Gua sha – The Procrastination Pen

Sleeping With ASMR

This week, the news that none of us (except for a lucky few) can now afford to retire. On the upside though, there is research that appears to establish that retirement is very bad for sleep. Perhaps we are going to live healthier lives, it’s just that we’re going to have to keep working.

No doubt there are other strange sleep dilemmas that will crop up in this blog but I found that one rather unexpected.

For the non-YouTube resource this week, I remember that during lockdown I used to listen to Tovi Scruggs-Hussain. I had a hunt around and it turns out that Tovi publishes meditations on Mindful. It seems I must have spent a while on this website. Here is an example article and meditation: https://www.mindful.org/a-12-minute-meditation-to-set-the-tone-for-your-leadership/

Twelve minutes for you to determine whether you like Tovi’s voice. There are other meditations and articles on that same site so if you do like Tovi then you should have plenty to listen to. I may be back for another listen in the future depending how many other artists I can find out there who do not charge for listening to their MP3 files.

This week for the professional ASMR artist, I go to one that I used to listen to a lot but have fallen out of touch with of late. The channel is Moonlight Cottage ASMR 1.59m subscribers, one hundred and forty-eight videos, sixteen playlists none of the playlists are obviously on a medical theme. The channel, of course has notes: “Moonlight Cottage ASMR

Description

Hello and welcome to Moonlight Cottage!

I’m Diane and here I share my passion for cinematic/historical ASMR & relaxation videos.

If you wish to support my channel (thank you!), you can join my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/moonlightcottageASMR

Thank you for visiting!

Links

Support me on Patreon ❤patreon.com/moonlightcottageASMR

Follow me on instagraminstagram.com/moonlightcottageasmr

Spotifyopen.spotify.com/artist/7HTOAi6IQXsE54wqgwYdFn”

This channel is a treat for people who actually want to watch rather than just listen to the videos in that the effort that goes into the historical re-enactment material is really second to none. However, most of us are here to get some sleep and so how does the voice stack up when it is not backed up by the visuals:

The video this week is this one:

Steampunk Cranial Nerve Exam | ASMR Roleplay (medical nose, eye, face & ear exam, soft spoken)

Of course it has notes: ” 28 Aug 2022

Welcome back to the Steampunk optometrist (now with many other skills, and still messy hair) for a cranial nerve exam. Music starts at 00:49, if it’s too loud you can skip to 01:40.

Many thanks to my friend Anastasia (‪@ATMOSPHEREa) for lending her voice in the intro & outro!

This video includes a lot of personal attention & unintelligible whispering.

00:00 Intro part I – phone conversation with Ada (feat. Atmosphere’s voice)

00:49 Intro part II (with music, a bit loud)

01:40 Welcome back

03:00 Testing your senses of smell & taste (unintelligible whispers)

06:50 Eye exam (close personal attention)

11:20 Stereoscopic / 3D vision (steampunk sounds, unintelligible whispers)

16:33 Chart reading, lens testing (unintelligible whispers)

20:38 Face exam / testing your sense of sensation (face touching)

23:00 Ear exam / hearing test (otoscope, close whispers, tuning fork)

27:20 Writing your certificate of aptitude (writing / paper sounds)

30:30 Outro – phone conversation with Ada (feat. Atmosphere’s voice)

31:55 A few submersible ambient sounds”

I’ve trimmed these, a lot, because otherwise you’d be spending a lot of time reading notes.

There are comments and a number seemed to be from seasoned ASMR afficionados who really rate this channel, which bodes well for this video.

The video is a little over thirty-three-and-a-quarter minutes long and so a reasonable length in comparison to recent professional videos we have listened to.

The video starts with the clicking from a rotating dial, there must be few readers who recall such a device. It does however start without music. Moonlight Cottage seems to have a French accent which is actually rather delightful. Sadly, the video then goes into quite active music which is not great when you’re looking for something for sleep purposes.

There are clicking noises, rustling noises, clonking noises and scraping noises. There are brushing noises, flicking noises, equipment sounds some of which sound like machinery. There are paper scraping noises.

The voice continues calm and well-paced; it is not whispery (that’s rather a nice find as many of these presentations are). There are breathing noises, clothing related noises, sounds of glass clicking against wood, there are some background whispers (which actually are rather nice). There is the sound of cork against glass, that mouth clucking noise that ASMR artists love so much, nail tapping noises against glass, objects scraping across a wooden surface, the guttering noise from an oil lamp, polishing noises, and metal scraping noises.

It is actually delightfully slow; some we have reviewed seem to be in too much of a hurry or seem to strain to slow the pace so that it all seems artificial. This seems to plod along at a lovely meandering pace.

There are metal latch sounds, wooden box noises. Some are quite loud, I would guess it depends how far you are into dropping off whether that is going to make a lot of difference to you. The slide viewing device makes quite loud scraping noises as the glass slide goes in and comes out. It also makes a relatively loud noise as it is raised and moved around. There are clicking noises, the chinking of glass as lenses are tried, an odd squeaking as they are returned to the box. There are the small thumps of fingers being tapped. There are tuning fork noises, which are surprisingly muted. There are paper noises and those associated with the scraping of a nib across that paper. Post examination there are more equipment noises, and the rotating dial again. The click of a pocket watch and the turning down of a gas lamp. Then the loud noise as if in an air ship or similar, which plays out the final minute or so (this latter is quite loud).

Overall, I rather liked this. Why not give it a review for yourself and see what you think.

Each week I feature a Calm recommendation. For as long as I have a subscription to Calm, I may as well make use of it. The service, however, is not free so I will not linger long over it.

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

Daily Calm

Creativity

NARRATOR

Tamara Levitt

AUTHOR

Tamara Levitt

This indicates that creativity comes not from intellectual effort but from stillness and silence. Tamara has an excellent voice. If you have a subscription (or are considering taking one out) why not give this one a listen.

The inadvertent ASMR this week comes from a channel which regular readers will know well as there have been visits to this channel on more than one occasion previously. It is University of Leicester, this has 90.2k subscribers,1.6k videos, thirty four playlists not surprisingly very few have any material that are likely to be of use to us.

Today’s video is this one:

Abdominal Examination – Explanation

It has notes: “14 Dec 2011

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…”

There are comments, there are a fair few of these and most of them seem to be from ASMR fans. So far, so good. It is a little less than eight and a half minutes so it is not going to waylay us for very long at all.

It starts without music and without excessive background noise. We find that Mr Adam Scott has an excellent voice, it is not overly loud and it isn’t too fast either.

There are nice intervals that tell what part of the video comes next, but for our purposes it makes the pacing of the video nicely slow. The patient does not get to say much but she also seems to have a good voice in what little we can hear from her. During the examination, if anything, the pace becomes even more restful and quiet, which makes it quite delightful, a small amount of air conditioning noise notwithstanding.

There are some tapping noises. These are not disturbingly loud (for me at any rate). There are the gurgling gut noises, which didn’t seem particularly disturbing.

On that basis, just one, video this time.

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

See you again next week.

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

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

The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:

I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.

The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:

I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.

I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.

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

Until next time.

Photo by Deep.ai

Sleeping With ASMR

This week, a sleep course. It’s a paid-for thing and so I am not even going to advertise it, but once I get properly underway, I might be able to share some of the learning points, if it turns out that there are any worth having. I’m assuming anyone who is reading this blog has already read most of the interesting sleep-related news and so there is precious little extra to add. By all means feed back if you feel that not to be the case.

I thought I would put a little more leg work into the non-YouTube track this week and I remembered that I came across some meditation by Rashid Hughes a considerable long time ago. I found that Rashid has a website: https://www.rashidhughes.com/ and there are audio files located on there and those files are not based on YouTube! I did notice that they are on SoundCloud, there appears to be no download option. For those who prefer a bit of non-SoundCloud orientated meditation, Rashid also appears on mindful magazine which will give you twelve minutes to decide if you like the voice. https://www.mindful.org/r-e-s-t-a-guided-practice-for-the-tired-and-weary/

As usual, I have listened to some Calm meditation recently. As usual, I rather liked what I heard and hence I am going to recommend one. However, do bear in mind none of the Calm content is actually free, so this is a definite stump up before you listen situation.

https://www.calm.com/app/player/2o__8udpzK

Daily Jay

Check Your Ego

NARRATOR

Jay Shetty

Humility and Gratitude – the tools to keep your ego in check.

Jay Shetty, not the most calming voice on Calm but someone who challenges me in all the correct places. I find myself returning to his material over and over again. But it isn’t free and so moving on.

For this week’s professional ASMR offering I am again returning to nostalgia. As a result, the video has nothing whatsoever to do with medical examinations, either real or imagined. It is simply a video that I used to listen to around the time it first came out. I thought that it was nicely paced and properly relaxing.

The channel is itsblitzzz with 834k subscribers, three hundred and eighty-four videos, and three playlists. None of those playlists are on a medical theme. A quick scan of the videos also reveals none of them to be medically based either. The video is this one:

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

The publication date should give a clue as to how long ago I used to listen to this. There are notes: “29 Jan 2019 #guasha #massage #ASMR

In tonight’s video, I have brought back one of my favourite humans to experiment with some new techniques and tools (our other video can be found here:

• ASMR | Head massage and energy healing on …).

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

These are fantastically brief in comparison to most professional ASMR artists today.

Comments are permitted, and there are literally thousands of these. A lot of them seem strange. Not as many as I would have expected jump out as the level of ASMR sycophancy that we have come to expect from professional ASMR artist video comments.

This is odd, because, if memory serves, this is quite a good video. If it is as good as I remember then we may well, in the future, cover the other video mentioned in those notes.

The video is a little over forty-two minutes long and so quite a lengthy one in comparison to some I have reviewed of late. It starts without music. The ASMR professional is off-camera and background noises can be heard: a rustling, some footfalls, the odd thud.

Elizabeth, it turns out, has a great voice and she is the first to speak. Initially there is a lot of moving about by the ASMR professional together with associated noises. Sadly, Elizabeth does not get much to say during this video.

It is quite breathy – in fact a lot of the sound is breathing, together with hands running through hair and the stroking of skin. There are noises related to movement including the rustling of clothing. When “itsblitzz” starts to speak, it is somewhat louder than the noises up to that point and we cotton onto the fact that the presentation is not going to major on whispery.

It is reasonably slow; in fact, it is like there is an elongated interval between each word. Whilst not actually whispering, the voice is kept low. Rather like one I reviewed a few weeks back I do wonder if the person presenting does not find it easy to talk that quietly. But it might just be my elderly ears that can hear a strain where perhaps there isn’t one.

There are brushing noises; the chinking of glass bottles; the sound of spraying; clicking noises; rubber pipette teat noises; the sound of the Gua sha tool against skin; the sound of oil on skin; a plastic lid being tightened onto a glass bottle; the sound of sage being ignited and subsequently being firmly extinguished; the sound of warm tea being poured into a metal container.

I felt it was almost hypnotic and I found myself drifting off to sleep several times during the video, which for this blog I would say was a great success. I would certainly give it a review yourself. It was certainly great to reacquaint myself with this one and I can remember now what I liked about it. Medical themed or no, I think I will be coming back to this channel in the future.

It will be hard to follow that with anything inadvertent I fear, but still, this is the way that I traditionally round off an ASMR themed blog post.

We are back again at a channel that I have reviewed a few times before MGA Nursing has fifty-five subscribers, forty-three videos and two playlists. Not unsurprisingly one of those playlists is on a medical theme but it contains just one video:

This week’s video is this one:

Head and Neck/ Mouth, Nose, Throat, and Sinuses Video by Megan Morrow

It is a little less than seven minutes long; no comments are permitted such that it is not feasible to determine if any ASMR fans have arrived here before us. There are no notes, simply a posting date of 28 Sept 2017.

It won’t keep us long and other than the name of the medical professional we really know very little about it.

It starts without music but with a fairly advanced background hiss. In fact, Megan sounds like she is recording at some distance from the microphone. The setting is domestic (probably someone’s kitchen). This is one of those videos where you are going to need to thumb the volume up a bit. The captions appear not to be working so I’ll make a guess it sounded like the patient was Adrienne Michelle Thompson with D.O.B: 9-6-1968 so probably 06 September 1968 given it is a US video. However, it was hard to hear and so the name and the D.O.B could be almost anything. The patient has an even quieter voice than Megan’s. That or the microphone is even further removed from the patient than it is from Megan.

There is the normal student fake hand hygiene, which seems to be a requirement in many such videos. Megan’s voice is not at the restful tone we have heard in some student videos but as I have pointed out it is not loud. The background hiss seems to be typical of an air conditioning sound.

The examination appears to be gentle and well-paced. Perhaps Megan raises the tone of her voice a little too often for it to be truly restful. At intervals the conversation is not quite as slow as is fully desirable. However, these are minor quibbles. The main issue is that having thumbed up the volume to listen properly, the subsequent advert is highly likely to bend your eardrums. I think this is worth trialling in the Procrastination Pen playlist and it can be banished subsequently to the archive list if it turns out to be one of the ones that is hard to live with.