Sleeping With ASMR

After quite a few blog posts and a rather large number of draft blog items which never saw the light of day, I still remain interested in ASMR videos. I still listen to the Procrastination Pen playlist most days. I rely on it to drop off to sleep, commonly if I wake up stark awake in the early hours of the morning. For this reason I have high hopes that if you are reading this in the hope of getting some insomnia relief, especially if you know that you are susceptible to ASMR symptoms, that at least one of the videos I have found so far will become one of your favourites.

As is now typical the full Procrastination Pen playlist is referenced at the end of this blog item. If you are short of time scroll all the way down to it – hop over to YouTube – hit the shuffle function and get some restful moments.

If instead you’re keen to find out what new video I have happened across in my searches, it is this one:

Skin: Demo Exam

Back to the funky music which we know and are not at all fond of. It starts off a little energetically but it soon settles down.

It’s a professional video and, as we have seen before, it comes with a reasonable set of notes “17 Feb 2016

In today’s medical practice, knowing how to spot physical signs of nutritional imbalances during a routine physical examination is an essential diagnostic tool. This nutrition-focused skin exam is conducted by Elizabeth Boham, MD, MS, RD. https://www.drboham.com/

N Sight is presented by the Institute for Functional Medicine.”

Comments are denied (probably wise) so I cannot tell if other ASMR fans are here before me, but with a video like this, the odds are that they have been.

It is just over three minutes so a short one for us but it is calm and measured. Dr Boham has a good voice for us I think and is worthy of checking further – in case she features in other, similar videos.

The channel is N Sight

It has 2710 subscribers and is therefore popular and with twenty videos on the day I’m looking at it that is quite some achievement. (Some sites we have seen have many more videos than that).

There are four playlists and the great thing is that there is one playlist dedicated to Dr Boham – this makes life a great deal easier. The play list Skin Exam

has four videos of which the above one is video two in the set.

At first sight the others look less promising. They appear to be more presenting than medical examination as such. However, it is worth giving them a proper review.

The First video in the playlist is this one:

Skin Exam: Introduction, Equipment, & Patient Positioning

Sadly, there is no relief from the funky start up music, people love their brand even if it keeps other people awake!

This starts out as a presentation by Dr Boham which is not reassuring. However Dr Boham does have a good voice for us. The downside is that at every interval (within what is a very short video at only four and three quarter minutes) the funky music plays again. This gets rather tiresome.

The notes are as follows:

“14,451 views 17 Feb 2016

In today’s medical practice, knowing how to spot physical signs of nutritional imbalances during a routine physical examination is an essential diagnostic tool. This nutrition-focused skin exam introduction is conducted by Elizabeth Boham, MD, MS, RD.

N Sight is presented by the Institute for Functional Medicine.”

However, I have come over all charitable (Dr Boham does have a rather good voice) so I am going to include this in the Procrastination Pen playlist for now (it may be a victim of subsequent weeding).

Skin: Teaching Exam

Notes again: “17 Feb 2016

In today’s medical practice, knowing how to spot physical signs of nutritional imbalances during a routine physical examination is an essential diagnostic tool. This nutrition-focused skin exam is conducted by Elizabeth Boham, MD, MS, RD.

N Sight is presented by the Institute for Functional Medicine.”

This is actually video three in the set, video two being the one that we first came in with. Yet again the funky music. Dr Boham starts off a bit energetic in presentation. This is sad given the standard set by the video we started with.

However, I still like Dr Boham’s voice and I’m rather fond of the way in which she pronounces “Capillaries” so I am (at the moment) prepared to let it into the playlist. In any case at just shy of four and a half minutes it is really short. It is a shame I can’t delete the music and make it a decently quiet video.

And so to the final video:

(in this playlist anyway)

Skin: Conclusion

Annoying music – tick, really short video (this one just over one and a half minutes) – tick, duplicated notes from the other videos in this playlist – tick.

In an ideal world the video would have no music at all.

The N Sight 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 are 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 part way through a playlist in order to log on, this interrupts the flow/sleep dependent upon how long you’ve been listening. 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 Marcos Ferrari on Unsplash

Sleeping With ASMR

In the drive to create the perfect night-time companion (I mean the Procrastination Pen playlist rather than any other type of companion that might have sprung to mind), I sometimes weed out so many videos that it all looks like a roadside verge when the strimmer operator has been a little too enthusiastic.

Added to this is a high rate of attrition, which shows that as fast as I write about videos, people are then taking them down. Given that some of them might be being taken down due to legal reasons (such as copyright offences), it would be unwise of me to keep copies of such videos to re-upload them again (or I might find the entire Procrastination Pen YouTube channel quietly disappears).

One day I may tire of maintaining the blog, and the YouTube channel, (and the Facebook page, and so on and so forth) but I’d rather like that decision to be mine, not imposed by a copyright official at YouTube.

I’ve been weeding the playlist recently, such that the Procrastination Pen archive playlist is quite healthy in size and the Procrastination Pen main playlist (the reason we’re all here I assume) is a bit smaller. Quite enough to act as a restful companion, perhaps not quite long enough to sustain many more YouTube video take-downs.

To this end, I need to get ahead and post a few more blog posts and fill that playlist up again. Apologies if on such occasions you are notified of more blog posts than you are keen to read in the timescale. If you are short of time, scroll right to the end of this blog post and find the Procrastination Pen playlist there. Flit over to YouTube, pull up the playlist, engage shuffle, lay back, and relax.

If you’re still reading, this is today’s video:

Abdominal Examination – Explanation

It is from a university and so one assumes a professional video. As such it has notes:

“768,069 views  14 Dec 2011  Clinical Examinations

A second video can be found at; http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/msce…

This is a detailed explanation of the abdominal examination illustrating technique and patient interaction.

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

Presented by Mr Adam Scott MS FRCS (Edin) FRCS (Eng) Consultant General and Colorectal Surgeon. Produced and Directed by Dr Irene Peat FRCR FRCP, Dr Nicholas Port MBChB BSc and Jon Shears.

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

I love it when we get details about participants – it makes the video so much more believable  i.e. less likely the participants are making a professional ASMR video and masquerading as medical professionals to do so.

Mr Adam Scott is referenced in several websites and so unless those ASMR professionals are getting really great at subterfuge we can be very happy that this is the real thing.

Sadly, the URL that purports to lead to further videos leads just to the University of Leicester website so I am guessing the page, where those videos were, has now gone.

The video itself is just less than eight and a half minutes and so not huge in terms of videos that we are used to.

The patient is introduced as “Debbie”. Immediately Mr Scott is quiet, methodical, patient and not overly energetic. All-in-all what we would look for in a presenter of relaxing night-time videos.

There is a background noise (perhaps air conditioning) but not as terrible as some we have heard.

The channel on which this video appears: University of Leicester is huge, it has twelve hundred videos at the time I am looking at it. It seems very unlikely that it will be feasible to ferret out the gold from amongst all the other videos. Those promoting the university, covering other disciplines taught by the university, students wanting to try their hand at video-making, and so on.

I think the approach here is to look for Adam Scott MS FRCS (Edin) FRCS (Eng) Consultant General and Colorectal Surgeon (I would search for “Adam Scott” but sadly this is not an uncommon name).

The results of such a specific search on YouTube is that we have only five videos of which in overview only one more is suitable for our purposes:

Abdominal Examination – Demonstration

This is four- and three-quarter minutes so even shorter than the last one and is pretty much the same in all respects. One of the great things is the lack of introductory music, which is not missed in any sense whatsoever.

It would be even more great if there was an absence of background noise.

There are notes: “1,206,417 views 14 May 2012 Clinical Examinations

This is a real-time demonstration illustrating technique and patient interaction involved in the Abdominal Examination. The film was produced by practising clinicians to aid the teaching of clinical examination skills. It starts at the point when the clinician has finished taking the medical history and begins the clinical examination. Presented by Dr Adam Scott MS FRCS (Edin) FRCS (Eng) Consultant General and Colorectal Surgeon. Produced and Directed by Dr Irene Peat FRCR FRCP, Dr Nicholas Port MBChB BSc and Jon Shears. More Clinical Examination materials can be found at; http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/msce…

The video basically covers much of the ground of the previous video so it isn’t new material.

Then there are three videos whose descriptions lead me to suspect that they are promotional in nature:

Bowel Cancer Signs and Symptoms

This appears on the channel: Spire Leicester Hospital.

This has just twenty subscribers so a lot more niche than we are used to.

The notes here are: “416 views 19 Apr 2018

Spire Leicester Hospital Colorectal surgeon Mr Adam Scott talks about bowel cancer, the signs and symptoms, bowel screening and when to visit your GP. https://www.spirehealthcare.com/spire…

Although this is a presentation, Mr Scott has a great voice and I would be tempted to include this video in the playlist. However, I suspect that people may well find this off-putting (it is a scary subject).

The URL referenced in the notes simply redirects to Spire Leicester Hospital.

The Channel has only five videos and it does not appear to have any material that we can use for night-time relaxation.

The next video (and the one after that) both appear on a channel: PPM Software. This has one subscriber and three videos of which Mr Adam Scott makes up two of those – to me this appears to be promotional material.

The first video is just half a minute:

‘PPM’ Software, Client Testimonial

There is funky music – uuurrrgh.

The recording is loud with loud background music and of course it is very short, not the sort of thing we’re looking for at all.

The next video is more of the same:

‘PPM’ Software, What our Clients say

This repeats the above almost exactly but is twice as long. It is designed to sell a product and I do not think we can make use of it at all. This one isn’t for the Procrastination Pen playlist.

So, two videos for the playlist. Just enough to create a playlist for Leicester University.

However, if the quality is this good, I think we’ll be back with Leicester university again in the near future.

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 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 Vera Barus on Unsplash

Sleeping With ASMR

If you have been reading this for a while then you will notice that this is a return to a channel we’ve been to before and if you haven’t then you’ve been missing out and a whole breadth of reading experience awaits.

As usual I will be reviewing some YouTube videos for their ASMR potential and, if they are considered fitting, they get to go into the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Behind the scenes I continue to review that playlist over time, booting out those which are less brilliant than hoped, so that the main list should continue to be full of the best ones I have found so far.

I welcome suggestions. Any video which was not intended to be an ASMR video but which is effective in that respect and, if I agree that it is a good one, it will turn up in a future blog item.

Today’s video is this one:

The Exam for Ankle & Foot Pain – Stanford Medicine 25

It fits with the medical examination theme which has run through quite a number of these blog items (although I do ring the changes occasionally.

At just under seven and a half minutes it isn’t very long but given it is from a medical school it shares with a number of professional videos we’ve seen the provision of a healthy set of notes which are these:

“19 Jul 2018 Stanford Medicine 25: Musculoskeletal Exam

This video is brought to you by the Stanford Medicine 25 to teach you the common causes of foot and ankle pain and how to diagnose them by the physical exam.

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

Visit us:

Website: http://stanfordmedicine25.stanford.edu/

Blog: http://stanfordmedicine25.stanford.ed…

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StanfordMedi…

Twitter: https://twitter.com/StanfordMed25

Diagnoses covered in this video:

Lateral Ankle Sprain

Talar Dome Osteochondral Defect

5th Metatarsal Fracture

Achilles Tendinopathy

Interdigital (Morton’s) Neuroma

Stress Fracture of 2nd Metatarsal

Plantar Fasciitis

Hallux Valgus (Bunion)”

Bravely this video permits comments, but one outcome of which is that I can tell ASMR fans have been here long before me.

By now we are familiar with the format of videos from this channel. Firstly there is the introductory music; not as loud as some we’ve heard but it would be great if it could be dispensed with altogether.

Dr Brinda Christopher is of course familiar to us.

As is the patient for this video “Chad” as well (hopefully I did not misspell that).

Dr Christopher starts a little loud but settles into her stride pretty swiftly. Sadly there is the ever-present background noise which we’ve heard in other videos and may well be air conditioning.

The channel of course is

Stanford Medicine 25 https://www.youtube.com/@StanfordMedicine25

253K subscribers at the date I am looking at it

Surprisingly just eighty-five videos, when even some university promotional channels have more than that.

However eighty five is a few too many to get into a blog post. There are thirteen playlists and ours is in this one:

Stanford Medicine 25: Musculoskeletal Exam

However, I think for this post we will stick with Dr Christopher. For this purpose, a standard YouTube search is an approach. This brings up three videos, the one we started with and two further videos.

This is the first one:

The Exam for Shoulder Pain – Stanford Medicine 25

Just under ten and a half minutes, so more substantial in terms of length and it is pretty much like the last one (professionally produced videos have the advantage, or possibly the disadvantage, of being consistent).

The notes are:

“19 Jul 2018 Stanford Medicine 25: Musculoskeletal Exam

This video is brought to you by the Stanford Medicine 25 to teach you the common causes of shoulder pain and how to diagnose them by the physical exam.

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

Visit us:

Website: http://stanfordmedicine25.stanford.edu/

Blog: http://stanfordmedicine25.stanford.ed…

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StanfordMedi…

Twitter: https://twitter.com/StanfordMed25

Diagnoses covered in this video:

Rotator Cuff Pathology

Impingement Syndrome

Biceps Tendinopathy

Adhesive Capsulitis (Frozen Shoulder)

Acromioclavicular (AC) Joint Disease

Shoulder Instability

Labral Tears (SLAP Lesions)”

The same medical professional, the same patient. The same approach, the same background noise, the same music and so on.

Again, ASMR fans are way ahead of me – see the comments. The earliest I can see is over a year ago as at today’s date but of course not every ASMR fan is going to fill in the comments.

As before the video gets quieter and therefore more appealing the more it proceeds. If you feel that the start is a little loud it is worthwhile persisting with it.

This is the second one:

The Exam for Knee Pain – Stanford Medicine 25

Notes again:”19 Jul 2018 Stanford Medicine 25: Musculoskeletal Exam

This video is brought to you by the Stanford Medicine 25 to teach you the common causes of knee pain and how to diagnose them by the physical exam.

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

Visit us:

Website: http://stanfordmedicine25.stanford.edu/

Blog: http://stanfordmedicine25.stanford.ed…

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StanfordMedi…

Twitter: https://twitter.com/StanfordMed25

Knee Diagnoses Covered in Video:

Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) Injury

Posterior Cruciate Ligament (PCL) Injury

Medial & Lateral Collateral Ligament Injury

Medial & Lateral Menisci Injury

Anterior Knee Pain (Patellofemoral Pain)

Bursitis

Inflamed Knee with Effusion

Osteoarthritis (Degenerative Joint Disease)

Stress Fracture of Tibia”

Yet again, comments from ASMR devotees, so it is consistent with the other two.

Just under eight minutes so not huge. Again with the start music, sigh, and then reacquainting ourselves with the background noise. Same medical professional, same “patient”.

This is the last in this set that I can find and the last in this blog item. The comments as for previous videos in this post apply equally to this one.

There is also a lead out set of music and a statement about copyright, either of which might prove to be distracting over time, if so these may ultimately get weeded out

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 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 Tuna on Unsplash

Sleeping With ASMR

In previous blog posts I have been promising to come back to this channel in the future. When we left it, there were a great many videos remaining. However, I did not want to get into a glut of videos as it is a distraction from the unintentional ASMR that this blog has been focusing on. As I’ve previously said, this is a bit of a guilty pleasure as the channel is dedicated to ASMR and therefore all of the curation work has been done. Assuming the channel owner has any taste, I should be able to just sit back and let the ASMR sensations wash over me.

However, it is not unknown for the odd jarring-pick to crop up on these sites and therefore I propose to give each video a formal review much as I would have done had I plucked it from a channel dedicated to medicine or to wood-block printing.

As far as I can tell, the videos remaining number sixteen, so I’ll cover eight more here, and a further eight in one final blog post in the future.

The channel of course is ASMR Exams and regular readers will know that I have given a thorough look at this channel, not once, but twice. Some of the videos do seem to have been worth the effort.

Of the remaining, this one is the first video:

Physical Assessment (ASMR)

This is twenty-one minutes long and has no notes and so no
immediate clues about the video. Comments have been permitted and as expected some of them are properly unhelpful.

Straight away, this is incredibly quiet. I have the volume turned right up and some of the speech still eludes me. However, on the positive side, it is too quiet for any offensive background noises to be heard.

The “patient” appears to be “Bernette” (that could well be an erroneous spelling) and the medical professional is Mary-Beth Robbins.

The location has the appearance of a professional medical establishment but for some reason has artwork on the wall (possibly a famous historical medical figure). Mary-Beth is very calm and gentle, however, Bernette seems quite amused by the process. So far, so student assessment video. It’s just that this one seems to have taken a hit on the volume control.

At the point of the eye test, we get a view of the other patients in the room and it becomes obvious that they are all dummies, in the manner that they are made of plastic, not that they are especially gullible. So far, so student educational establishment.

Mary-Beth has a prominent name tag but I just can’t see it well enough to determine if it identifies the location. However, there is that large “W” which is discernible.

In all quite excellent which is what we would expect from a channel dedicated to ASMR of course.

Physical Examination (ASMR)

This video is a bit longer at a bit over thirty minutes. Again, there are no notes, again there are comments, and again the comments are often unsupportive.

This video starts a bit loud. Lauren the “patient” (possibly misspelled), the medical professional does not introduce herself.

This time the setting appears to be domestic rather than professional.

The volume seems to wander about a bit despite the fact that the two participants remain a consistent distance from the camera/phone used to film it.

The quality of said camera must be off a bit too, if you did decide to watch rather than listen; it appears 1980s VHS quality. The medical professional is wearing a name badge but given the fuzziness of the output I defy anyone to read it. Therefore, there are no clues as to who/where this is.

Later in the video, the dog decides to be a semi-hidden participant by lying under the table on which Lauren is sat. Dogs seem to be natural hams as we have seen. I also notice that the medical professional is wearing carpet slippers (which might now be the standard hospital garb, for all I know).

Neither participant seems to have a natural ASMR voice but at least the soundtrack seems to lack extraneous noises. Lauren in particular seems to have quite a loud voice in fact. Also, at intervals Lauren coughs and that is quite loud in comparison with the ongoing interaction.

The medical professional as well has her loud moments, as if attempting to project to a large room. (Perhaps she is stood in a large room although you would not know to look at it, the camera being focused on one small corner of whichever room they are stood in). The medical professional also seems to be regularly consulting something (perhaps a checklist) but you won’t notice this at all if, as I recommend, you simply listen to this.

This might be a bit marginal in terms of the Procrastination Pen playlist. I will trial it and reserve the right to weed it out in the future.

Physical Examination (ASMR)

This time there are no notes and (thanks be to God) no comments either, no more snide nastiness, we can fast-forward directly to the content.

This one at thirty-four and a half minutes is slightly longer than either of the videos covered thus far. It shares the “is this out of focus?” appearance of the last one, so is obviously trading on the sound rather than the visuals.

It starts amazingly loud, like “ohmigod I was asleep” loud. The “patient” is introduced as Courtney (probably misspelled) the medical professional as “Holly” and unlike the exalted Hollie Berry, sadly, she does not have an ASMR voice, not in any way. More your “oyez, oyez, oyez” kind of voice. At intervals I would label it a shout rather than conversation. Fortunately maintaining that volume appears to be too much of an effort such that it ameliorates a bit. However, the presence of ongoing and easily overheard conversations in neighbouring rooms then becomes a distraction. In addition, we have the presence of continuous background noise like the sound of a 1950s reel-to-reel tape recorder.

It is a great shame but it does go to show that just because a video appears on an ASMR channel does not mean it is actually a great ASMR video. It is worth taking the time to evaluate for yourself; I am sure this happens on the Procrastination Pen equally as much as on ASMR Exams.

This one does not belong in the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Chiropractic Adjustment LOOPED (ASMR)

As I have already established I really do not like looped videos.

Several commentators do love this one though. At twenty three and three quarter minutes a bit shorter than the last two.

The medical professional has a great voice, but the marvelousness of that voice is ameliorated to a great extent by the sound of conversations from adjacent rooms. There is also the off-putting sound of the clicks and clunks used in chiropracty (we’ve covered these kind of problems before). There are whirring noises from the equipment being moved accompanied by whistling noises of escaping air which sounds like a dump valve. Perhaps a sound more for car videos than those for ASMR.

All-in-all this one does not belong in the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Physical Examination (ASMR)

An absolutely whopping fifty-one and a half minutes (and some change). This is a physical examination going for the truly methodical.

The comments are variable (aren’t they always). The video quality is of the soft-focused variety (and that is being charitable). The background noise is of the intrusive type, air conditioning most likely. The patient is identified as “Kylie”(probably misspelled) and there is a crucifix on the wall which may give a clue to the location.

The medical professional is “Kristen” (again spelling may well be wrong) and she announces that this is a Head-to-Toe assessment. (We are well used to these by now).

Kristen is not the quietest and certainly not a natural ASMR voice. There are thunks from equipment at intervals but thankfully no conversation from adjacent rooms this time.

Definition:

Snellen chart: used to measure visual acuity

See below

Snellen chart

At regular points in the video there are breaks in the recording, as if this huge video were actually an assemblage of shorter videos. In cases like this, I always prefer to have the shorter videos and for you to be able to play them using the YouTube shuffle function.

The shoulder badge on the medical professional appears to be a stylised cross, so good luck determining which medical establishment it is from.

The medical professional at intervals is consulting something (I assume some kind of checklist) which gives this the feel of a student assessment video.

I do not like ASMR videos that have been assembled from other videos and I don’t think that this is of sufficient quality to make an exception, so I will not be adding this one to the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Physical Examination (ASMR)

Twenty-six and three-quarter minutes, comments again and by now we know the kind of content they are likely to have without even checking them.

This begins in a much more thorough fashion in that we have names and location. Monica Barbara a student at the University of South Florida. As we would expect the university has its own YouTube channel dedicated to promotion, there are 655 videos and 11.1K subscribers. There are ten playlists but no obvious candidates for ASMR material.

Of course, “Monica” and indeed “Barbara” might be misheard and misspelled.

The patient is introduced as “Alisha” (again spelling might be off there). The visual quality is of the type as if someone smeared Vaseline all over the lens. There is, again, the constant hum of background noise (probably air conditioning). In addition, this time though, there is a profound echo, as if it is being filmed in a large corridor. I notice that Alisha seems to be perched on a table with a cloth over it so hardly the bespoke medical centre. However, it does not have a feel of the domestic environments we have often seen in student assessment videos.

That echo though does prove to be somewhat distracting. I think Monica would have to be using a profoundly minimal whisper to escape its effects.

In fact, Monica does not have a natural ASMR voice so we have a sound that verges towards the boomy. (Think Bonnie Tyler in an echo chamber).

On balance I do not think this belongs in the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Neurological Physical Examination (ASMR)

This one is just under thirty-one minutes. The comments reference some ASMR “In” comments that you will be familiar with now if you have followed this blog for any period of time. I swear some people comment because they can, rather than to say anything meaningful less helpful.

This is filmed against a dark blue curtain as if it was set up purely for filming. The quality of both video and of sound isn’t that great, to be honest. It is about the same as home taping in 1985.

It kicks off with a mental test and it isn’t that quiet. Rather the “patient” is quite quiet but the medical professional has quite a deep voice which he is using to full effect. The patient is Milena Pavlova (almost certainly misspelled) and it was filmed on 25/07/2000, (UK Format so therefore in July). Goodness knows what it was filmed on as I would imagine that the quality produced by equipment was somewhat more advanced than this by then.

The location sounds like something-haven hospital, possibly Shoalhaven, although that hospital is in Australia and neither participant sounds spectacularly Australian.

Given that Milena feels it necessary to tell us that Bulgaria is in South Eastern Europe, one imagines that this was not actually filmed in Europe where a large number of people would already know where the country is.

I notice that a copy of the New York Times is used as an illustration of a newspaper to be used with patients. This indicates that the something-haven hospital is located in New York. The only one I can find is Yale New Haven hospital. Assuming this is correct, they have a YouTube channel with 124 videos, 1.51K subscribers and 16 playlists. No obvious ASMR content though.

It comes to a conclusion rather abruptly which leads me to suspect that there is another longer version out there. I’ll add it to the Procrastination Pen playlist in lieu of finding the full version.

Physical Examination (ASMR)

This is just over thirty-nine minutes and the comments associated with it are somewhat disheartening. It has a healthy amount of background noise and seems to have been videod in a classroom setting – this usually means lots of extraneous noise. The person teaching has a good voice but the air conditioning is properly loud in this. The video quality is also no better than others we have covered in this blog post.

Given the subject matter (breast examination) previous experience tells me that I should now be halted and prompted to log on. But not in this case for some reason.   There is nothing on display but that hasn’t stopped previous login prompts.

There is feedback from the class. The people videoing are visible in mirrors in the classroom. People are coughing and shuffling (as is to be expected in a large group). There is laughter and equipment noises and someone keeps clicking the device that is being used for filming (probably fidgeting with their phone).

As is expected, the voices are a little raised as they need to project to the group rather than any individual. This is a shame as it could actually be quite good (well if someone put a bomb in the air conditioning).

This one also concludes rather abruptly but we have found some classroom-based tuition videos do that.

So, it isn’t the greatest, but I think worth putting in the Procrastination Pen playlist to see if it sits well there. It might get weeded out to the archive list in due course.

In summary, I do not share the taste of the owner of ASMR exams (or indeed of some of the commentators to the videos). However, I hope that means that the quality of the Procrastination Pen playlist is being maintained. I’ll revisit the ASMR exams channel again to attempt to capture the last of the videos. Most seem to have been posted about eight years ago so it should be possible to mop them all up.

The ASMR Exams 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 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

Sleeping With ASMR

Reassuring for part time bloggers, such as myself, is the understanding that fitting in a bit of blog creation in a rush between other things is not supposed, necessarily, to lessen the quality of the output. (Well, the proof will be in blog items I have created of late, as the time to create them is definitely sandwiched between other demands). You will be the judge and feel free to feedback.

The playlist continues to grow in size and I continue to get more picky about the items in it. Such that the archive list of former members also continues to grow.

However, I have noticed a problem with YouTube. For example, yesterday I was watching the playlist and a set of adverts kicked in, there were a lot of them. After a few minutes the video started and them immediately another set of adverts kicked in. This then continued, I retried over the course of the next few hours with the same result. Of course, this is not conducive to sleep. I could not in all conscience recommend a set of videos if I knew this was going to be the experience.

I am hopeful this was an error on the part of YouTube and not some new revenue generation idea. If it turns out to be permanent, I will shut down the blog as I will not be watching YouTube any longer. I am now some months ahead with generated blog articles so we will see if by the time I get this one released, things have improved (or at least returned to how they were).

Shoulder Examination

This one has notes, now the established marker of a professionally created video:

“31 Jan 2021 RheumTutor MSK Examination Videos

This video was created by Dr. Raj Carmona.  It is a step-by-step instructional video for examination of the shoulder.  It is designed for medical students, residents and rheumatology fellows, but would also be beneficial to general practitioners and allied health professionals.”

There is also a title page:

“McMaster MSK Examination Series, Shoulder Examination, RheumTutor.com, Raj Carmona, MBBS, FRCPC, Rheumatologist, Department of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada”

So quite a lot to work with. The url is still current: https://www.rheumtutor.com/.

A page lists out the videos that can be seen (helpfully it appears these are all available on YouTube https://www.rheumtutor.com/msk-examination/videos/.

McMaster University of course has its own webpage https://www.mcmaster.ca/, the available programmes seem to feature health and medicine strongly https://future.mcmaster.ca/programs/.

And of course, the university has its own YouTube channel with 1.2K videos as at today’s date. Rather too many for any single review but perhaps a channel for a future visit.

Raj appears to be an associate professor at the university and has been at McMaster nearly fourteen years.

This video at just over seventeen and a half minutes is a decent length for a medical examination video.

Raj has a nice calm voice but the video is rather marred by continuous background noise of the variety we are used to enduring in these kinds of videos.

Helpfully the “patient” here is also identified as Dr Kim Legault MD FRCPC Rheumatology Fellow McMaster University.

As an educational video it seems (to the uninitiated) to be useful. The comments seem to reinforce this view. From our perspective it seems to also be a useful video for relaxing off to sleep.

The video is jam-packed with medical terminology. There is far too much for the odd definition to be helpful. (Although this would be my usual style). If you are watching, some definitions come up on screen, but I’m expecting that you’ll be listening so these will not be of much assistance.

I suggest for this one that you let the terminology wash over you but let me know if you find it frustrating. I always review the Procrastination Pen playlist and this could in the future find itself in the dreaded Procrastination Pen archive list i.e. those videos which do not stand up to long term examination.

Although the video shows as posted to YouTube in 2021, the tail page of the video indicates created in 2011 so it was already old by that time.

Not unexpectedly the channel is RheumTutor, thirty videos and six playlists. The choices are narrowed by the fact that a number of the playlists concern giving injections, which I am not certain would be a restful subject for some readers. The video we first looked at occurs in a playlist called RheumTutor MSK Examination Videos

This consists of seven videos of which this first one is video number six.

Ankle and Foot Exam – McMaster MSK Examination Series

At nearly twenty-three minutes in length this is another chunky video.

Again it has notes: “10 Nov 2019  RheumTutor MSK Examination Videos

This video was created by Dr. Raj Carmona.  It is a step-by-step instructional video for examination of the ankle and foot. It is designed for medical students, residents and rheumatology fellows, but would also be beneficial to general practitioners and allied health professionals.”

The title page is similar to the one we saw for the first video reviewed in this post.

The sound is consistent with that first video. Here the “patient” is not identified, possibly because we only see the foot which has been helpfully decorated to indicate some of the internal structures. I would guess the “patient” is male but given there is only one foot to go on that could be way off.

Later in the same video the credit goes to Dr Andrew Duncan MD, Internal Medicine Resident McMaster University. He appears to be the owner of the foot. Andrew appears to have been at McMaster until 2014.

The tail page of the video indicates it was recorded in 2012 which would fit with this time period. Some of the conditions described are a little off-putting to be honest, I think that this is too much for real restfulness. This will not be in the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Back Examination – McMaster MSK Examination Series

Notes again: “10 Nov 2019  RheumTutor MSK Examination Videos

This video was created by Dr. Raj Carmona.  It is a step-by-step instructional video for examination of the back. It is designed for medical students, residents and rheumatology fellows, but would also be beneficial to general practitioners and allied health professionals.”

This is just as with the previous videos in terms of approach, voice, presenter, location, noises, structure. This one credits Brendan Flowers MSc Clinical Clerk McMaster University it looks like Brendan attended in 2012 which fits with the filming of the video.

Elbow Examination – McMaster MSK Examination Series

If you have seen one of these videos, then you are going to be at home with the look-feel of the rest. Same layout, same voice, same background noise. If you liked the first one this is a breeze, but not so great if you did not like it.

Again there are notes:

“10 Nov 2019 RheumTutor MSK Examination Videos

This video was created by Dr. Raj Carmona.  It is a step-by-step instructional video for examination of the elbow. It is designed for medical students, residents and rheumatology fellows, but would also be beneficial to general practitioners and allied health professionals.”

The format of this will by now also be familiar. The tail page of the video indicates it was filmed in 2012 and it was posted to YouTube in 2019.

The “patient” is credited again this time Dr Arthur Lau MD FRCPC Theumatology Fellow McMaster University. Arthur seems to have been there from 2011 to date so one would imagine a true asset.

It is just over thirteen and a half minutes so a bit shorter than the last one.

The great thing about professional videos is the lack of surprises. The last thing you want when trying to fall asleep is to find that someone thought a brass band backtrack was fantastic in this video whereas the previous two did not include it. The downside is that if you do not like the style it is very unlikely you will find a video in the series that is any different.

For example, thus far the patients do not get a lot of contribution so if this bothers you this particular series is just not for you. I accept feedback if you want to indicate your displeasure about it.

Hip Examination: McMaster MSK Examination Series

Notes: “10 Nov 2019 RheumTutor MSK Examination Videos

This video was created by Dr. Raj Carmona.  It is a step-by-step instructional video for examination of the hip. It is designed for medical students, residents and rheumatology fellows, but would also be beneficial to general practitioners and allied health professionals.”

Almost exactly as before.

A return of Dr Kim Legault (who we saw in the first video). By comparison with the other videos a real short one at just over twelve and a half minutes. This one is filmed in 2011 so possibly the earliest one we have seen thus far.

Knee Exam – McMaster MSK Examination Series

notes: “11 Nov 2019 RheumTutor MSK Examination Videos

This video was created by Dr. Raj Carmona.  It is a step-by-step instructional video for examination of the knee.  It is designed for medical students, residents and rheumatology fellows, but would also be beneficial to general practitioners and allied health professionals.”

Dr Kim Legault is turning into a bit of a favourite it seems as she appears again in this one. This one is just less than fifteen and a half minutes.

The video is consistent with all those we have so far seen (quite an achievement). It is filmed in 2011 so as for the previous video.

Shoulder Examination

This is where we came in.

Hand and Wrist Examination

The final video in this playlist

It starts in a different way. No shot of a seated Dr Carmona in this one. It is quite long for this series at nearly twenty-one and a half minutes.

Back to Brendan Flowers. It was filmed in 2012 and posted to YouTube in 2021.

There are notes: “3 Feb 2021 RheumTutor MSK Examination Videos

This video was created by Dr. Raj Carmona.  It is a step-by-step instructional video for examination of the hand and wrist.  It is designed for medical students, residents and rheumatology fellows, but would also be beneficial to general practitioners and allied health professionals.”

The breakdown of the video is not as structured as in the previous videos – perhaps the style was evolving at this stage. But presentation in all other respects seems the same.

In summary this is no Dr James Gill but I think all of them deserve a place in the Procrastination Pen playlist. (Assuming YouTube stop deluging me with adverts I’ll keep reviewing that list for less deserving videos.

The RheumTutor playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by krakenimages on Unsplash

Sleeping With ASMR

The Procrastination Pen playlist continues to grow in length. I think soon it will be at such a length that even if you leave it playing along in the background whilst you sleep, you will wake up and find that it is still going.

I am weeding the odd video out at intervals that does not seem to be as good as when first I heard it. However, I take suggestions, if you find any of the videos in that playlist just aren’t that helpful in getting some shut eye, let me know and I might remove the ones that you do not like.

As always if you’re too tired to read (and I don’t blame you) the playlist will be at the end of this article, such that you can scroll all the way there and pick it up without reading anything else.

For those who are continuing to read, welcome, and here is the subject of today’s blog post:

Shoulder Exam (Stanford Medicine 25)

This is very brief for the kind of video we usually see on the Procrastination Pen, at only one minute twenty seconds. It is narrated and the narrators voice is not as quiet as I would like. Because it is a professional video it comes with notes: “16 Mar 2014 Stanford Medicine 25: Musculoskeletal Exam

This Stanford Medicine 25 video was created in conjunction with Stanford’s AIM lab teaching the examination of the shoulder.

The Stanford Medicine 25 is a Stanford School of Medicine initiative to teach and promote the bedside physical exam. Here you will find videos teaching bedside physical exam techniques.

Please subscribe, like and visit our websites:

Main Website: http://stanfordmedicine25.stanford.edu/

Blog: http://stanford25blog.stanford.edu/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StanfordMedi…

Twitter: https://twitter.com/StanfordMed25

Google+: http://goo.gl/UBM7SP

The notes have done most of the work for me in that is states who it is by and where you can find them.

The video has a little background noise, but strangely this does not sound like air conditioning. This time it sounds more like the audio was recorded onto tape (I guess you need to be a certain age to know what that sounds like).

The channel is Stanford Medicine 25

This has eighty-five videos at the time I am looking at it. Thankfully for the purposes of writing a blog post (of hopefully short length). The videos are organised into playlists and ours is in a suitable playlist i.e.:

Stanford Medicine 25: Musculoskeletal Exam



This playlist has eight videos in it and just for a change
they are all visible.

The one above is the first in this playlist and so we can

cover them in order.

Knee Examination (Stanford Medicine 25)

Again, this is brief at just over one and a half minutes. It
is consistent with the first – the same narrator, the same background noise. Indeed, this is often the benefit of professional videos once you have seen one, you have a good idea what it is that you’re going to get. Of course, if the first
one is a tad loud, sadly it means that there is little variability in that volume. Still, the approach is methodical and calm which is helpful.

Approach to Low Back Pain Physical Exam – Stanford Medicine 25

This is a more “usual” length at just over eight and a half minutes.

Oh dear, start music, the thing designed to strike wakefulness into the slumbering person.

This is unlike the previous two videos in this set in that the medical professional in the video is the one doing the talking.

The medical professional is Baldeep Singh MD Clinical Professor, Medicine, Stanford School of Medicine.

The professor actually has quite a reasonable voice for our purposes, although due to the instructional nature of the video he isn’t as quiet as we would like. However, he is calm, methodical and even better, the video lacks background noise.

The “patient” is Steve here, sadly, we don’t have any further info about Steve.

The examination looks like something of a torture for anyone who actually has back pain. I imagine on the days I am suffering, there would be screaming involved. Best ignore that when listening to this video and trying to get some kip.

Approach to Hip Region Pain Physical Exam – Stanford Medicine 25

Unfortunately for us, the introductory music now seems to be the standard. Farewell to videos with no introduction hello introduction which is less conducive to sleep. I have heard a great deal worse however.

At least one comment indicates that an ASMR fan has already found this one, which isn’t surprising. From the video comments I’ve seen on YouTube, ASMR fans are even more voracious than I am (and I have made it my mission to write blog articles about it).

Here we have Dr Singh again with our old chum “Steve” as “patient”. Dr Singh starts a little fast but slows right down within seconds. The volume is a little variable. At six- and three-quarter minutes it is of reasonable length for one of these instruction videos.

The best way to watch a set of these from the Procrastination Pen playlist is to watch it on YouTube (rather than use the embedded videos on the blog). Then you can use the shuffle function. Without the shuffle function you will get a number of similar videos one after the other and you may quickly tire of that.

Again, the examination appears, to me, to be designed to elicit pain. I’m sure on the days I have hip pain I would not enjoy my leg being manipulated in the way demonstrated. However, I think as a video to fall asleep to, it actually works. Mainly because of the calm, methodical presentation.

Iliotibial Band Syndrome Physical Exam – Stanford Medicine 25

Definition: Iliotibial Band a thick band of tissue running down the length of the outside of the thigh.

Again the “Noble test” seems designed to cause pain, perhaps these doctors were trained in a torture chamber. Probably wise to ignore the scope for suffering with this one as well. Dr Singh remains consistent as before and Steve remains compliant.

And now the playlist moves onto a different medical professional and a different patient so it seems a good time to end this, we can recommence in a future blog post. Stanford Medicine 25 certainly seems worthy of more attention.

The Stanford Medicine playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by Shona Macrae

Sleeping With ASMR

If you have not been here before, Hi and welcome. This series of blog articles is designed to help you fall asleep. It intends to do this is by the creation of a long list of YouTube videos enclosed in a YouTube playlist in which every one of the videos has been reviewed (some of them several times).

The playlist is always at the end of one of these articles so if you are not keen to do much reading, you can scroll straight to the end and go to the playlist. My advice is always to watch it on YouTube itself because then you can watch in shuffle mode which randomises the order. The videos occur in the order that they are reviewed, which means videos by the same individual tend to occur together. Listening in sequence has the potential to get a bit samey at intervals.

Today, I am reviewing a video that cropped up due to a search using an old favourite “ROM and MMT” search which we have covered before.

This is connected with Occupational Therapy and does tend to produce a range of good ASMR-y (technical term) videos.

Measuring Edema, ROM, MMT

This for us is a fairly lengthy video at just over half an hour. Typically, recently, we have been dealing with shorter videos. But forget the length, how does it measure up?

Unusually for some of the more recent videos we’ve seen this one has notes and they are informative notes. “25 Mar 2021

UE Capstone Assignment for TWU – Masters of Occupational Therapy”. Comments are turned off which is helpful because it keeps the vicious commentators at bay.

The notes seem to refer to Texas Women’s University.

The medical professional here is Jordan Hanigan who is listed in the 2020 Cohort.

There is even a title page to the video “TWU-Houston, ROM, MMT, Edema, Jordan Butler – 03/24/2021”

I was convinced that was spelled “oedema” but obviously not. In any case, March a few years ago is positively yesterday compared to some of the material we have been covering.

There is then a follow up page “ROM, MMT, Edema, Due to scheduling, I used three participants to fill the content of this video. Participants consisted of my spouse, sibling and lab partner. Covid restrictions were upheld for the safety of all individuals.” No clue as to the names of these participants. Although the first “patient” is introduced as “Ashlin” (probably misspelled). I assume Ashlin is the “lab partner” referred to in the second title page.

The video starts reasonably quietly but has the kind of background noise that we have become used to from student videos. (Air conditioning noises, other students talking in the background, furniture noises and so on). This is a shame because it would seem that Jordan has a good calming voice and a methodical approach towards the examination with no sign of hesitation or rushing.

At intervals, at least, the chatter dies down even if the air conditioning is a constant companion.

I notice that cars are passing on the road outside and they appear like small model cars so I assume this is filmed at some elevation. Not that you will notice if you are using this video to get to sleep.

The video then switches to a domestic setting – different setting, different noise level, now we have “Stu” who I assume is the spouse referred to in the second title page.

After a flurry of adverts of a quite distracting volume (when I was watching it anyway) it becomes a lot quieter. The volume really does seem quite a bit down on the start. This might be an issue if you’re lying in stupor and don’t fancy rolling over to push the volume control. However, the approach remains methodical and Jordan still has a good voice so I think I’ll let it pass. This video might get removed from the Procrastination Pen playlist at a future review. (It also has the benefit that all the background noise of the early part of the video is just not there).

By now, people will be used to the “don’t let me move you” prompt. This seems a standard phrase in Occupational Therapy.

Some of the abbreviations used seem confusing.

But working out what the definitions mean doesn’t necessarily help

• Abductor pollicis longus (APL)

• Extensor pollicis longus (EPL)

• Extensor pollicis brevis (EPB)

• Flexor retinaculum (FR)

• Pronator quadratus (PQ)

The video then goes straight to Megan (which might be misspelled). I assume Megan is the sibling spoken of in the second title page, possibly younger sibling but I am terrible at predicting ages. Jordan was nee Butler so I’d have to guess Megan Butler therefore.

Having the video segue from section to section like this is distracting. I would much prefer it was three separate videos of which the latter two are better because the background noise is absent. The section with Megan is a bit echoey.

Perhaps the room with the TV has a very high ceiling or something. It is domestic again. The clues are large sofa, large TV on cabinet, corner pot plant, rug on floor and so on.

It is possible that this latter section of the video is the better one in ASMR terms. However, part way through there is the noise of someone possibly sneezing in an adjacent room, this seems a hazard with a number of these assessment videos. Presumably it is impossible to tell people to “KEEP IT DOWN” whilst trying to video such things.

There is a dog objecting to being restrained somewhere with what sounds like a chain clanging against a door, that is pretty distracting too.

Eventually someone works out that the dog should be put somewhere else and it settles down.

In ASMR terms it would be better split into three. Perhaps discard the first section altogether and edit the latter two to get rid of the most distracting noises. Of course, we do not get that option. There are many restful moments in the video so I’m going to let the less restful ones slide. It might be that it will join the dreaded Procrastination Pen archive list in the future.

The channel is Jordan Hanigan but we are not going to get our ASMR kicks on the back of it because it contains only two videos.

The above one and this one:

OT Assessment Binder_ Jordan Butler

This is the older video and is not a medical examination as such. It literally seems to be running through a binder of course material. Perhaps it is a way of verifying that the work was actually done. Jordan’s voice is not as restful in this video and the rapid turning of pages is distracting.

I think that this one is not for the Procrastination Pen playlist.

So this time, just the one video. Perhaps you’ll be hungry for more material the next time we meet on this blog.

One video means no Jordan Hanigan playlist on the Procrastination Pen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by Shona Macrae

Sleeping With ASMR

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

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

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

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

Neurological Examination of the Limbs – Explanation

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

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

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

“8 May 2012 Clinical Examinations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Neurological Examination of the Limbs – Demonstration

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

The video also has a healthy set of notes:

“14 Dec 2011  Clinical Examinations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by Shona Macrae

Sleeping With ASMR

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

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

UTEP Advanced Health Assessment -Lomack

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

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

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

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

First In Last Out

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

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

Book review-First In, Last Out

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

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

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

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

N5382 Mock interview

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by Shona Macrae

Sleeping With ASMR

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

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

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

General survey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peripheral Vascular System

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

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

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

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

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

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

Heart and Neck Vessels

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

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

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

Neurologic Assessment-Maureen Bolmgren

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

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

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

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

thorax and lungs-Maureen B.

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

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

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

The MGA Nursing playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by Shona Macrae