still muted and probably still much too whispery to be considered a model of real life medical professional behaviour.

At least the part where the patient is talking but the medical professional is just typing into a computer seems representative of real life. (I’m not certain the typing noises are exactly what I would call restful though).

There are various unwrapping noises, which perhaps some people will find appealing. They don’t really appeal to me that much. There also seems to be a quite elevated set of blood pressure instrument noises. The sound of palpating the back sounded more like someone hitting a drum, so I am not sure how the microphone was set up for this.

In the final moments the medical professional starts spraying the back of the “patient” with something which appears to have a glitter-like substance in it. A bit surreal for a medical exam.

In all though, this just adds up to my being extra critical because this is a professional ASMR video after all. I still think it is worthy of review and I am going to add it into the Sweetie Jar list.

Well, that has been a somewhat lengthy diversion from the real meat-and-potatoes work of this blog which is to find inadvertent ASMR videos. (i.e. real videos which may have some relaxing effects rather than ASMR professionals playing doctors and nurses).

Today’s material follows on from an earlier blog post. In this, I introduced the Geeky Medics channel and we got to see videos featuring Dr James Lower and Dr Andrew Pugh.

My preferred method for refining which videos we would review from the channel was to look for videos that featured James.

This led to a very long blog post and enough extra videos for several more blog posts besides. I arbitrarily divided them up for part 1 and this is part 2.

Hip Joint Examination – OSCE Guide (Latest)

There is startup music but different startup music to the videos we saw in the last article. James is in for another examination with Andrew. This time all kinds of leg manipulations are seen but what we hear is similarly quiet and methodical to all those videos that went before.

As we saw in the previous article there are notes – but I won’t repeat them here. Comments are permitted and as before some of those comments are not fully helpful.

This video is just over four and a half minutes. It is so speedy that it is hardly there at all. There is of course background (air conditioning) noise. It is almost rude to have a video without it. Although when it does happen, it is so – so welcome.

Knee Joint Examination – OSCE Guide (Latest)

The video is six and three quarter minutes this time and if you read the previous article, this video will be familiar. (Some elements of the video are obviously just repetitions of filming completed for other videos).

Selecting James as a method of thinning out videos has resulted in a sample of a good percentage of the videos on the website. Overall, this will bulk out the playlist (which really wasn’t the aim).

In order not to tax your reading patience, I think six videos is going to be sufficient for this article.

Dix-Hallpike Test & Epley Manoeuvre – OSCE Guide

This is just under two and a half minutes so it is not hanging around this one. Andrew and James appear again but James appears different and the video is posted much more recently up to now the videos have been six years old but this one is a slimline five years ago.

The new startup music is firmly established and dogging the start of the videos. Andrew’s voice seems to be at a higher volume for some reason and the background hiss a little more established.

Here we have Mr Ben Cosway as ENT Registrar for the first time in the credits at the end of the video as “Reviewer”.

Lymphoreticular Examination – OSCE Guide (lymph node, spleen and liver examination)

This one is a little over four- and three-quarter minutes in length. Startup music, tick, Andrew and James, tick, hissing background noise, tick, initial pre-amble, tick, move onto actual examination, tick, (of which a fair amount is actually in silence – heaven be praised no background noises). In summary, it is just like those we have already seen.

This time the reviewer is Dr Adam Gibb Clinical research fellow in Lymphoma, he seems to be at the Christie NHS Foundation Trust which is in Manchester.

Subcutaneous Injection (SC injection) – OSCE Guide

This one is not brilliant if injections are really not your thing (don’t watch!) It is just two- and three-quarter minutes in length. Andrew and James continue their merry dance across the screen. (To be fair it has all been relaxing so far, apart from the odd extraneous noise in videos which we can afford to dismiss from the playlist, given the resource of videos on this channel is just so large).

Otoscopy and Hearing Assessment | Ear Examination | Rinne’s & Weber’s test | OSCE Guide

I’ll make this the last video in this blog article but there are quite a few more for a future article or articles. It is slightly more than three-and-a-quarter minutes so none of the videos today will waylay you for very extortionate periods of time. It features Andrew and James again, the Morecombe and Wise of medical examinations. There is whispering, so I take it all back, medical examinations really do feature whispering, but perhaps not for the entire length of the examination.

There are a few disturbing ear related images, but as you will be listening rather than watching, you should be well placed.

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 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.

Picture DeepAI.org

Sleeping With ASMR

I have been considering a move towards reviewing some meditation material on YouTube as I know that I have been reviewing inadvertent ASMR material for a very long time now and possibly a change may not go awry.

However, that will be for a future date. Today we are back to an old favourite voice which we have covered in a previous post:

Abraham Verghese: “Cutting for Stone”

A bit of a diversion but only because we encountered Abraham Verghese in our review of the Stanford material.

There are notes of course: ”22,835 views 13 Jul 2011

“Patients require that one-on-one encounter, the Samaritan function of being a physician,” says writer and Stanford Medical School professor Abraham Verghese. “I’m convinced that when the physician examines the patient, this is an incredibly important ritual.” Watch more of Fred de Sam Lazaro’s conversation with writer and Stanford Medical School professor Abraham Verghese, author of “Cutting for Stone.”

Watch our full profile of Abraham Verghese:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandet…”

the URL for the profile by the way leads here: Abraham Verghese.

The video is a bit over twenty-seven minutes (so longer than we have been covering of late).

It starts without music and this makes such a positive difference in contrast with some we have reviewed where the music is the major distraction that eventually consigns the video to the archive list.

Abraham Verghese (when not undercut with peppy music anyway) has an awesome voice, mellow, measured, dignified in fact. I intended to listen whilst typing but instead found myself focused on the video, this points up the quality of the sound we are dealing with here and contrasts strongly with some of the more borderline items we have listened to of late.

The channel does not strike me as very much medical and not very much ASMR either, it is Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. This channel has six hundred and ninety-one videos at the time I am looking at it. That is quite a few to search through in the hope of finding medical/ASMR videos. There are fourteen playlists and as luck would have it one of them is entitled “Health and Medicine” which seems squarely in the sights of material that we have recently been covering:

Health and Medicine consists of the following videos:

Affordable Heart Surgery in India

This has age verification against it and so it is just not going into the Procrastination Pen playlist.

It is just less than nine minutes, and as a professional video has notes associated with it:

“1,297,372 views 10 Sept 2015

Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty, a heart surgeon in India, runs a network of for-profit hospitals that perform world-class operations at a small fraction of what they would cost in the U.S. He is driven by his belief that even the most sophisticated surgery should be available to the world’s poorest people, and he says that “if a solution is not affordable, it is not a solution. It’s pointless if we talk about huge developments in cardiac surgery or a brain operation or complex cancer surgery if [the] common man cannot afford it.”

Watch this story on our website:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandet…

—

Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly

http://www.pbs.org/religion”

Comments are permitted and for a change these seem to be universally supportive. No obvious comments from ASMR fans though and that is a bad sign, given an ASMR afficionado makes a ferret look uninquisitive.

The video starts without music but has the style of an interview for a news programme. Not a style that lends itself to a blog on ASMR. It is not immediately obvious why age verification was necessary – perhaps operations are viewed as off-putting content. Sadly, it discounts it from inclusion in the playlist so I include it simply out of interest.

Kidney Donors and Faith Communities

This one did not challenge me to login to verify my age so that’s a more reassuring start. There are notes but they are pretty samey with the previous notes we have seen, so I won’t delay you with more of them.

It is a little less than eight and a half minutes and so again not a huge length for a video. There is a fairly substantial level of background noise but again the presentation as a news story is not great in terms of ASMR. It’s a shame, because some of the participants have a great voice. But these are interspersed by voices that are less suitable.

The Dalai Lama’s Doctor

Less than seven minutes and so far, I am quite impressed with the somewhat diverse nature of the videos in this one playlist. I am less impressed that they all seem to be in the format of news. This one is in the same format. It’s sad because the presenter’s voice is great. However, it is interspersed with traffic noise, wind noise and of course other voices. As such it does not have a place in the Procrastination Pen playlist, however if you are seeking videos with calm voices I recommend that you review this one.

Death with Dignity

A fascinating subject certainly, and this time a video which is a little less than eight and a half minutes.

Again, this is in the format of a news programme. This time the included voices are excellent and, had it been a medical video, this would have seen it included in the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Like the previous video, I would recommend a review of this as the voices included are calm ones and it won’t feature anywhere on theprocrastinationpen YouTube channel.

Here, there will be no new playlist and I do not think that the Abraham Verghese video belongs in the Stanford Medicine playlist. Therefore, I think it will simply feature in the overall playlist.

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.

Picture DeepAI.org

Sleeping With ASMR

I had been stockpiling blog articles and had built up quite a number, to the extent that for several months I simply stopped writing. There was every danger that videos would be taken down from YouTube before the article ever saw the light of day and hence any evaluation of the videos would have been a waste of time.

I am happy to report that the backlog is now so tiny that I am danger of running out of material for the blog altogether. I am sure that regular readers would be delighted deeply concerned in case that happened.

Perhaps this is now a good time to start bringing some changes, in order to inject a little more life into the blog, but without the drama of a revolution. To this end I thought I would review at least one video on a medical theme that comes from a professional ASMR artist. If this proves to be a popular change, perhaps I will make it permanent.

Moonlight Cottage ASMR has 1.39M subscribers at the time I am looking at the channel. Some details of Moonlight Cottage have been recorded online., So obviously Moonlight Cottage is a professional ASMR artist (and a very successful one). The channel has one hundred and twenty nine videos and so there is space there for many videos which are not on a medical theme. So far so good.

However, I have self-elected to stick to a medical theme for the moment, so I have selected the following video:

The Shelter | ASMR Sci-Fi Roleplay (medical & skin exam, soft spoken)

It is a little over half an hour and so substantial enough in length and, given it is a professional ASMR video, we are setting the standard very high in terms of review.

It starts with an ocean which is that great standby of relaxing tracks but sadly also with music… It isn’t particularly oppressive music, but I was expecting something spoken or even whispered. It is beautifully constructed in the manner of a professional film, good costumes, effects, scenery but that isn’t why we are here. What does it sound like?

There are a number of distractions in terms of triggering sounds that work for some ASMR fans but sadly not for me: rustling noises, scraping noises, beeping noises. If one of these is your trigger then fill your boots.

As expected, the person participating has an excellent voice and is exactly the correct tone. I am guessing if this was not the case then 1.39M subscribers would be subscribing elsewhere.

However (and no doubt due to the science fiction theme) there are a number of less welcome noises as well. Clicks, beeps and whirring noises crop up sufficiently often to be distracting. There is also a constant background hum as if the video was shot in an area with air conditioning, but I suspect was added to improve the perception of the video being shot inside of a spaceship or similar. Usually I hope to get videos entirely without such background noises but I can see why it was done in this case. There are clunks from equipment, and further sounds from it being dragged – the sort of noises I have avoided in inadvertent ASMR videos.

The tail end of the video contains no speech at all, but more of the beeps, sliding noises, background air conditioning noises i.e. the parts that were less impressive about the rest of the video.

All that said, the bar was set very high, precisely because this is a professional ASMR video and I do think you could do worse than listen to the video for yourself. I’ll add it to the Sweetie Jar list which currently is the only one I have for such professional videos.

That may change if this aspect of the blog proves to be more popular.

So, now we have dispensed with the additional extra video, what about the meat and potatoes of this blog i.e. an inadvertent ASMR video.

Today’s video comes from a site which regular readers will well recognise:

University of Leicester

So it must have something going for it.

The video is this one:

Cardiovascular Examination – Demonstration

It is only five- and three-quarter minutes long and has a little of the straight-to-video quality about it. The patient is Mr Jackson. The notes tell us something about the participants “Presented by Dr Adrian Stanley PhD FRCP Consultant in Cardiovascular Medicine. Produced and Directed by Dr Irene Peat FRCR FRCP, Dr Nicholas Port MBChB BSc and Jon Shears.”

Fortunately for us Dr Stanley has a great voice. The video is not hampered by startup music but it is by the constant background noise, presumably from air conditioning. The pace is good rather than excellent. But it is quite relaxing, I think. 

This forms part of the Clinical Examinations playlist which is ten videos long – perhaps a little long for us today.

However, the University of Leicester does have another Cardiovascular based video worth examining, which is this one:

Cardiovascular Examination – Explanation

This one is nearly thirteen minutes long and shares many of the attributes of the last one, only more so, obviously. There are a few more noises as Mr Jackson gets to undress at the beginning, but Dr Stanley still has a great voice and in this longer video the pace seems much more measured (that might purely be personal perception). There are heart sounds included in this one but these are not excessively loud or off-putting.

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.

Until next time.

Picture DeepAI.org

Sleeping With ASMR

Recently I have been thinking about the various ways that I have tried to assist sleep over the years. Some of those have, of course, been chemical and only one of those was truly effective.

For the briefest of occasions, I did receive genuine-prescribed-by-a-doctor sleeping pills. These definitely work and I seemed to have none of the side effects detailed in the included pieces of paper. However, I suspect they are addictive as the prescription covered a bare few days and then it was back to one’s own devices.

The night before days in the office, I commonly have problems sleeping. For that I have often taken Nytol. Nytol is odd stuff. Some nights I take it and I barely make it upstairs before my eyes are closing. Then I am zonko. Some nights it is as if I have taken a sugar pill and I am laid there counting the marks on the ceiling. I have often wondered if there is some circulation problem in the manufacturing plant and the odd pill has zero active ingredient in it. No doubt the manufacturers of Nytol would have a completely different take on it.

Some years ago, I saw a YouTube presentation by a UK sleep expert who recommended popping a melatonin pill about half an hour before sleep and there would be no need for counting sheep.

The problem being it is almost impossible to get in the UK. I have taken some when travelling in either North or South America (where it is widely available). I found it rather like the Nytol. Sometimes it is as if the doors of sleep have wanged shut all of a sudden and somedays it is as if I had an unhealthy caffeine habit. It has been recommended to take it in association with 5-HTP and I did try that. I’d say the efficacy is improved but marginally in my experience.

I have tried standard Kalms and night-time Kalms, Bach Rescue Remedy and the herbal version of Nytol. These seem to have limited effects other than sometimes the nature of my nightmares were much more vivid and therefore more nightmarish… (However, if you love a good nightmare, it is as nothing compared to St John’s Wort which could win records).

The issue with all such remedies to my mind (and was not shared by the genuine sleeping pills) is that they get you to sleep but do not keep you there. Marvellous being in zzzs land at 9pm. Not so marvellous when you spring wide awake at 3am despite feeling that you have done so from the bed of a river. Worse that, having thus sprung awake, no other remedy is available to get you back off to sleep before the inevitable alarm at 5am.

It was for this reason that I went in search of a soothing backtrack. If I have to lie awake in the early hours of the morning, better to do so calmly and in as relaxed state as I can possibly accomplish than to lie fretting about all the sleep I am not getting.

Most recently I have been using Calm, for this to a greater or lesser degree of efficiency. I am going to start making recommendations from there. I have hesitated only because it is a paid-for option and I hate to leverage people into paying for anything. I am no salesperson and have no ambitions to become one.

Of late, I am making the odd foray into professional ASMR artists in these articles, if only to contrast with the inadvertent ASMR that this blog has specialised in for so long. I haven’t been featuring the many that are frankly awful. (There seem to be a fair few of these). I have the bias that if you set yourself up as a professional ASMR artist, then your offerings should be excellent. At the very least, they should be consistently restful.

Of course, YouTube now has adverts shoehorned into every corner and most of them are about as restful as a thoroughgoing slap.

This video is a foray away from the medical theme that I have stuck with for a long time. Mainly because I am having trouble finding a good one on the medical theme. I thought the tone of this video rather good; you may not share my opinion on it.

ASMR | Night massage with gua sha, herbs, natural oils (soft spoken)

I am always nervous about anything massage in case that is a euphemism for some other kind of video (which hopefully I don’t need to define). Both participants have clothing, excessive skin does not seem to be exposed and there are no offers to see more on an OnlyFans site somewhere.

This is a bit breathy for me but at least it does not seem to involve fingernails on fabric, strange vocal intonations into a microphone or bizarre squelching noises coming from who knows where.

It eschews music (hurrah) but there are some noises coming from brushing hair. (Perhaps that is even your thing, who knows).

Itsblitzz is the channel and it has 840K subscribers and three hundred and eighty videos. I see that there are three playlists. However, beware, some of these videos actively promote certain products. I have made this an attribute which embargoes a video from featuring in this blog. They will start with “the sponsor of the video this week…”. At which point I just move on.

The video is a little over forty-two minutes in length (hopefully enough to get you nodding off) and contains notes:

“29 Jan 2019 #guasha #massage #ASMR

In tonight’s video, I have brought back one of my favorite humans to experiment with some new techniques and tools (our other video can be found here:  ASMR | Head massage and energy healin…  ). This was a spur of the moment session, and I am happy that Elizabeth was free to come over. She is such an easy person to be around, and everything felt very natural and relaxed. I use some gua sha tools in our session as well as some natural sprays and oils. Gua sha is a skin scraping technique used in traditional East Asian medicine that can also be performed with a spoon or other smooth object. Typically, it leaves marks (petechiae) but tonight I will just be using the tools to aid in massage. I am using light to medium pressure to avoid abrasions. I will demonstrate and discuss other gua sha techniques in the very near future on my channel.”

There are of course comments, and as we have noted, where comments are permitted there shall ye find less than helpful comments. So here too.

Anyway, that was the distraction of the week, onto the main feature which takes us back to the world of YouTube medical videos.

MRCP Paces: Station 1, Neurology section (Upper Limbs)

This is fifteen- and three-quarter minutes long and surprisingly for a video from a hospital has no notes. Less surprisingly it has no comments either. I can probably by now guarantee that if it has ASMR content then ASMR fans have already discovered it.

It features Dr Shuja Punekar who straight away has a good voice. It also features air conditioning noises which are less welcome. It does not have start up music which is great.

The feedback section of the video which occurs at eleven minutes has air conditioning noises akin to the sound of the M25 at rush hour. It is actually loud and would have discounted the video had it been there from the start of the video. It also serves to partially mask the voices of the participants.

This one is from Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust YouTube channel. There are five hundred and fourteen videos, twenty-six playlists (one with one hundred and eight videos in it). So, there is hope that this channel might be an ASMR resource for us for a lengthy period of time.

MRCP Paces History

Again, this features Dr Punekar and is very similar at the start as the last video. If anything the background noise is higher and the voices of the participants sound more distant than in the previous video.

There are various background noises which sound rather like doors opening and closing (possibly in an adjacent room).

The participants voices are calm and measured, with just the air conditioning for company.

This time the post-mortem phase in which progress of the student is discussed does not appear to have any higher participation by the air conditioning.

MRCP Paces Station 4: Communication and Ethics

This is a bit over nineteen and a quarter minutes and features Dr Punekar again. Again, the introduction is calm and quiet. The air conditioning’s participation is not excessive.

However, this is really quite stressful, not the kind of video that I think we will want in the Procrastination Pen playlist.

There are a lot of videos in the MRCP Paces series and so I use this as a whet your appetite introduction and we can return in the future and hopefully do a few more.

The Blackpool Teaching Hospitals 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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Until next time.

Picture DeepAI.org