Cate Darnell – The Procrastination Pen

Sleeping With ASMR

I remember that during lockdown I used to read https://laterbloomer.com/ and the course https://imaginarium.debraeve.com/courses/479032/lectures/8819588. It is material that is designed for those, like me, who would rather like to imagine that there are some aspects of existence still remaining to them, despite their advancing in years.

I suppose it is material like this which encourages me to resist some of the effects of aging like declining sleep quality, and to try to do something about it. Who knows, I might suddenly take up something amazingly fulfilling in later life which I would have missed out on if I’d allowed my sleep to just continue to get worse.

I hope that because I mention advancing years this will not dissuade any young people with sleep issues from reading further. Assuming such a person found this blog, I think the relaxing material which is featured here is very likely to be applicable both to young and old.

By all means, feedback if you disagree.

I think I kicked off Calm recommendations in this blog greater than six months ago. Such that regular readers will recognise what comes next. I have a Calm subscription and I make use of it reasonably frequently because I can guarantee that it is not going to have a loud, unpleasant advert kick in sometime during the track. That said, much of the content is variable, and some of it I do not find as calming as the name would suggest. The one thing I am finding out however, through listening to different ASMR tracks is that everyone is different, and some of the ones that I feel are marginal may turn out to be your favourites.

One of the tracks dedicated to sleep is the Calm Nighttime Wind Down, it is a little less than seven minutes:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/zX75qkm1AI

As such, personally, I do not think it is long enough to get me off to sleep, particularly on one of my more wakeful evenings.

It is also music-based and as I have commented before, I do not actually find music that restful or at least not restful enough to fall asleep to. So, I doubt I’d do much more than lie awake listening. The other problem, for me, is that it isn’t the quietest. I have had more restful moments listening to ITV in the early hours, to be honest. But I guarantee that there will be someone out there who will love it.

Give it a try and see what you think, assuming that you have a Calm subscription in any case.

I have been looking at resources that are not on YouTube (as I wish to avoid the adverts). I came across this one which seems to me a tad surreal:

The notes I can pick up from it are as follows:

“【ASMR】 detailed medical exam for sleep ♡🏥

By: pillowdear ASMR

Published: Jan 20, 2025

Topics: YouTube, video, Entertainment, vtuber, anime, girl, gamer, calm, cute, ASMR, let’s play, spooky, cozy, comfy, relax, funny, cupid, love, waifu, holo, scream, scary, gf, kawaii, stream, gameplay, game, live, asset, clip, comp, voice, female, affirmation, dere, jumpscare, girls, happy, sfw

Collections: Mirrortube: Mirrored YouTube Videos, Social Media Videos, Additional Collections – Video

Ready for your medical check-up? I’m nurse pillow, here to take good care of you and help you get nice sleep! ════ ⋆♡⋆ ════ If you’re thinking about donating, please consider doing it through the link below!!! All tips “

It is animated, it is somewhat peculiar, and the voice is not the greatest. However, it does lack adverts. I’m not sure that you can download it sadly, I could not see a mechanism for doing that. It starts with music – grr. However, it isn’t the loudest music that you ever heard.

The video is in excess of two hours in length! Certainly, long enough to drop off to.

Why not take a listen.

For several months now I have been reviewing just one professional ASMR video per blog article. I have now concluded that if I just review the latest stuff in my YouTube feed it is probably not as useful as picking out a YouTube video at random from the past.

Those of you who do not spend your time reviewing YouTube videos I suspect would not be trawling the historic entries for something that just might be worthwhile. That said I have found a number of professional ASMR videos are not as scintillating as one might otherwise expect and that doesn’t seem to change no matter how long ago, I look back.

Today I am looking at the channel Alleviate ASMR which does seem to be doing the job that I would like to do myself. It would seem that the channel is nicking other people’s ASMR videos and assembling them into a playlist. I shudder to think what copyright implications there might be. It is my lack of awareness in this area that causes me to shy away from similar behaviour. I tend to review original videos where I can find them and keep the videos in the location and in the state that the originator intended. This often results, in my opinion, in a less successful video than might have been the case had they been heavily truncated (notably to remove any branding music from the start and end of some videos). However, I do not want to disturb anyone who can charge a fortune simply for writing a letter. Especially if they are the kind of person who takes to wearing a frighteningly expensive suit.

The channel has 6.9K subscribers and only eleven videos so go Alleviate ASMR for achieving so many subscribers from so little material. There are two playlists one of which is right on theme for us and one of which is not:

and

The channel seems to have been very active a couple of years ago and then swiftly to have fallen into abeyance. I do not have any idea why that should be.

Today’s selected video is as follows:

Cranial Nerve Exams for Unintentional ASMR

As a welcome change this has very brief notes (rather than the lengthy ones we are more used to): “1,167,336 views 2 May 2023 #unintentionalasmr #compilation #cranialnerveexam

A compilation of three incredibly relaxing cranial nerve examinations to fulfil your Unintentional ASMR needs, perfect for relaxation, study and sleep. All credit goes to the owners of these clips. Check out my other Unintentional ASMR videos on my channel 🙂

Check out more Unintentional ASMR medical videos here – • Unintentional ASMR Medical Videos

Be sure to Like and Subscribe for more! Sweet Dreams 🙂

#cranialnerveexamasmr #cranialnerveexam #unintentionalasmr #medicalasmr #compilation #asmr #study #sleep #relaxation”

There are quite a few comments, and many are either strange or for ASMR afficionados in the know. If you have been reading this blog for a while you will swiftly appreciate what I mean by this as at one time or another I have tried to translate such comments.

The video is less than twenty minutes long. It breaks the rules of this section as, although this has been professionally assembled, it is not by a professional ASMR artist as such. I hope that you will give me some latitude. Normal service will be resumed with the next blog post.

It starts with some background noise – probably air conditioning. Then the medical professional introduces herself possibly as Dr Pitford. Two other medical professionals are in attendance and are making notes. It is possible this is an example of one of our favourites the student assessment video. I am used to these coming from a number of the nursing establishments in the US but this person has a resolutely English accent so I assume a UK offering instead.

I would say that this person has a very good voice for our purposes. I have no idea how extensively the video was edited (I’m certain that this is not its usual home) but if I do happen upon the original version, I will review the whole thing for the blog. (I do try to find original videos where I can do that).

There are equipment noises, clunking against metallic objects. None of these is excessively distracting.

Around six minutes in, the video segues without warning to a brand-new medical professional, Vicky, who informs us that she is at the Swindon Academy. As I have mentioned before, I do not like videos that have been crammed together like this. By all means use a playlist, but assembling them into one whole is, I find, jarring when you flit from one place to another, one person to another, and in many cases have changes in sound to go with it.

If anything, Vicky has a slightly better voice than Dr Pitford. A shame that we are not starting a new video. I’ll go with the “I’ve started so I’ll finish” philosophy and plough onwards. However, if I was reviewing this for the Procrastination Pen playlist this would disinclude it. In fact, if I was as brave as Alleviate ASMR I’d take ownership of the video and divide it back into individual videos again. At eleven and a half minutes the video segues again, this time to Tom Sutton who (at the time this was recorded) was a final year medical student. The background noise hikes up a bit and the sound recording is somewhat less successful. Tom sounds a little distant and muted to me in comparison to the two that went before. I would say he has a good voice but by this stage we have been spoiled by the two voices that we have just heard and, in my opinion, both of them are superior voices. Another argument for not gluing these videos together like this.

At this stage in a normal blog post (and since the ASMR part of this blog started) I have been reviewing inadvertent ASMR videos on YouTube. These are videos, ostensibly established for one purpose, but which turn out to be relaxing, possibly even giving ASMR-effects (to those that can feel them).

I don’t give guarantees on the ASMR-yness of the videos because one thing I seem to have established is that one person’s ASMR is another person’s annoying video.

For me, I really like a calm voice. It is hard to define what tone is best, as I have listened to a number, but I would like (I’m sure) a tone that was empathetic even supportive. I’m making a guess that many other people would find such a voice restful and might find my reviews of such material to be helpful.

This week, I have chosen this video which is a little off-centre from the usual medical material that I have chosen to review for months now.

SCEHResources ElkinsHypnotizabilityScaleEHS 2014

This is a professional video so, of course, it comes with notes: ” 487,753 views 17 May 2018

The Elkins Hypnotizability Scale (EHS) is a measure that correlates at 0.86 with the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, and can be administered in 30 minutes. Find this and other Hypnosis Clinical Resources on the SCEH website.

This video demonstrates the Elkins Hypnotizability Scale. For more information, see Hypnotic Relaxation Therapy: Principles and Applications by Gary Elkins Ph.D., ABPP, ABPH. Copyright 2013, Reproduced with the permission of Springer Publishing Company, LLC ISBN: 9780826199393.”

Which, fortuitously, are refreshingly-brief. Given the title, it seems to have been recorded in 2014 but not posted until 2018. There is no obvious explanation for the delay.

No comments are permitted, which, given the nature of a number of comments we have seen, is probably the safe option, to be honest.

The channel is: Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis this has 1.08K subscribers from eleven videos. That’s pretty good performance in my opinion.

There are just four playlists with only one looking a good fit for us, I think:

Today’s video is in excess of forty-three minutes in length. That is not bad at all, in terms of videos we have reviewed of late. A video of two hours in length, so far, being an uncommon thing to find.

There is a fair amount of background noise, an ongoing hiss that could be in the recording technology used perhaps. The voices of both participants turn out to be rather good, calm and nicely paced. I can understand why the professional is good at hypnosis if the voice is anything to go by.

There are paper shuffling noises. These are not excessively distracting and are the only extraneous noises apart from the background hiss.

At thirty-five Minutes the video changes over to a presentation by Dr Gary Elkins at Baylor University. Although a presentation, his voice remains calm.

Many people when presenting seem tempted to project, as if they didn’t have a microphone. The upshot is that presentations tend to be louder. Thankfully this is avoided here. That said, I would not say that this part of the video was the most fascinating thing I’ve listened to. However, given I am reviewing material for its usefulness in driving someone into sleep, I would say this is nigh ideal.

On that basis, just one, video on this occasion.

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

See you again next week.

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

There is a now well-established relationship between getting enough sleep and the strength of your memory. I have always had a pretty poor memory and had to work very hard to retain important facts for any extended period.

I remember reading that scientists can now alter memories during sleep. It would be rather good to banish some of the more unpleasant memories, but how much more relevant is that if you have had a traumatic experience.

The links between lack of sleep and dementia is being explored. It is widely agreed though, that sleep quality gets progressively worse as you get older.

It is for this reason that the Procrastination Pen started to review restful videos some little while ago. I might be getting older but I’m not keen to join any waiting list for dementia. It is therefore important, I feel, to fight the tendency towards shorter amounts of sleep and for that sleep to be more broken. I have felt that one key part is something that will soothe you off to sleep and lull you back to sleep, should you wake up during the night.

I tend now to start with something from Calm. Only because I have a Calm subscription and I dislike putting up with adverts (Calm doesn’t have any).

This week, for a change, let’s look at a course provided by possibly my favourite voice on Calm which is Tamara Levitt.

This is a sequence of Body Scan meditations:

https://www.calm.com/app/program/whzIxMJxVR

Body Scan

Tune into physical sensations to deepen your awareness

Tamara Levitt

Head of Mindfulness at Calm

This has sessions starting at three minutes in length and ultimately building to thirty minutes. I must confess I have not yet learned to sit undistracted for thirty minutes, but it is a good goal.

This is definitely worth a listen if you have a Calm subscription.

At this stage, and for a while now, I have taken towards reviewing a professional ASMR artist – you never know this may turn out to be a great source of ASMR material! (Only half joking, some of the stuff I have reviewed has not exactly set the sleeping muscles to much exercise.)

I was attracted to this one by the title, as it is sleep related:

Chronic Insomnia Healing by Japanese Pro – ASMR

It comes from the channel ASMR Twix with 900k subscribers two hundred and eighty seven videos thirty-two playlists

There is the odd playlist which is borderline for the focus of this blog thus far such as:

and

Videos are still being posted here but the notes against the channel are over a year old:

“Original Japanese Head SPA in Progress for 2024, Spring Grand Opening in Tokyo.

“ASMR Twix” channel set the trend for Japanese Head SPA to become famous worldwide. I am honoured to be the first and biggest YouTuber in Japan to have worked with 190+ Japanese SPAs, salons, haircuts, make-up, kimono, etc. relaxing services and establishments. You can visit all of these relaxing places. Often, there are discounts or gifts just for my subscribers. Mention “ASMR Twix” at the beginning of your session. Feel free to book via Instagram in English or an online website. All places are by appointment only! From the SPA places on my playlist “Gift from Twix,” you can receive a special gift after your session, prepared specially by me (Twix).

Terahertz massage tool collections are available in 16 SPAs in Japan. You can find out more about it (https://asmrtwix.shop) and recent projects at the links below.

For business, contact via Instagram at @asmr.twix.”

(I’ve edited the notes because, as usual, they are quite long).

Today’s selected video has notes as well:

” 1,356,968 views 15 Apr 2021 #asmr #migraine #chronicinsomnia

Salon info: Mr. HEAD

address: Tokyo, Ichigaya station, Yobancho 5F

website: pls go to pinned comment!

Top 10 Frequently asked question about Me:

1. Am I Japanese or mixed?

I’m not! I have been living in Japan for several years.

2. Where Am I from?

I’m full Asian. For privacy issues, I prefer to keep my nationality, real name, age,address in private.

3. Do I get treatments every day?

No. I balance treatments schedule considering my skin and health condition. For example, once a week.

4. Why “Twix”?

Me and My sister work on creating these contents together. As you know Twix chocolate bar has 2 pieces. So, I’m not the only creating these videos. My sister👩 is behind the camera as Camerasister. So we thought that would be fair If I add my sister’s name. Of course, not directly adding her name.

5. Why my Camerasister doesn’t show up in the videos?

She prefers to work behind the camera. I hope you will respect her decision.

6. Does my Camerasister also get treatments?

Sometimes she does. I give her scalp, neck, face, shoulder massages at home😅

7. Who replies to the comments?

Me who always appears in the videos.

8. What kind of ASMR channel is this?

This channel is focused on Japanese exclusive head spa, face and head massage, aesthetics, facial and scalp treatments. In our videos, it is always “Soft spoken” in Japanese language with English subtitles. We don’t do “Whispering” and “No talking” videos.

9. Are my videos sponsored?

If I get sponsored on my videos, I’ll definitely mention about sponsorship in the videos according to YouTube sponsorship terms and conditions.

10. Do all places I visit have good result?

I always do deep research on the places before I visit. Because, I have responsibility of showing the real result and recommend it to my viewers. I always give my honest opinion about the treatment, massage and environment of the place at the end of each video.

11. Do I have any other social media?

No, I don’t. I want to focus on creating better videos on YouTube. We’re working on creating PayPal donations, Patreon page where I can connect even more with Twixes. They will come out probably on March 🥰”

ASMR artists really know how to write very long video notes.

Comments are permitted. There’s a lot of them but they are predominantly positive. So far, so good.

The video is a little over half an hour and so not the hugest we’ve seen. It starts without startup music, for which may the Lord make us truly thankful. However, it does have some pretty impressive background noise. By impressive, read loud. It sounds like a very bad 1980s recording. The video is in Japanese with subtitles in English and it is a shame about the background noise because I would say that the voice is excellent. It tends towards the whispery side with occasional breathy interludes.

The pace is wonderfully slow and relaxed. Turning down the volume a heck of a lot reduces the background noise, a bit. Of course, in consequence, you also lose some of that voice at the same time. The voice is worth holding onto because it is a good one for our purposes, I think. Because it is of such good quality I have made an exception for the advertising that crops up at the tail end of this video. Advertising by the ASMR artist themselves I regard as a no-no for this blog. See what you think, it might be that this video was/was not deserving of a review. Sadly, the normal energetic adverts decided to interpose themselves on more than one occasion (at least whilst I was listening). Of course, this is ever more motivation for me to research sounds that are not on YouTube and that people may find restful. I’ve skipped past that this week due to time constraints but I will locate some more in the very near future.

Meantime, I did not realise until this week that the Internet Archive has some of the ASMR videos we have already covered. This includes the Cate Darnell video which has already been reviewed.

This one is archived here:

I notice that the files are available for download. On that basis it would seem that you can download these, assemble your own playlist, and avoid the adverts altogether. I have not tried this yet but I am certainly giving it some serious consideration.

You may recall a previous post in which I mentioned a URL which linked to thirty two videos. The URL is this one:

Medical Training Videos

It has thirty-two videos (discounting the introductory one). Last time we managed to review just four of these, so there is a fair few left to look at…

The next one in the series is this:

Knee Examination – Orthopaedics

Somewhat over nine minutes in length, the notes are: “684,941 views 28 Nov 2012 Clinical Examinations

This video – produced by students at Oxford University Medical School in conjunction with the faculty – demonstrates how to perform an Orthopaedic examination of the knee joint. It is part of a series of videos covering Orthopaedic examinations and is linked to Oxford Medical Education (www.oxfordmedicaleducation.com)

This video was produced in collaboration with Oxford Medical Illustration – a department of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust. For more information, please visit www.oxfordmi.nhs.uk”

The person narrating has a great voice, lovely and quiet. When I find a good voice like this it is often frustrating that I cannot identify whose it is (so that I could look for other videos in which that person features). In this case though, there are no clues, so reoccurrence of this voice (if ever) will be purely by chance.

Hip Examination – Orthopaedics

A little over nine and a quarter minutes long. The notes are: “938,894 views 28 Nov 2012 Clinical Examinations

This video – produced by students at Oxford University Medical School in conjunction with the faculty – demonstrates how to perform an Orthopaedic examination of the hip joint. It is part of a series of videos covering Orthopaedic examinations and is linked to Oxford Medical Education (www.oxfordmedicaleducation.com)

This video was produced in collaboration with Oxford Medical Illustration – a department of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust. For more information, please visit www.oxfordmi.nhs.uk”

The narrator has a good voice and it is nicely paced.

Trauma Assessment – Pelvic Fracture Scenario

A little less than sixteen minutes the notes are: “176,944 views 13 May 2012 Trauma Surgery

This video – produced by students at Oxford University Medical School in conjunction with the faculty – demonstrates how to perform the initial assessment of a patient with suspected traumatic injury. This scenario is of a patient with a suspected pelvic fracture and internal haemorrhage.

Videos on this channel are linked to Oxford Medical Education (www.oxfordmedicaleducation.com)

This video was produced in collaboration with Oxford Medical Illustration – a department of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust. For more information, please visit www.oxfordmi.nhs.uk”

This is introduced and, although it is a trauma situation, it is not excessively loud, but not exactly restful either.

Trauma Assessment – Teaching Scenario (with possible pathology)

Fifteen and a half minutes. The notes are: “58,225 views 13 May 2012 Trauma Surgery

This video – produced by students at Oxford University Medical School in conjunction with the faculty – demonstrates how to perform the initial assessment of a patient with suspected traumatic injury. This scenario is of an uninjured patient. It includes possible pathology to be found at each step.

Videos on this channel are linked to Oxford Medical Education (www.oxfordmedicaleducation.com)

This video was produced in collaboration with Oxford Medical Illustration – a department of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust. For more information, please visit www.oxfordmi.nhs.uk”

The narration is similar to the last one. The medical professional has a reasonable voice and the progress is methodical.

I think that I will conclude the blog post at this one and continue in another post. Failing that this blog post would become really large indeed, to the point of boredom, I imagine.

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

The Oxford Medical Education 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.

If you liked this blog article, why not follow this blog.

Until next time.

Photo by DeepAI

Sleeping With ASMR

It came to me today that this series has been going on so long that I should provide an ongoing introduction to these articles, so that any newcomers will know what is happening. This needs to be brief enough though, so that the stalwart reader doesn’t get bored.

The aim of this particular blog series is to explore the use of ASMR videos for sleep. Specifically, to be helpful in the getting off to sleep and getting back to sleep when you awake in the middle of the night.

I’m assuming you have a device that can attach to the Internet somewhere near to your bed. On this device that you can open YouTube, browse to The Procrastination Pen playlist, click on shuffle, lie back and listen to the rest in peace. (This might require some kind of sleep-friendly headphones or similar).

My focus so far has mainly been on ASMR videos which have ASMR effects despite being designed for something else (most commonly medical exams so far). These are so-called “unintentional ASMR” videos. There are quite a number of these so I doubt we are going to run out of these any time soon. However, I do occasionally stray into the professional ASMR arena and select one of those videos that appeals.

Each article reviews a video or videos that came up on YouTube. These frequently are found through recommendation by YouTube. I then determine whether the ongoing playlist needs to be enhanced by addition of the reviewed video or that the video needs to be rejected. (In which case the video will still be clickable from the article itself – if you decide you rather like it).

You are free to recommend videos that you feel fit the bill or to disagree with my choices (I may even change the playlist in response to contributions).

At intervals, I review the playlist and pull out the less-successful videos into an archive list of those that seemed to make the grade but over time have not proven to be quite so restful. I use the Procrastination Pen playlist myself so I have a reasonably constant interaction with it.

Today’s video appears to have once been on YouTube on a different channel but was taken down for some reason. The comments indicate that it is a very welcome restoration.

The channel is ASMR Archivist and the notes state that its mission is “an archive for lost AMSR videos” (I assume that’s ASMR). This seems like the kind of place that we could enjoy.

That said, on exploring ASMR Archivist we find just one video (today’s video) and zero playlists.

So today’s article is going to feature just the one video.

Cate Darnell – Head to Toe Assessment

It is so popular that we find that it has an entry in the Internet Archive.

This indicates that it was deleted in 2020, but sadly not where it was deleted from – i.e. where its original home was.

As a consequence of being so popular we find that a similar thing has happened to this video as for the Vicki Scott video covered previously That is, the video is now posted in several places on YouTube. For example here:

On a channel called Sleep ASMR (which seems appropriate)

Our video is just shy of twenty-six minutes long so not the longest we’ve seen. It seems to start with “Miss Spagboll” (I’m sure I heard that incorrectly).

The badge on the patient is just not discernible enough to make it out however it could be Honors College which resolves as The University of Alabama in Huntsville. This has a channel UAH Admissions. This channel has forty-three videos and seven playlists but it appears this is all about marketing the university rather than medical examinations.

Possibly the Cate Darnell video once came from a Cate Darnell channel which has now gone.

Our video looks like an assessment video for a nursing university. We’ve seen these before of course. There is the normal level of background noise, air conditioning again, I think.

Cate has a brilliant accent and talks very quietly, just the sort of thing we are looking for in a video.

As usual the odd definition may help (well they do me – as I have no medical background) in this case bruit is an abnormal sound generated by a turbulent flow of blood.

I have no idea what Cate did next but for our purposes it is a shame that she did not produce a whole wealth of videos à la Dr James Gill.

The comments as usual are very helpful, one points out that details of Cate are online and that the video is over a decade old.

As many commentators state this is an excellent ASMR video. Definitely one for the playlist.

Sadly there will be no playlist for ASMR Archivist on the Procrastination Pen (there is only one video)

However, the overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:

(and now it includes the Cate Darnell video).

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

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 experience to log on, this interrupts the listening 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 Shona Macrae