Herbs – The Procrastination Pen

Sleeping With ASMR

Recently it has been warm. Actually, warm does not even begin to describe it. It has been the kind of warm that must attend a sweating person’s undergarments. It has been hot and humid, and the kind of weather that makes you wonder why winter seems such a terrible idea.

One of the things that I find when it is like this is that lying in a pool of your own sweat is not that conducive to sleep. I also find that a couple of asthmatic tower fans do not really begin to make a dent in it. I am also hearing colleagues discussing the relative merits of this air conditioning system or that one.

England seems a quite different place to what I am used to if air conditioning starts to become as normal as formally a gas boiler would have been.

In these times as far as I can tell, all that is feasible is to rest, trust that your body is going to sleep when it has to, oh, and listen to a nice distracting playlist. It is for the latter that the Procrastination Pen has been reviewing calming material (predominantly from YouTube) for the last mumble-mumble months now. (It’s been a long while).

I am making efforts to live up to my promise of finding Internet-available material which is both free of adverts and also free of cost. (I think I was something of a lummock for promising it in the first place, but the endeavour persists).

This week I remembered that I had heard a meditation from someone called Chris Murchison called “I Am”. I found a copy of it here: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/podcasts/item/happiness_break_an_affirmation_practice_for_the_new_year

There is no obvious download button, however, there was also nothing that demanded payment. It is quite brief and there is some music, which is not my preferred thing. However, I found that Chris has a relaxing voice. Why not give it a try for yourself.

Whilst I’m looking at past relaxing material, I found that I had at one time been listening to this week’s professional ASMR artist in the past. The video is not on a medical theme but it is a goody (in my opinion).

The video is this one:

🌙* Sleepy Time🌙* ASMR * Soft Sounds * Massage *

It is from a channel that I have reviewed before

Gentle Whispering ASMR which has 2.43m subscribers, 848 videos, and 14 playlists.

There is even a playlist on a medical theme:

containing thirty-eight videos no less.

Today’s video is dated 2016 which is when I would have been listening to it. The notes, as usual, for a professional ASMR artist are making a run for war and peace in terms of their length:

“1 May 2016 #Gentlewhispering #ASMR #relax

Good evening🌙 ^_^ In this video we will scratch a pillow 00:59, make sleepy sweeping sounds with it 03:15, tuck you in with a soft blanket 06:22, massage your shoulders and your neck to help you relax more while learning why it is so good for you 08:45, then we’ll rub your temples and your forehead to sooth any tension you might have 17:00, help you locate and relax your jaw muscles 21:14 and at the end we’ll use a tissue technique 23:05 to help you close your eyes and fall asleep faster 🙂 I hope you’ll enjoy this simple and light video. Thank you for watching! 🌙 ♥

Disclaimer: ***- This video is created for relaxation, entertainment and ASMR/tingles/chills inducing purposes only. For more information about ASMR phenomenon please click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomo…

-This video cannot replace any medication or professional treatment. If you have sleep/anxiety/psychological troubles please consult your physician. Thank you 🙂

Email: MariaGentlewhispering@gmail.com

#ASMR #Gentlewhispering #relax”

As usual I have truncated those quite a bit. The video is a little over twenty-six and a quarter minutes. There are a shed-ton of comments. As usual there is lots of fawning commentary with the odd strange comment thrown in to remind you this is YouTube.

There is no startup music and the presentation is heavily dependent on whispery, breathy presentation. Pretty standard for a professional ASMR artist then. I do prefer them less on the whispery side personally, probably because such videos are comparatively rare. The voice is so quiet that at intervals what is being said cannot be made out (by me at any rate). However, the tone is so restful and quiet and the pace so marvellously slow. There is a persistent background hiss but it is barely noticeable. (I had turned the volume up a bit as the presentation really is that quiet).

There are non-vocal sounds of course: nails clicking on sequins, fabric-related noises, (some of those do not seem to be that restful), stroking of a cushion (which is uncannily like an ocean noise), stroking of a jumper, rustling noises, fingers tapping on material.

At intervals my mind did start to drift a bit which is perhaps not a good sign. Then again it could be a sign that if I was horizontal, I would have drifted off at that point.

I would say this one was definitely worthy of a review, why not take a look yourself.

The Calm track this week is this one:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/yS_L-ODr3t

Daily Trip

Awareness for Curious Cats

NARRATOR

Jeff Warren

AUTHOR

Jeff Warren

What is awareness? We can never fully know ourselves but we can try.

I know the chances are that relatively few of you will have a Calm subscription and I am not going to sell you one. However, if you do subscribe to Calm, why not give that a try.

For the inadvertent ASMR we are back, once again, with a channel that I have covered many times previously, that is Geeky Medics. This channel has 1.44m subscribers, three hundred and fifty four videos, twenty playlists and occasionally we do find a really rather relaxing video. With the downside that as far as I remember every single video I have reviewed from this channel has music.

Today’s video is this one:

Tinel’s & Phalen’s Test – OSCE Guide | Clip | UKMLA | CPSA | PLAB 2

In common with several recent inadvertent ASMR videos of late it is rather short at a little less than one and a half minutes. The video still has notes though: “2 Oct 2022 Neurological Examination OSCE Guides | CPSA | UKMLA | PLAB | MRCS

This video demonstrates how to screen for sensory loss in the hands in an OSCE station. Sensory assessment of the hands (radial, median, ulnar nerve) is commonly performed as part of a hand and wrist examination.

Tinel’s and Phalen’s test screen specifically for median nerve compression (i.e. carpal tunnel syndrome).

You can read our step-by-step guide to hand and wrist examination here: https://geekymedics.com/hand-examinat…

Always adhere to medical school/local hospital guidelines when performing examinations or clinical procedures. DO NOT perform any examination or procedure on patients based purely on the content of these videos. Geeky Medics accepts no liability for loss of any kind incurred as a result of reliance upon the information provided in this video.

Achieve success in your medical school OSCEs, UKMLA CPSA, and PLAB 2 exams with our free clinical skills videos. Subscribe to our channel to be informed of our latest releases. 🙂

CPSA OSCE Guides https://geekymedics.com/the-clinical-…

UKMLA AKT Notes https://geekymedics.com/ukmla/

PLAB 2 OSCE Stations https://geekymedics.com/plab-2-osce-s…

Revise for the Simulated Consultation Assessment (SCA) with our collection of high-quality SCA cases written by GPs and Training Program Directors. Check out our SCA revision cases and prepare for the MRCGP https://geekymedics.com/sca-cases-ban…”

Again I have edited those down a tad.

Despite how short this video is there is still time, apparently, for startup music (I am not a fan). The examination is not quiet, but the tone is good and the pace is excellent. Without the music it might even have been very good indeed. There is even further music at the tail end of the same video… it’s a great shame, I need a Geeky Medics Senza Musica but no such channel exists.

Still worth a review though I feel.

On that basis, just one, video this time.

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

See you again next week.

The Geeky Medics playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

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

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

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

The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by Deep.ai

Sleeping With ASMR

This week I have been examining supplements to determine if my mistake of the other week (in which I believe I took too much magnesium) is complicated by the fact that a number of supplements contain magnesium. I found that in fact they do. Three different bottles I read the ingredients list of contain magnesium in one form or another. Taking more than one set of supplements may have a greater impact than would seem at first sight to be the case.

I also read this week that glucosamine (an apparently benign supplement to assist with aching joints) has a rather nasty potential side effect. This all makes me somewhat nervous about supplements and the recommending of them. Todays symptom-free supplement for sleep assistance might be tomorrow’s carcinogen, for example. It also goes to show that articles on the Internet, wherever they derive from and no matter how prestigious and reliable the author purports to be, need to be taken with a container load of salt.

The search for material that is advert free and yet is also no cost continues, and I am getting to trawling some pretty ancient stuff to find it. Some time ago I remember that I heard a meditation by Natalie Bell.

Of course, YouTube resources for Natalie exist, such as this one:

Nonetheless, that does not get us to a free – advert-free resource,

However, I did find a set on SoundCloud which is accessible simply by creating a login:

https://soundcloud.com/natbell77/sets/natalie-bell-meditations.

Of course, whilst I still maintain a subscription, I tend to post something from Calm each week. Maybe there’s the odd Calm subscriber out there who hasn’t had chance to listen to the same meditations that I have. Maybe we could even swap notes about it…

https://www.calm.com/app/player/bCDgJm-Jo4

Daily Trip

Deep Acceptance

NARRATOR

Jeff Warren

AUTHOR

Jeff Warren

Can you back out of the way things are supposed to be to the way things actually are?

Jeff is the presenter on Calm that I have the greatest sympathy with. I often feel that we are wired in the same way. He does not have the best voice on Calm, I think that might belong to Tamara Levitt. But don’t tell anyone in case it goes to her head.

I have another “Isabel Imagination” this week. I have a feeling I may have spent a while listening to her channel in the past and built up a resource in terms of previously-viewed video material to return to. As a professional ASMR artist, either she is remarkably consistent or I have been lucky and happened across a few videos that happen to be ok to listen to.

This week’s one is this one:

ASMR Nurse Personal Attention Role Play

Of course, I have detailed the channel one or two times previously, but for those who have happened across the blog, and have not read my ASMR reviews before, the channel is Isabel imagination ASMR.

This has 381k subscribers, six hundred and forty three videos, thirty three playlists.

Of which I rather liked this one:

Even though it is completely off-theme for this blog (I have tended to focus on medical-orientated videos).

Today’s video is a little over thirty and a half minutes long and so isn’t huge but seems fairly consistent (in terms of length) for the videos from Isabel that we have featured. It starts with that trademark crackly effect that regular listeners will be familiar with and, as usual, we are onto a whispery presentation (at least there isn’t any startup music).

This one has some background noise, presumably associated with the theme which this time is not just medical but wartime medical. Thankfully that noise does not last long. Things then get a bit breathy. I’m not averse to breathy, just not an excessive amount of it. As usual the voice is a whisper, but unusually for a while anyway, it sounds at a distance as if the person is remote from the microphone. I believe this is part of the effect as well. Things do settle down and the excessive breathiness and strange effects are dispensed with and it’s whispers all the way.

If you like a video with good presentation, you should like this one as the background does look authentic. I always assume anyone reading this blog is flat out with eyes closed when listening to the material and so what it looks like is not that important.

As usual, the tone of the voice is excellent and the pacing really good. One day I will find one that isn’t a whisper and it will be even better (as long as the voice is calm, quiet and the pacing slow, in any case).

I did find that occasionally it would get very quiet and the next time that Isabel spoke I was shaken back to awareness. There is the rustling sound of a pillow and that mouth clicking/clucking sound so beloved of ASMR artists; the sound of clothing moving; paper being handled; moments of out-and-out breathiness.

Occasionally my focus on the video wandering a little which doesn’t sound a good sign but it might be ideal when using it for sleep. I also wondered if any “patient” would truly get this level of attention – thirty minutes of dedicated attention sounds like your average patient’s dream and your average hospital’s unaffordable nightmare. I don’t think anyone is supposed to think about the reality of the situation when watching these videos but I can’t help but consider how realistic it all is.

This week’s inadvertent ASMR video comes from a channel that I have featured before more than once. The channel is Geeky Medics https://www.youtube.com/@geekymedics. This has 1.44m subscribers, three hundred and fifty four videos twenty playlists and unsurprisingly all of that content appears to be medical themed. The channel has notes: “Geeky Medics

Description

Geeky Medics has built a reputation as a leading producer of high-quality educational resources. Achieve success in your medical school OSCEs, UKMLA CPSA, and PLAB 2 exams with our free clinical skills videos. Subscribe to our channel to be informed of our latest releases!

Links

Create a Geeky Medics accountapp.geekymedics.com

Geeky Medics product bundlesapp.geekymedics.com/purchase/bundles

Download the Geeky Medics appgeekymedics.com/geeky-medics-app

1300+ OSCE Stationsapp.geekymedics.com/osce-stations

OSCE Booksapp.geekymedics.com/purchase/compare-books

Linktreelinktr.ee/geekymedics

Instagraminstagram.com/geekymedics”

Which are quite comprehensive I’m sure you’ll agree. The video is this one:

Sensory Assessment of the Upper Limbs – OSCE Guide (Clip) | UKMLA | CPSA | PLAB 2

It is a mere whisper itself, at three minutes in length. There are notes of course – it’s a professional video: “19 Dec 2023

This clip demonstrates how to perform a sensory examination of the upper limbs, including assessment of light touch, pinprick, vibration and proprioception modalities.

Read our step-by-step guide here: https://geekymedics.com/upper-limb-ne…

Chapters:

Introduction 00:00

Light touch sensation 00:10

Pin-prick sensation 00:51

Vibration sensation 01:39

Joint proprioception 02:02

Always adhere to your medical school/local hospital guidelines when performing examinations or clinical procedures. DO NOT perform any examination or procedure on patients based purely upon the content of these videos. Geeky Medics accepts no liability for loss of any kind incurred as a result of reliance upon the information provided in this video.

Some people have found this video useful for ASMR purposes.

So not so much notes perhaps, as a mini encyclopaedia. I had to edit them down a lot the blog post would have been mainly notes otherwise. There are comments but there are precious few of those and none of them seem to be from ASMR fans. If there are ASMR fans here they seem to be being unusually reticent.

It starts with music which is a shame, but it does not last long. The voice of both the doctor and of the patient are calm and quiet. There is no extraneous noise at all. It isn’t even possible to hear the tuning fork which in some other videos can be rather loud. It ends with music as well and this goes on for quite a bit longer than the startup music. It is also rather too funky to be restful; it would be great to have the same video topped and tailed to eliminate that music. In all it is a rather good video for our purposes just, sadly, way too short.

On that basis, just one, video this time.

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

See you again next week.

The Geeky Medics playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

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

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

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

The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by Deep.ai

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.

On that basis, just one, video this time.

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

See you again next week.

The MGA Nursing 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