Life – The Procrastination Pen

Sleeping With ASMR

This week I came across an article for the perfect sleep routine. I habitually hate these articles as they just seem to be a large stick to beat yourself with. Quite a lot of it seems to involve habit changes which are not easy to execute in a busy working life. Eat earlier, which seems straightforward until there are two of you and collectively you work a very long day; eat as early as you can would probably be more restrained advice although that still may not be particularly early.

Quit using screens is usually in there, but if the evening is your only time to get bills paid, deal with household admin and respond to a backlog of personal emails, I am not sure when you are supposed to schedule all that in. I’m sure any employer is not going to be chuffed if you try to accomplish those tasks during the working day.

I’m also interested in the idea that mouth breathing can be resolved simply by taping the mouth shut. I tried a gum shield once which expected the mouth would remain closed. I had to give up after a few minutes as I found I could just not get enough air. Something about lying in bed specifically too, as it does not affect me if I lie on a hard floor, for example. I imagine I may not be the only person who finds breathing through the nose whilst lying in bed to be difficult (which is putting it mildly).

I’m also fascinated by the use of earplugs. I’ve seen this advice before and it seems a great idea. Until one day I encountered someone with a serious ear infection and the theory was that simply covering his ears regularly for long hours had encouraged that to develop. How much worse if you bung up your ears every single night I wonder.

I’d take all sleep advice with a pinch of salt. It just seems another mechanism of making a person responsible for events that they cannot control. The environment is getting noisier; you need to use earplugs. The working days are getting longer; you need to eat earlier. Every interaction with a company now involves an app or a website; you need to give up screen use.

Things are changing to make getting decent quality sleep more difficult and that is something no individual can control.

On the upside I have found that distraction with sound is one thing that can, occasionally, work and it is for this reason that I started this blog a little while ago. Of course, if you do not live alone, it is likely that you will have to employ headphones for this so your ears are going to be covered… (I have seen pillows with speakers in but I am not convinced, personally, that they will not disturb your night-time companion).

For several weeks I have been reviewing a Daily Calm offering from Calm because I have a subscription to Calm and so why not. I find the Daily Calm items on Calm to be the most appealing. I have tried the longer sleep-related items and hit the problem that the sort of things that apparently make other people sleep really do not work for me. There are downsides to this, of course, Calm Dailies average about ten minutes and if you can successfully fall asleep in ten minutes then I am so grateful that you took the time to read this blog article. The biggest disadvantage though is that Calm requires a payment to listen and I know that for many people that is an absolute no-no.

Today’s suggestion is this one:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/NigHxQgiV7

Daily Trip

==========

Relaxing Tension

—————-

NARRATOR

Jeff Warren

AUTHOR

Jeff Warren

This is about a mechanism for releasing tension, even a quite deep build-up of tension. Which I thought might be highly useful for someone trying to get some sleep.

Recently I started voyaging down a personal memory lane when it came to professional ASMR artists. This does mean that, in the short term I have not been restricting ASMR artists to medical themes. Normal service will be resumed in due course. The aim was to demonstrate what got me started on ASMR many years ago. I’m trying to select quality presentations that I have listened to more than once in the past.

This week I am going back to 2018 to this one:

[ASMR] Fall Asleep in 25 Minutes! (Binaural Sleep Triggers)

Which has the benefit of at least being overtly sleep-related. It has notes (It would be a very unusual professional ASMR video if it did not have notes). “2,521,682 views 14 Jun 2018

https://linktr.ee/tingtingasmr Enjoy this binaural ASMR sleep treatment as I use some of my favourite soft sounding triggers to help you sleep within 25 minutes! Enjoy mic brushing, face touching, ear to ear whispers, book tapping and page turning, fabric sounds, and more!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

New uploads every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday! Be sure to come back often ^_^

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you to my lovely Patrons: Hrannar, Jeb, Iris, Nolan, Ben, Claude, Cesar, Scotty, Jared, and Arturo!

~~~Support The Channel~~~

Merch Store: https://teespring.com/stores/tingting

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~~~Social Media~~~

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Compared to some we have seen these are superb in their succinctness. Regular readers will notice that I have returned to a channel that I have covered before and it must have been a bit of a favourite in 2018 as I notice there was more than one video from here that I used to listen to at the time.

The channel of course is Tingting ASMR, there are 2.57m subscribers, eight-hundred-and-ninety two videos and thirteen playlists and there is even a playlist entirely dedicated to sleep:

This, however, I notice, is for members only (the first time I have come across one of those) and so if you want to listen you will need to cough up. On that basis moving swiftly on…

This week’s video is slightly less than twenty-seven minutes, so not a bad size. It starts without music and immediately we can hear that the presentation is going to be on the whispery side of whispery. Which is fairly typical for an ASMR artist. There is a great deal of nail clicking so if this is one of your preferred “triggers”, this will probably be a good one for you.

This is not the only non-vocal sound on the video. Paper stroking features, which is one of many paper-related sounds; that mouth clicking sound, that ASMR artists seem to use so frequently, also features, there are fabric-stroking sounds; microphone-stroking sounds. The use of dual microphones means that any headphone user will perceive the sounds alternating between sides of the head. Clever stuff but I am not clear it is that effective for sleep. There are beanbag related noises which at least has the benefit of being unusual. Plastic container related noises; noises relating to the application of some kind of lotion and probably the odd sound I failed to note.

The pace is very slow, however, for someone trying to sleep I think that is going to be helpful. In fact, I like this video a great deal, probably why I used to listen to it quite so often. I would think it worthwhile to give it a review yourself if you’re looking for a relaxing video suitable for sleep.

Regular Procrastination Pan afficionados will have recognised that I have not yet covered the non-YouTube source of relaxing material. My searches of late seem to be yielding less and less new material so I suspect that soon I will have to go back and cover some individuals over again.

This week I am falling back on material in the Internet Archive and it is for one of the artists that I also used to listen to many years ago. However, I do not think I have encountered this video before this:

https://archive.org/details/isabel-imagination-asmr-2020-06-12-asmr-for-when-you-feel-down-hugs-cuddles-kisses

Isabel Imagination ASMR 2020 06 12 ASMR For When You Feel Down [ Hugs, Cuddles, Kisses & Positive Affirmation] JVu4gmugEPk 497MB [CD99985A]

dn710004.ca.archive.org/0/items/isabel-imagination-asmr-2020-06-12-asmr-for-when-you-feel-down-hugs-cuddles-kisses/Isabel imagination ASMR-2020-06-12-ASMR for when you feel down [ hugs, cuddles, kisses & positive affirmation ]-JVu4gmugEPk-497MB-[CD99985A].mp4

Isabel produces great material on YouTube and that seems to be the former home of this video. I will continue searching and see if there are any other non-YouTube resources that can be located. Although I am beginning to realise that whilst the Internet seems to be a home for much that is free, in actual fact it is a giant marketplace for a lot that needs to be paid for as well.

I hope that you’re able to assemble much of this material into a playlist of your own that you can employ to smooth your transition into sleep.

Now for the material that started this whole period of the Procrastination Pen blog which is the inadvertent ASMR video. Although there is less focus in these blog articles on such videos now, I still feel that this is the bread and butter of ASMR night time sleep material for the Procrastination Pen.

This week I am looking at another medical-themed video. In fact, this one:

Examination of the Arthritic Hip

It comes from the channel Raj Rao this has 1.23k subscribers, seventeen videos, and zero playlists. Not a bad achievement getting that number of subscribers from so little material, I feel. Let us hope that this bodes well for the video. It has notes: “67,669 views 26 Mar 2010

Dr. Edward Nelsen-Freund, Assistant Professor, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Medical College of Wisconsin”

We can see the video is sixteen years old, but I cannot tell if ASMR fans have been here before me because comments are not permitted. This is probably to offset some of the more whacky feedback that you regularly find on YouTube. The video is only six-and-a-quarter minutes in length and so isn’t going to waylay us for long. Of late I have covered a few short ones. The upside is it’s going into a playlist and so length should not be an issue; the downside is that YouTube do love to insert adverts between videos when you are playing them.

It starts without music – Heaven be praised. We find immediately that Dr Nelsen has an excellent voice. There is very little background noise (a minor hiss only). The initial part of the video is a monologue but despite the presentation aspect it is not excessively loud – would that other videos were like this. The medical examination proper then starts, and, again, the volume does not increase. The presentation speed is nicely paced – not excessively fast and not overly slow either. It ends rather abruptly just as I was getting into the pace of it, and, in my case shot into a rather active advert. Hopefully that will not also be your experience.

And that’s it. I think worthy of inclusion in the Procrastination Pen playlist. In fact I think I will be back to this channel in future.

On that basis, just one, video this time.

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

See you again next week.

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

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

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

The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by DeepAI

Sleeping With ASMR

This week I wondered if the fact that ASMR fans get ASMR feelings meant that they were more susceptible to other feelings than average. Sadly, it would seem the work has not been done. I did find that people high on the neuroticism scale are more likely to be able to feel ASMR. Not only that, but if you are high on the neuroticism scale and you can feel ASMR symptoms that ASMR might be effective in reducing some of the symptoms.

So, I am going to take that as a positive.

You must be overdue another review of ASMR.

For a long time now, I have been trying to find material that is not on YouTube on the assumption that readers of this blog also get distracted (not to say annoyed) by the choice of adverts that YouTube choose to insert between (or sometimes during) relaxing videos. (Read, loud, energetic and sleep-disturbing).

During lock down I did listen to the odd track by Ghylian Bell. Ghylian, of course, has her own YouTube channel (not exactly helpful in finding a source of non-You-tube material). I did find one on the mindful.org site. I think that this will give you an idea as to why I like Ghylian’s voice.

Usually after I poke around outside of YouTube, I drone on about Calm for a few minutes for no reason other than the fact that I am lucky enough to have a Calm subscription. I know that does not extend to many people reading this article so I will keep this part brief.

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

Daily Jay

What You’re Not

NARRATOR

Jay Shetty

To find out what you are, start out by describing what you’re not.

I like Jay, his is probably not the best ASMR voice on Calm – I suspect that is Tamara Levitt. But the material that he covers is so fascinating and insightful. This is not the Calm marketing department however, so I will move right along.

At this stage of the article, for a number of months, I have made it a habit to review a professional ASMR artist. This was really to contrast with the inadvertent ASMR material that has been the purpose of this blog for so long. I did at one stage feel that this would be totally unfair. Surely a professional ASMR artist who set out to calm their audience and thereby to attract subscribers would have to be streets ahead of any inadvertent ASMR material that could be located. I have not found this to be the case.

This week I am back in nostalgia-land as I am again reviewing a video that I used to listen to a long time ago (the posting date of the video will be a strong clue). I am deviating from the medical theme for a while. I’ve been doing this in the hope that I can present some quality ASMR from an ASMR professional so that you can hear what attracted me to it in the first place. However, I am aware that this blog has been medical-ASMR themed for some time and so I will revert to that in due course.

Today’s is from the channel Tingting ASMR. This has 2.57m subscribers, eight hundred and ninety one videos, thirteen playlists of which this playlist would seem to be on the medical theme which this blog has explored for a while now:

The channel, of course, has notes: “Tingting ASMR

Description

Hello, my name is Tingting, welcome to my ASMR channel! I will be creating videos to help you relax, tingle, and sleep. There’s a lot of stress in this world, I hope I can help you reduce some of it. New video every Tuesday and a new short Sunday so check back often!

Links

Find ALL My Socials Here!linktr.ee/tingtingasmr

Patreonpatreon.com/tingting

Merchandiseteespring.com/stores/tingting

Instagraminstagram.com/tingting57live

Twittertwitter.com/tingting57live

Facebookfacebook.com/tingting57live”

Refreshingly brief for an ASMR artist, as regular readers of this blog will already know.

The chosen video is this one:

[ASMR] Chinese Zodiac Calligraphy & Brush Sounds

This is just a fraction less than thirty six and a half minutes – a reasonable length therefore. It too has notes: “462,394 views 11 Jul 2017

https://linktr.ee/tingtingasmr Enjoy this special Chinese Zodiac Calligraphy ASMR with amazing brush sounds and some calming ink grinding on stone sound. This ASMR is completely whispered and you might learn how to write some Chinese zodiac characters too! Which animal are you?

Thank you to my producers: Tony, Eric, and Jeremy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

New Uploads every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 10 AM PST!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Don’t forget to check out my new Patreon page for bonus content and awesome rewards like being a part of my Chinese name video!

Patreon: / tingting

Instagram: / tingting57live

Facebook: / tingting57live

Twitter: / tingting57live

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Amazon Wishlist: http://amzn.to/2ugvsh1“

These are getting towards the length we might expect from a professional ASMR artist. Comments are permitted. There are a lot of these. As we have come to expect, some of these comments border on the surreal. There are a fair number of positive ASMR comments though, so let’s take that as a good sign.

This video is properly quiet. Definitely one where you will be rolling over and thumbing the volume up a bit. It is on the whispery side of whispery, which is quite typical of a professional ASMR artist I find.

I prefer a non-whispery presentation just because whispery gets a bit samey once I have listened to a few videos. There are a number of non-vocal sounds: clicking, tapping, grinding, brushing, paper sounds, a light background noise (perhaps air conditioning), the odd equipment-related noise. It is one of those videos where nail clicking features strongly, which is great if that is a “trigger” that you like. The pace is delightfully slow, if you want to watch rather than just listen, I suspect you will almost feel your mind slowing down to match the progress.

I decided to try taking my blood pressure before watching the video and then take it again as the video was playing, and found it had dropped almost ten points. Perhaps ASMR videos should be prescribed.

Of course, we are looking for videos to assist in dropping off. I suspect in isolation this will be fantastic; however, the volume is set so low that at thirty-six and a half minutes a stupendously loud and frenetic YouTube advert will have you achieve orbit unassisted.

That said, I think this is a very good video and I can now remember why I used to listen to it so frequently.

This week’s inadvertent ASMR is brief in the extreme. It comes from the channel: Arthritis Research Canada this has 16k subscribers, three hundred and thirty-seven videos, twenty playlists. Not unexpectedly a number of these are on a medical theme, however, it is unlikely that a great many are good for ASMR.

The video is:

Effusion Test

and it has notes: “162,903 views 2 Jun 2011

Discover a systematic approach to diagnosing knee osteoarthritis years and make a difference in your patient’s care. This video demonstrates how to perform three standardized knee examinations to diagnose knee osteoarthritis and demonstrates 18 other knee examination techniques commonly used in practice for in-depth knee examination. The content is not provided as a form of self-diagnosis. To learn more visit www.arthritisresearch.ca“

Which, in common with a number of inadvertent ASMR videos are not whoppingly long. Comments are permitted. There are not a great number and there are none from ASMR fans. That is habitually a bad sign. ASMR fans are like ants to spilled jam as far as great ASMR material goes.

The video starts without music – hip-hip hurrah. The voice is not your classical ASMR voice but it is calm and nicely paced in presentation. The video features the same medical professional throughout but different patients, quite an achievement in a video that is only this length.

And there it was gone. I think worthy of inclusion in the playlist; in fact, I think I will be back to this site in future.

On that basis, just one, video this time.

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

See you again next week.

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

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

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

The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by DeepAI

Sleeping With ASMR

This week I came across an article that indicates that I can eliminate startup music altogether (I have yet to formally test it). The article is https://www.wikihow.com/Link-to-a-Certain-Time-in-a-YouTube-Video and it indicates that I can start a video at a specific point in time. Theoretically those videos with intrusive music at commencement I can therefore simply start just after that intrusive music, such that the entire playlist will hang together in a much more consistent (not to mention) quiet fashion. I cannot wait to try it. I hope that it is as easy as the article makes out.

I have been editing the main Procrastination Pen playlist of late and most of those edits have been connected with removing excessively loud material. It is a shame after such a long period of reviewing videos that I am now finding some of them just do not stand the test of time (the Procrastination Pen archive list continues to grow). The only upside is that the pace of reviews cannot slow, if it did so then the playlist would very swiftly empty.

For a while now I have been looking for material outside of YouTube. It was a rash promise that I made on this blog some time back, and was predominantly connected with gaining access to material that did not require the prospective snoozer to accept loud and intrusive adverts as a fact of life. I have actually found the process filled with inconsistencies and disappointments. To be honest, in many cases, I feel it is probably better to buy a subscription from a reliable service. However, the hunt goes on.

One of the heroes of all quiet voice fans has to be Thich Nhat Hanh who is, sadly, no longer with us. I can well remember listening on YouTube to one of the Plum Village videos and loving what I heard.

I have found that I am not alone in my starry-eyed fandom in this respect indeed now a whole archive of talks exists: https://tnhaudio.org/. There is so much material here that I will not provide you with a more in-depth review but leave you to select those you like.

I am also continuing to listen to material on Calm reasonably regularly. However, I may need a few lifetimes to become a consistent meditator. My mind is more like a roller-coaster of distracting thoughts. The material in the Calm dailies I find quite restful and not uncommonly instructive as well. However, you will need to buy a subscription if you want to listen to it.

Today’s Calm recommendation comes from Jeff Warren, who whilst not my favourite voice on Calm, is the person I most consistently feel a lot in common with, in that he relates experiences that I also feel.

https://www.calm.com/app/player/f8udqt_eR8

Daily Trip

Oh, That’s What’s Happening!

NARRATOR

Jeff Warren

AUTHOR

Jeff Warren

Those who read this blog a lot will realise that once I have done with a Calm recommendation, I need to find one, on YouTube, from a professional ASMR artist. This week another one that is flagged as “unintentional”, so is a bit of a cheat. Although the channel may be professionally curating the videos (and no doubt adjusting them to present them in the best light) it does not feature a professional ASMR artist as such.

Unintentional ASMR. Medical Assessments Part 35

This is from Warm Heart ASMR, a channel with 14.3K subscribers, one hundred and thirty videos, and just two playlists, one of which looks as if it might be on theme for this blog (at least of late): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBj8XBG9cyM&list=PLi4mE_stpCRA1dZU2wS-8rA1WIDbWIoNW&pp=0gcJCbQEOCosWNin

Today’s video has notes which are thankfully brief:

“126,358 views 30 Jul 2021

Relax and enjoy unintentional ASMR. 3 medical assessments for you. New uploads every Friday. Thanks for watching! Please subscribe! Peace to all

Original links –

Assessment 1: • Toy ANeuroExam

Assessment 2: • Streifert_T:NeuroExam

Assessment 3: • Splinting EMT 21-58 “

The original links given there are:

and

I think I will find a moment in the future to review each of those videos and hear for myself.

So, the clue is that these have been glued together into one video, this is not a favourite for me. Most often videos wedged together like this perform less well than each of the videos would have done separately, but I have started so I’ll finish.

The assembled video is a little less than thirty-three minutes long. It starts in silence but as soon as the sound initiates it has the echoing effect of something recorded in a large room. The medical professional seems, to me, to be a tad on the loud side. The examination itself, though, is quite well paced and the tone, whilst the exam is being performed, is far better than when the medical professional presents to camera. Many students make this mistake. There is a microphone, it is not necessary to project in the manner of an opera singer, not in the twenty first century in any case. Actually, some lecturers seem to make the same error.

I would say it is a little too loud for me, and I am not convinced that the moments of quiet appropriately compensate. However, your mileage may vary. The people feeding back in the comments, associated with this video, are not showing the normal level of ASMR sycophancy. This makes me think it may not be a favourite for ASMR fans either. (Not that I often agree with ASMR fans as I seem to set more demanding requirements in a number of cases). I just want a quiet voice. Whilst I am not averse to a whispered voice, a voice that stays away from whispering is often more interesting. This voice is one step away from a shout, I would say, and I do not think volume adjustment is going to help here.

The video is no doubt a student demonstrating their learning in a specific area and for this purpose it seems adequate. Probably not a great sleep aid though, sadly.

At fifteen minutes the second of the videos commences and, as expected, the sound level is completely different. The echoing is much more pronounced. The medical professional is not yelling to camera but is still loud. Not the calm quiet voice I was hoping for. Here the patient is considerably easier on the ear (at least they seem to be talking and not projecting into the room vocally). However, the sound is a bit off (probably the best that can be achieved when recording in a lecture theatre using a remote microphone). It is a better paced examination but for me just not quite quiet enough.

At thirty minutes the video changes over to the third in the series and this one seems way quieter. It shows that this video does not belong here. No echoey large halls but a small domestic setting. No projecting to a distant microphone. In fact, much more the kind of thing that I hope to find.

The medical professional has a good voice and has a measured delivery. In this case the “patient” has a good voice as well (not that common to find both participants have good voices for our purposes). There is background noise (possibly air conditioning) which is not excessively obtrusive. It is nicely paced and talking is not excessive in it either. My gut feel is that if I were reviewing the videos separately that only the last one would stand a chance in the Procrastination Pen playlist.

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

Medical Training Videos

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

The next one in the series is this:

Guedel Airway Insertion

Just over a minute so don’t blink, notes are: “192,205 views 17 Feb 2012 Trauma Surgery

This video – produced by students at Oxford University Medical School in conjunction with the faculty – demonstrates how to size and insert a Geudel Airway. It is part of a series of videos on the Initial Assessment of a Trauma Patient.

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

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

It is presented by the medical professional and is reasonably quiet.

C-Spine Immobilisation in Trauma

just over two minutes so again it is not hanging about, the notes are: “146,839 views 17 Feb 2012 Trauma Surgery

This video – produced by students at Oxford University Medical School in conjunction with the faculty – demonstrates how to immobilise a patient’s C-spine using collar, bags and tape. It is part of a series of videos on the Initial Assessment of a Trauma Patient.

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

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

Again, it is announced by the medical professional participating rather than a narrator. It is not quite as quiet but it is still not excessively loud for our purposes. For some reason part way through the volume becomes very distant as if the microphone was transported way down a corridor.

C-Spine Collar Application in Trauma

Less than one and a half minutes, so none of these latter videos will keep you waiting for long.

The notes are: “93,033 views 17 Feb 2012 Trauma Surgery

This video – produced by students at Oxford University Medical School in conjunction with the faculty – demonstrates how to size and fit a C-spine collar. It is part of a series of videos on the Initial Assessment of a Trauma Patient.

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

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

This is announced by the same medical professional and has some quite similar content to the previous one.

Nasoendoscopy (Nose Examination) – ENT

Just less than three minutes, the notes are “598,759 views 17 Feb 2012 ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) Examinations

This video – produced by students at Oxford University Medical School in conjunction with the ENT faculty – demonstrates how to perform an examination of the nose, including use of a nasoendoscope.

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

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

The medical professional is narrating and has a good voice for us initially, but later becomes slightly louder.

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

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

The Oxford Medical Education Hospitals playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

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

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

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

The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by DeepAI

Sleeping With ASMR

I am so happy that even professional journalistic accounts are now documenting distraction as a valid approach towards dealing with insomnia. Regular readers of the Procrastination Pen know that I have been banging this particular drum for over a year now. The distraction that I choose is sound.

I find that a particular kind of sound is restful. A low calm voice in an empathetic tone is absolutely ideal. It does not even matter to me, particularly, if the adopted tone is a whisper.

Regular listeners to ASMR artists will notice that the whisper is the go-to level in many of these videos and it does all get a bit samey. You will have noticed that I refer to videos and this is because I have been using YouTube as my source of ASMR material, for sleep, for much of the period in which I write about ASMR on this blog.

However, I have made the promise that I will also explore alternatives. This promise is also self-serving since YouTube is financed by advertising and much of that advertising is so noisy it undoes the good work done by the video itself. I lose count of the times I’ve spent forty-five minutes dozing to a relaxing track only to be shocked awake by an advertisement for some undesirable tat.

Unfortunately, money maketh the world go around, so this kind of thing is unavoidable where the website in use depends upon advertising for its revenue. I have therefore been looking at other sites. Of late I have had some success finding material in the Internet Archive. This week I am listening to this one:

https://archive.org/details/asmr-nurse-takes-care-of-you-roleplay/Lasmren/Asmr+nurse+takes+care+of+you+roleplay.mp4

It is from Lasmren ASMR Archive by Lasmren ASMR and straight away I can tell this video is extremely quiet. I had the volume up to eleven and it was still hard to hear it. (Advanced age and encroaching deafness notwithstanding.).

The video is a little over sixteen minutes and is dedicated to someone by the name of “Randy” – if you find the idea of a video dedicated to someone else distracting, I would avoid this one. On the upside there is no startup music. The tone does not involve whispering but on the downside, this is not what I would call my favourite voice.

There are some loud noises that occur in the background (neighbours, I think). There are other noises of course (apart from the loud ones). There are nail clicking noises, rattling noises, movement of a blanket, pill dispensing noises, plastic tapping noises, liquid noises, glove noises, objects being slammed down onto the desk surface, noises from the ASMR artist moving around. Some of these are unwelcome. There are various sounds where devices appear to be knocked against the microphone which, given the rest of the video is quiet, are quite disturbing to any relaxation. I would say that given this the recording level is probably off, and a bit more amplification to the voice was probably required.

Lasmren sounds quite bored; borderline fed up in this, perhaps it is just something in the vocal tone. The presentation seems a bit random, definitely not scripted. I am not certain that it hangs together that well. However, as I have mentioned before, there are as many ASMR preferences as there are ASMR fans, so I am guessing that someone out there will love this.

For a long time now, I have been recommending a track on Calm. I have a Calm subscription and the requirement to subscribe also ensures that you do not need to listen to noisy adverts. The requirement to subscribe also means, of course, that this is not for everyone. Today’s recommendation is this one:

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

Daily Jay

When Fear Takes Over

NARRATOR

Jay Shetty

Which is about making decisions on the basis of fear and when this is not the correct approach. He suggests that the best approach is that will always enable us to grow. He points out that you need to be clear about why you are making decisions; could it be that the decisions you are making are because of fear.

If that doesn’t sound very sleep orientated, this is because I frequently find the Calm dailies more restful than the Calm material that is actually supposed to gentle me off to sleep. A lot of that material involves music or other noises that I do not find restful.

At this stage, and for a while now in this blog, I tend to review a professional ASMR artist. I have tried various techniques to avoid choosing just the latest video that pops up in the YouTube recommendations. Sometimes this has even been successful.

Today it is this one:

the ent exam you didn’t know you needed 🥼 (asmr doctor role play)

There are not many comments on the day I am looking at it but those that there are seem to be predominantly positive. The channel is ASMR Viella with 27.8k subscribers, three hundred and five videos and three playlists. The roleplay playlist has a number of medical videos in it but is not predominantly medical themed:

There are, of course, notes, and in this case, these are, thankfully, brief:

“9 Feb 2026 ✪ Members first on 6 February 2026 #asmrsounds #sleepaid #asmrroleplay

This ASMR role play includes medical personal attention, questions and note-taking, physical exam, tympanometry (yes that one), a hearing test, and ear massage / care. hope you enjoy~!

new upload every Sunday at 8PM ET~! ✨ thank you so much for liking and subscribing. ʚ♡ɞ

become a channel member here ❤️:

/ @asmrviella

#asmrsounds #sleepaid #asmrroleplay”

Today’s video is a little over thirty-four minutes in length and so is reasonable compared to some we have looked at recently, but it should not over face you if you simply want to listen to just the one video whilst you drift off. There is no startup music (Heaven be praised) and straight away we are back to the predominantly whispering style of presentation. This means we are on familiar ground (a lot of professional ASMR artists seem to do this). The voice is not unpleasant, but I do like it when ASMR artists ring the changes, i.e. do not opt for a whispering style of presentation.

As we have heard before there are occasional mouth click/cluck noises (I suspect because they are an ASMR “trigger” for someone). Of course, the voice is not the only noise. We have pen clicking, scribbling/writing noises, fingernails clicking against a surface, there are noises which seem to be something dragged across the microphone (these are quite loud), plastic clicking noises, equipment noise including items being placed (quite loudly) on a desk surface, beeping noises, rattling noises, mobile phone alerts, liquid sloshing noises, even the distant sound of aircraft/traffic.

I get the sense, as I have before, that a number of professional ASMR artists try to cram every type of known ASMR trigger into the one video. I think this might not be the best approach. I, for example, like a calm voice, so I find nail clicking and liquid sloshing distracting. If you are the type of person that rather likes liquid sloshing, it might be that you’re not so keen on the whispering, for example.

This one certainly has quite an amount of nail clicking and so if this is not the trigger for you, I’m not sure I’d review it. If it is your thing though, this video should be a good fit (the occasional loud sound notwithstanding). It was not, I have to say, my favourite video to date so I do not think this will be a channel I’ll spend a great deal of extra time reviewing for alternative videos. Your mileage may vary.

Now the ultimate section of the blog article of late. At one time the only section in the article but things have expanded a little over the past few months. This is where I seek out a (normally medical) video and review it to determine if it is suitably relaxing. Given the video is designed for a purpose other than relaxation, these are inadvertent ASMR videos. Some of them turn out to be better than others.

The channel this time is Joy McLaughlin which has only seven videos and yet has 13.8K subscribers. Blimey. There are zero playlists so no point trying to evaluate any to see if they’re suitable for us.

The video is:

Pulmonary Exam

It is only a little over seven minutes so blink and it’ll be gone. Comments are permitted and a number are from ASMR fans, that is frequently a good sign (but sadly not always). The notes are: “598,514 views 6 Dec 2017

Lauren Daley is simply “breathtaking” in her latest short film, “The Pulmonary Exam”– audiences everywhere will be gasping to see how it all turns out.”

Checking the channel, all of the material on it is eight years old so watch this one while ye may before someone takes the whole thing down.

The video starts in silence and then is a little loud, including the voice of the medical professional. I would say that the “patient” here has a better voice. The medical professional introduces herself as “Lauren Daley” who states that she is a first-year medical student at “FAU”, at least that is how I heard it. Assuming I have heard it correctly it is conceivable that this is “Florida Atlantic University” this institution seems to have a nursing programme and it is possible this is where Lauren is attending in 2017.

There is reasonably strong air-conditioning noise, which might be why Lauren feels that she has to speak up here. There is occasional humour, which I did not find distracting. The examination is nicely calm, although never truly quiet. There is an interruption from a person off-camera, potentially the person doing the filming. However, it is not excessively loud.

I think I’ll try this in the Procrastination Pen playlist for a while but it may eventually get booted out. I am doing a great deal of weeding from the playlist into the archive list of late as I would swear, I am getting pickier. (Hopefully that will turn out to be a good thing in terms of the eventual overall quality of the playlist).

On that basis, just one video on this occasion.

That’s it for this review, more next time.

See you again next week.

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

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

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

The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by DeepAI

Sleeping With ASMR

YouTube has intermittently started to require me to log on. This only seems to happen on the tablet; it does not seem to happen on the laptop. The upshot is that whilst I am reviewing the videos (on the laptop), I can play what I like and I can write these articles. However, when I go to bed, I try to play the playlist and I get stopped and asked to log on. My password is a lengthy one; I am not at all interested in raising myself from a partially sleepy state to start typing in passwords. I’m sure it is possible, I just don’t value the change in requirements, and I have alternatives that do not dictate to me in this fashion. (Not least a number of videos I have found on the Internet Archive – some of which I have featured of late).

For example, this week I found this one:

Sadly, it is in a language I do not understand. The person is listed as “Emma Smith” but the content sounds Russian to me. I only worry in case I recommend something which contains language that I wouldn’t recommend if I did understand it. If anyone understands this content and finds it to be filled with undesirable language, let me know and I’ll delete the recommendation. It references a channel, I tried that for further details but found it did not exist. So not a lot of help.

The voice is not what I would call tip-top, but the video does lack background noise, startup (and tail end) music. It is an odd one in that I have seen a few head-to-tail videos (usually by medical students), and this content does not look like any I have seen so far. It is possible that it was extracted from a much longer video. Have a listen and see what you think.

For this week’s Calm recommendation, I am back with Jeff:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/DDw6S3ZLMF

Daily Trip

Can You Live with This the Rest of Your Life?

NARRATOR

Jeff Warren

AUTHOR

Jeff Warren

As Calm dailies go this is quite a long one. It is close on 11 minutes, possibly even enough to drop off to. However, the thing I love about Jeff is how often he comes up with something which reflects some of the things I have either dealt with or am dealing with. Even where he doesn’t do that, I find the subjects that he brings up to be fascinating in any case. This one is about being able to welcome anything that happens to you in your life. This, to me, sounds like a rather daunting expectation. Even where what has happened will last for the rest of your life. As I get older, I begin to understand there are a number of changes that are just not going to go away. In which case, I think practices like this may increase in relevance.

For this week’s professional ASMR video I have been looking at this one:

Removing a foreign object from your Arm | ASMR Medical role play

It is odd for a professional ASMR video, in that it does not have a description. There are comments but they are decidedly on the surreal side – very normal YouTube then. It comes from the channel sillystarASMR. This channel has six hundred and fifty-seven videos and 7.63K subscribers. There are seven playlists none of which obviously fit with the medical theme which we have been following for a while now.

The video is just less than seventeen minutes in length; it starts without music and straight away we hear that this is not classical ASMR. For a start there is no whispering involved and definitely no breathy moments. There is some mouth clucking noises and some background keyboarding happening. There are, of course, other noises: equipment noises, hand sanitiser noises, plastic sheet noises, beeping noises, Velcro noises, rustling noises, clicking noises, even the occasional clunk.

I would say that the voice isn’t high on empathy (this is in common with a number of student videos we have seen). Which shows how valuable a person who has some empathy in their voice actually is. At one stage there is even some sighing going on, as if the person is tired of the whole thing.

For the inadvertent ASMR this week I’m looking at this one:

Health Assessment

It is from the channel Dylan McCollough. This has four videos, 1.54K subscribers and no playlists. That seems a fair few subscribers for so few videos. Hopefully this bodes well for us.

Today’s video has no notes (usually a sign that it is not a professional ASMR video). Comments are permitted. There are a number of these and quite a few are uncomplimentary. That does not sound good for us.

The video is just less than twenty-two minutes. It starts without music but does have some strong background noise – almost certainly air conditioning. Unlike some of the commentators I rather like the voice. Some parts of the presentation are a mite hesitant so it strikes me as one of the student assessment videos which we are so familiar with. The voice then gets very quiet indeed and personally I was straining to make out much. The auto subtitles seem quite good for that if you really want to watch (I assume you’ll just be listening). Fortunately, it becomes a lot more listenable quite swiftly.

There are noises from other people (presumably in adjacent rooms in the medical establishment). These are unwelcome and quite loud. There’s the occasional clunk from equipment and slamming of doors sufficiently nearby to be quite loud. There is the sound of water running at one point in an adjacent room. There are noises from the patient moving around when requested. I would say that the patient does not have such a great voice and he is a bit louder than the medical professional here as well. However, he is very respectful in his responses so I was quite taken with that. Whoever is operating the recording equipment occasional thumbs the microphone, fortunately that isn’t too loud. The examination is methodical, even gentle, shame about that air conditioning and those extraneous noises, but it is often thus with student assessment videos. I can see why people take videos and edit them to retain only the quiet bits, but how they get over the copyright issues I have no idea.

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

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

See you again next week.

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

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

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

The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by DeepAI

Sleeping With ASMR

I occasionally listen to a podcast by “Getting Things Done” guru and productivity expert David Allen. I always aspire to be a productivity God but find myself more in the “rushing around trying to get a lot of things done at once” category. Still, I do find his material inspirational in a “if only I was that organised…” kind of way.

I was surprised to find an episode that was focused on sleep. Indeed, an entire discussion with a sleep expert, which I felt certain you would rather like to listen to. You can listen to it here: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/forcedn/gettingthingsdone/Episode_342_David_Allen_and_Dan_Pardi.mp3.

It also reinforces to me how important the subject of focus for the Procrastination Pen blog is, and has been. Given that the drive of these articles is to get more and better-quality sleep using distraction as a technique.

Distraction mainly by making use of restful, calming sounds, that soothe a racing mind and make it ready for some rest (where it might not have been before listening).

I have found that there are as many calming sounds as there are people prepared to listen to them. Personally, I like a quiet, peaceful sounding voice. If I can find one that sounds even a little empathetic so much the better. For this reason, for a very long time, I have been focused on YouTube videos with some medical content. (I found that medical professionals often have the better voices, but sadly, not always).

However, the longer I stayed with YouTube, the louder and more frenetic the adverts have become. Also, the more often I seem to have problems with it like a recent iterative logon prompt which went away by itself after twenty-four hours, indicating, to my mind, that the problem wasn’t mine.

On that basis I have started to cast around for material that does not rely upon YouTube, and I have found that some of the video content seems to have been archived onto the Internet Archive.

For example, this one, it is only eight minutes but the voice is excellent. It is also available as a physical file

PE: Shoulder Pain – OSCE Prep (Pulm, Cardiac, Pulses, Screening OSE, UE Neuro, MSK, Special Tests)

This seems to be the advantage of this site. Ostensibly you could download the files and assemble them into a playlist offline, without needing to listen to those adverts. Sadly, there do not appear to be a huge number of these in the Internet Archive so it isn’t any YouTube replacement. However, it maybe sufficient to assemble a few videos from various sources and that maybe enough to drop off to.

For some time now I have been reviewing Calm material. I’m making the assumption that at least some of the people that happen across this blog one way or another can access Calm. (Calm requires a subscription). I like it because I have a subscription and more importantly it does not have adverts. I will readily admit that the content is a bit on the variable side and the ones I feature here are just the ones I have got on with the best (so far anyway).

This week, I recommend this one:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/4xcp92NKYa

Silence

NARRATOR

Tamara Levitt

AUTHOR

Tamara Levitt

I’ve often reflected that I like most of the artists that record the Calm dailies on Calm (well their voices anyway) but perhaps Tamara has my favourite voice.

This is ten minutes on the value of silence. Including doing everything that you can to preserve silence when you find it.

I have reflected that it is a fortunate person who can find much silence in the modern world. I also recognise that some people with conditions such as tinnitus might find absolute silence to be too distracting. Where you both have and want silence what a privilege it is, and in some cases an asset to sleep as well.

For this week’s ASMR professional I came across a video from an artist who I first discovered by visiting a forum where someone was saying that this person was their favourite ASMR artist. The forum entry seems to be lost now and in my brief reviews of the videos (at that time) I did not find this to be my favourite artist.

I also discovered that all the original YouTube material for this channel was removed some time ago. It is therefore only where someone has reposted a video that you will even get the chance to listen:

ASMRaurette – Cranial Nerve Examination

The channel is Sapper MacDonald so not ASMRaurette.

A search reveals no ASMRaurette channel.

It seems that some personal information was leaked and ASMRaurette left YouTube for keeps.

However, there is some content on the Internet Archive.

Including

and

So, plenty of opportunity to try out the odd video and see if you like the sound.

Today’s video is a little less than seventeen minutes long. The notes are incredibly brief: “712,958 views 23 Jul 2014

20121010″

Comments are denied (perhaps wisely). There is no startup music but there is some background noise. The voice is very muted and almost childlike in fact (perhaps ASMRaurette was very young when she recorded this). The background noise seems to rise and fall which makes me wonder if it is the fan on the computer this was recorded on or similar. The visual quality is poor which may reflect the fact that this has probably been recorded from somewhere and not that well… (such as a piece of software used to stream and record a YouTube video, for example). Although not my favourite voice, this is still a very good voice and if someone caused this artist to leave YouTube then it was a sad day for ASMR fans, I fear. Perhaps a good opportunity to celebrate the videos that we still have.

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

Medical Training Videos

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

The next one in the series is this:

Airway Adjuncts – NPA, Guedel, BVM

Just less than eight minutes. The notes are: “272,764 views 13 May 2012

This video – produced by students at Oxford University Medical School in conjunction with the faculty – demonstrates the safe and correct use of airway adjuncts in maintaining an open airway.

It is part of a series of videos covering Respiratory Medicine skills and is linked to Oxford Medical Education (www.oxfordmedicaleducation.com)

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

The narrator has a reasonable voice; there is a small amount of hiss on the track, however. As before there is no music (hurray) and the approach is nicely measured.

The actual examination is silent, and so rather useful for us.

Oxygen Therapy and Delivery – How to Prescribe Oxygen

it is seven and a quarter minutes and the notes are: “695,126 views 13 May 2012 Nursing Skills

This video – produced by students at Oxford University Medical School in conjunction with the faculty – demonstrates how to deliver oxygen therapy through various devices, as well as the prescribing of oxygen. It is part of a series of videos covering Respiratory Medicine skills and is linked to Oxford Medical Education (www.oxfordmedicaleducation.com)

Please see the BTS guidelines for more information:

http://www.brit-thoracic.org.uk/guide…

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

The narrator has a good voice and the background noise consists merely of a muted hiss whenever the narrator speaks. The actual medical procedure is conducted in silence – which is quite useful in this context as we only have the narrator’s voice to attend to.

Inhaler and Nebuliser Explanation – Asthma

Just over five minutes and the notes are: “183,310 views 13 May 2012 Nursing Skills

This video – produced by students at Oxford University Medical School in conjunction with the faculty – demonstrates how to use a nebuliser and explain correct inhaler technique to a patient. It is part of a series of videos covering Respiratory Medicine skills and is linked to Oxford Medical Education (www.oxfordmedicaleducation.com)

Please see the BTS guidelines for more information:

http://www.brit-thoracic.org.uk/guide…

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

The narrator is not as good as the last video but still reasonably quiet. Background noise is absent as is startup music. The lack of startup music really distinguishes this set of videos from a number of others that we have reviewed.

The medical process is initially silent and so we only have to attend to the narrator which is rather good. However subsequently we realise that the narrator and the medical professional have either the same or similar voices (i.e. it is more than likely it is the same person) which makes for great continuity.

Peak Flow and Spirometry – Lung Function Tests

A little less than seven and a half minutes, the notes are: “464,178 views 13 May 2012 Nursing Skills

This video – produced by students at Oxford University Medical School in conjunction with the faculty – demonstrates how to perform the basic lung function tests of spirometry and peak flow.

It is part of a series of videos covering Respiratory Medicine skills.”

The narrator has a reasonable voice (not the best we’ve heard in this blog article) but it is adequate for us. The actual medical procedure is actually better than the narration in this one. However, the breathing exercises are too loud for this to belong in the Procrastination Pen playlist.

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

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

The Oxford Medical Education Hospitals playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

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

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

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

The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by DeepAI

Sleeping With ASMR

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

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

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

By all means, feedback if you disagree.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“【ASMR】 detailed medical exam for sleep ♡🏥

By: pillowdear ASMR

Published: Jan 20, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

Why not take a listen.

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

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

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

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

and

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

Today’s selected video is as follows:

Cranial Nerve Exams for Unintentional ASMR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SCEHResources ElkinsHypnotizabilityScaleEHS 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See you again next week.

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

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

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

The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by DeepAI

Sleeping With ASMR

The amount that has to be achieved in a day is increasing. As a result, I have to turn these reviews around more quickly than of late, and certainly more quickly than I did even last year, for example. It is likely that these reviews are going to be a little shorter going forwards but I will do everything to keep the quality high. (Well as high as it has been to date anyway, readers can decide at what level of quality they perceive that to be).

I have been reviewing an offering from Calm for a while now. I have a Calm subscription and, in many ways, I prefer listening to Calm content in order to get off to sleep. It is the lack of advertising in the content. It isn’t as if I have any objections to adverts, as such. It is the insistence that I give them my full attention. This is forcefully applied by making them louder than the video I was just listening to; fast paced, often with bright, fast-moving images and not taking into consideration the time of day. At 3am I want restful adverts, not some catchy tune or person loudly telling me that only they have the answer to this or that life problem.

However, Calm is not free and I do occasionally come across free resources that are not weighed down with adverts. Mostly they have no associated video so they will not embed well in a page. Often the ones I have located concern meditation, rather than ASMR, so a slight change of focus. But if people like the idea I will feature the odd one. Let me know what you think.

Today’s Calm is the following:

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

Daily Jay

Humility & Curiosity

NARRATOR

Jay Shetty

Jay has some of the more interesting and challenging content on Calm. I would not say he had the best voice on there for me that is probably Tamara Levitt. But I find myself listening to him more often than not and trying to adjust my mindset to the message (I am often nowhere near calm enough for a start).

This is a little under eight minutes in length, so will not keep you for long. It concerns the qualities that assist a person in navigating a world as confusing and challenging as ours is. I hope that you enjoy it (if you have a Calm subscription in any case).

Recently I read that Gen Z has the edge on persons of my age in the sleep habits that are recommended. What strikes me is the ability to compare apples with apples. As a young person I could sleep, within seconds, anywhere. Noise did not disturb me. I could go to bed early and sleep right through to the alarm. I could sleep all weekend going to bed on Friday after work and rising to the alarm on Monday morning. I could also go for days without sleep and apparently have few ill effects.

There is nothing like passing fifty to show the weaknesses. I now find that the least noise will wake me, if I go to bed at nine, I will wake at three. If I go to bed at any time I will always wake at my old work wake up time of 4am and then I need to make a special effort to go back to sleep because I no longer wish to wake then.

I have trouble getting to sleep at all some days and lie awake/do some reading/watch television, whatever seems to work. The Gen Z person is also not the only one to feel tired limited by such habits. Old people feel equally as tired I can assure you. The point being I have no doubt that a young person has better sleep habits. It is just that older people often have limited choices because they just sleep a lot worse – age seems to just do that. It was for this reason that the Procrastination Pen blog started looking into restful videos in the first place.

That, of course, brings us to where we are now.

At this stage I always review a professional ASMR artist and so today we have:

ASMR Soft Spoken Medical Exam

This is twenty-two and three-quarter minutes and so a little shorter than we have watched of late. Comments are permitted and are filled with the normal weirdness we have associated with YouTube, interposed with the normal comments we are used to for professional ASMR artists which are always positive, as far as I have found thus far.

There are notes, of course. These ones are a little different to the type of thing we are used to from professional ASMR artists:

“571,112 views 28 Aug 2025

♡ A SPECIAL thank you to my channel members who help make these videos possible ↓

THANK YOU!! :DD

I hope y’all enjoyed this one!! I’ve been listening to a lot of Avril Lavigne lately 😛 specifically the albums: under my skin, let go, the best damn thing, & goodbye lullaby

FAQs:

What is ASMR? A feeling of well-being combined with a tingling sensation in the scalp and down the back of the neck, as experienced by some people in response to a specific gentle stimulus, often a particular sound.

Why soft spoken? I loveee this type of ASMR and many others do too!!

Where are you located? East Coast of the USA!

Instagram: caitASMR

TikTok: caitASMRofficial

All of my links: https://linktr.ee/caitasmr?utm_source…

Transcript

Follow along using the transcript.

cait ASMR

401K subscribers”

However, you will notice no less lengthy for that. (I’ve heavily edited them or they would be pretty huge). It is from the channel cait ASMR. This has 401K subscribers, two hundred and sixteen videos, five playlists. None of the playlists are on a medical subject and so they are not in keeping with the theme we have been following for a while now.

As we would expect the voice is excellent, with a tendency towards the whispery. We have heard that this is a tendency that a number of professional ASMR artists make use of. I can only assume it is exactly the voice level that the majority of ASMR fans are demanding at the moment.

(Perhaps they always have).

There are, as we have heard before, a number of non-voice related noises, clicking noises, liquid noises, tapping noises, container unscrewing noises, tape measure noises, glove -related noises. I have, to date, assumed that these are exactly the noises that some ASMR fans are demanding.

I am only really interested in the voice. The voice here is very good and I may well come back to cait ASMR in the future. Why not review it for yourself.

I noticed this week that WordPress has a little AI button that is there to tell me all the things I did wrong when publishing a new blog article. It would seem that a great deal more work is needed in introducing, summarising, and concluding.

I sometimes wonder if I start to obey other people’s (or in this case a machine’s) recommendations, is the blog still mine? Does it then become a product of the AI which in fact I have simply fluffed a bit to give it a Procrastination Pen piquancy?

There are probably a great many people who do not bother to ask such questions. To guard against the circumstance in which the machine is correct and I am not a little more in the way of introduction. Just in case you have just landed from Oumuamua and wonder what the heck is going on, a few words on the blog.

Way back in the dim and distant it seemed to me I’d rather like to write something and, if I was going to write something, wouldn’t it be marvellous if some people would read it and better still, provide feedback.

It seemed obvious that the way to go was to put it on the Internet because wasn’t everybody doing that? Reviews seemed to suggest WordPress was a great platform for that – because wasn’t everybody using it? A life of posting articles and getting feedback glistened.

If anybody else has tried this, the next stages are probably familiar. Firstly, it is quite difficult to know what you want to call your blog. Secondly how do you go about getting a logo, what should you write about yourself and more to the point, what should you write about in terms of the blog?

Life goes on, pages turn, and people didn’t descend in their millions to praise and criticise and the purpose for the blog was lost. Anyone viewing the archive will probably notice that I quit blogging in 2018.

Then I realised that if the only reason to write was to get something back from other people, then there probably wasn’t any point in writing at all. One of the sagest pieces of advice I ever read is that people just don’t care about you. People care about themselves. For that same reason I wasn’t about to try to determine what people wanted me to write about. Because even if I found out, I wouldn’t be interested, unless (and this is probably quite unlikely) it also spoke to me.

That was 2022, and since then I publish a blog post at pseudo-regular intervals and sometimes people read it.

There was at the time, a huge number of ASMR videos on YouTube (and if anything the number has subsequently grown). I found some of them effective, a great many off-putting and I didn’t have the time to spend my days listening to them. It became obvious I was only ever going to be able to use them to get off to sleep at night.

It seemed to me that I am probably not alone in being bemused in navigating the YouTube wilderness of video recommendations. There might be, say, one other person out there with a similar taste in videos who also needs some material to use in getting to sleep.

I was going to need to navigate the YouTube video recommendations. To store the videos I found, I was going to need a playlist. If I made that playlist public, other people could also use it.

I was going to have to listen to each video to work out if it was worthwhile. Were there jarring noises, was the background drone too oppressive, had someone dropped the lapel mic into their pocket so it sounded like it was recorded through a filter? It might be useful to document the process; some people might agree; some people might vehemently disagree; most people would ignore it altogether.

As I have gone along, the playlist continues to grow. I keep listening to it at night. Occasionally one of the videos wakes me up or grates so much I find it hard to get to sleep in the first place. Such videos are ejected from the playlist and put into an archive list, in case someone, somewhere was listening and finds their favourite video gone. It also acts as a trail of the process; at least those videos made it through the initial critique (many more do not do so).

And so today, another video and another review.

People who have been reading the blog will possibly remember a blog item on Ayesha Mattu in which I was quite glowing about the quality of her voice.

Following that blog item, I have been meaning to make time to go back and seek out any videos featuring Ayesha to determine if there is any content which has an equally relaxing feel to it.

Women of Spirit and Faith: Ayesha Mattu

Just less than six and a half minutes it has a very relaxing tone to it. However, it incorporates an ongoing background music track – which is quite jarring. I’d prefer we just had Ayesha’s voice. The voice is really one of the better ones I have heard so it does not need adulterating with additional music.

It has notes “4,631 views 23 Oct 2013

Ayesha Mattu, writer and co-editor of “Love, InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women, explores universal questions of love, intimacy and spiritual co-leadership with her husband, Randy, leading up to the release of the companion anthology, “Salaam, Love: American Muslim Men on Love, Sex & Intimacy” (available Valentine’s Day 2014 from Beacon Press!). In sharing her own story, she hopes to spark interfaith dialogue and confront leading myths about Muslim-American men and women, and their search for Love.

Visit her blog at: http://loveinshallah.com

To hear more voices from Women of Spirit and Faith visit our web site: http://womenofspiritandfaith.org

and

The Divine Feminine Blog at www.patheos.com”

Despite the music, I think I’ll tolerate this and put it into the playlist, Her voice is really that good. (It might get weeded in future, however).

Ayesha Mattu & Nura Maznavi: Salaam, Love: American Muslim Men on Love, Sex, and Intimacy

At over an hour, this is a bit longer than the types of video I usually review. It is also a professional video and as such it has associated notes:

“8,744 views 12 Feb 2014

Harvard Book Store is pleased to welcome Ayesha Mattu and Nura Maznavi, editors of Love, InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women, along with four of their contributors: Ahmed Akbar, Dan I. Oversaw, Mohammed Samir Shamma, and Sam Pierstorff for a discussion of Mattu’s and Maznavi’s latest work, Salaam, Love: American Muslim Men on Love, Sex, and Intimacy.

From the editors of the groundbreaking anthology Love, InshAllah comes a provocative new exploration of the most intimate parts of Muslim men’s lives.

By raising their voices to share stories of love and heartbreak, loyalty and betrayal, intimacy and insecurity, these Muslim men are leading the way for all men to recognize that being open and honest about their feelings is not only okay—it’s intimately connected to their lives and critical to their happiness and well-being.”

This is a presentation and as such could not be said to be muted. Ayesha actually does not get a massive amount of air time. This is a shame as when she does contribute, her voice remains really calm, quiet and measured.

This one doesn’t belong in The Procrastination Pen playlist.

Ayesha Mattu and Ali Eteraz on Diffused Congruence Podcast: The American Muslim Experience

This also has notes “

49 views 2 Jul 2019

Ayesha Mattu, Co-editor of “Love, Inshallah” and its new sequel “Salaam, Love” talks about reactions to the books and what she’s learned from her audience. Also, Ali Eteraz, author of “Children of Dust” and the upcoming “Falsipedies and Fibsiennes” talks. about his book.

This is an unofficial channel created by a fan to create more awareness about the excellent “Diffused Congruence Podcast: The American Muslim Experience.” I do not own the audio interview or images.

The podcast explores and celebrates the many facets of the American Muslim experience with scholars, activists, and thought leaders. It has been hosted by Parvez Ahmed and Zaki Hasan since October 2013. This is episode 11 that was released on September 23, 2014.

You can stream or download other podcast episodes at: https://diffusedcongruence.podbean.com

Please donate to keep this great podcast going at: https://www.patreon.com/diffusedcongr…

Learn more about this podcast at http://www.facebook.com/diffusedcongruence or http://www.diffusedcongruence.podbean.com”

This has probably the most energetic startup music I have had the chance to review. Straight away I knew it was not going to be suitable for our purposes and at over one and a quarter hours I think I’d have to be really content with it to feature it more fully on the blog.

(Shame I couldn’t set the start and end time of the video, as I could have wiped some of that content out).

American Muslim Women Tell All About Love and Sex

which also has notes “39,694 views 1 Mar 2012

Twenty-four American Muslim Women, in a collection of published essays, open up on the issues of love, sex, religion, cultural norms and family expectations. Frances Alonzo of VOA Middle East Voices speaks to the co-editors of “Love InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women,” Ayesha Mattu and Nura Maznavi.”

At less than five and a half minutes it isn’t going to take long. Again, it has startup music, which is thankfully brief. There is a fairly strong set of background noise on it. I’m unclear why, as it seems to have been professionally recorded.

Thankfully Ayesha gets a reasonable amount of air time and that voice is worth tolerating challenges like background noise. The video might, however, get jettisoned after a protracted review.

Salaam, Love: American Muslim Men on Love, Sex, and Intimacy

Notes again “4,263 views 30 Apr 2014

Ayesha Mattu and Nura Maznavi discuss the process of compiling and editing Salaam, Love – a collection of essays written by Muslim men about love, sex and intimacy.”

A bit less than three minutes, so blink and you’ll miss it. Again, with the startup music and this time it is quite loud, but fortunately brief. There is a reasonable amount of air time for Ayesha so it is worth a spin in the Procrastination Pen Playlist.

That seems to be the best of the material available. It also marks an end to any series I might do on Ayesha. It’s a shame for our purposes that she does not have a channel (that I can find), as it would be one worthy of following.

Onwards till next week.

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

The Ayesha Mattu playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

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

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

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

The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by DeepAI

Sleeping With ASMR

Unfortunately, the available time for writing articles is shrinking. So I have the benefit now of being fully aware what it is to be under stress and to find that there is little time, post work, for the stress level to abate, before it’s time to close the eyes.

Life did not come with an off switch, and I have not yet developed the mental discipline to force the mind into quiescence against its will, as it were.

Still, this does mean that I can tell you that some nights, no amount of ASMR is going to help. You may have to take refuge in a Nytol or similar, and allow for the fact that you’re going to feel like a hibernating bear in the morning.

In which case, you have my sympathies.

For all those other occasions, can I suggest the Procrastination Pen playlist. If that does not work, by all means, feedback.

I was recently reading about the beneficial effects of certain mind-expanding mushrooms but personally I am way too cowardly to try them. Assuming I even knew where to buy such things. I assume I’m not going to find them in Tescos any day soon. Whether, as a result of all that mind expanding, you also can work out how to step through the doorway to sleep on demand was not made clear. However, if it were a reliable outcome there are some evenings I would be sorely tempted…

Today, again, I am making recommendation from Calm. Given a subscription is required, I am not certain just how useful to you this kind of recommendation is. If you find that such recommendations simply remind you of your impecunious circumstances, do feedback. The feedback is free, of course, and I will try to accommodate reasonable (or potentially unreasonable) requests dependent upon what they are.

Daily Jay

Chase the Future You

NARRATOR

Jay Shetty

https://www.calm.com/app/player/Ga3PYvH2pG

This is about role models and whether you are able to be one. I find Jay Shetty to be very good at inspirational material. Perhaps, though it isn’t always as great as Tamara Levitt in terms of calming. If you already have a Calm subscription, give it a try.

I have been, recently, evaluating a professional ASMR artist in these articles. I tend to be quite tough on them because they are professional ASMR artists. Where I would give latitude to an inadvertent ASMR video, I will not do so when the video is set up to have ASMR content. So far, I have found that many of the problems I find with inadvertent ASMR videos I also find in professional ASMR videos, and I wonder why this is the case. I also wonder if other people have noted the same thing. Please feedback about your own listening and preferences and what you find are the high points/low points of the current professional ASMR video offering.

Today’s selected professional ASMR video is this one:

The Steampunk Orthopaedist | ASMR Roleplay (medical exam, adjustments, personal attention)

It is just shy of thirty-four minutes in length and given it is from a professional ASMR artist it has notes (with the inevitable self-promotional material). Here is a brief extract: “293,422 views 7 Sept 2025

Welcome to a new doctor’s office! Tonight, we will be examining and treating your shoulder, arm and wrist using both classic and more unusual tools.

No music / no intro version: • No music | The Steampunk Orthopaedist | AS…

This video includes lots of personal attention, fabric sounds, unintelligible whispers and writing sounds.

Disclaimer:

This video was created for relaxation / entertainment only. For any serious trouble with sleep, stress etc., please consult your physician.

For more information about ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response), please have a look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonom…”

I rather like the disclaimer. I cannot remember seeing anything similar before.

It is from a well-seasoned channel Moonlight Cottage ASMR with 1.49M subscribers, one hundred and thirty-nine videos, sixteen playlists. I can declare straight away that in the past I have spent quite a while listening to videos from this channel and generally quite liking what I was listening to.

No doubt I will feature the odd-one in the future. That bias declaration out of the way let’s evaluate what this offering is like.

It starts with music which has shades of the Harry Potter about it, or maybe Bucks Fizz circa 1981. You know by now that I do not like startup music. As they go, this one is not the most disturbing I have come across. The video incorporates equipment noises, knocks, rattles, vibrations, paper noises, scribbling noises, rustling noises, clicking noises. These are not my preferred content for a video, but, no doubt, there is an ASMR fan out there that laps up this kind of material.

The voice is very good and for once (mostly) avoids whispering. I find the less whispering, the more believable, but perhaps the more whispering the better the ASMR effect…

That is not to say the voice is not intonated quietly. But then this is what we came here for.

The accent is interesting. I’m not sure where it is from but a quick browse tells me that it is France. I do like the sound and I’m sure I am not the only one. As expected, there are comments, equally expected they are nearly all in paroxysms of adulation over the video. (ASMR artists seem unique in holding at bay the darker comments I otherwise see on YouTube). I am not as easily impressed, but pretty close.

I do like the inclusion of the tuning fork. I’m sure there will be some who disagree. Habitually I am all about the voice, and I would say this is a good one. There has to be a reason for that high number of subscribers after all.

There are various beep noises from steampunk equipment and clunks from heavy objects being moved, none of which I find particularly welcome. No doubt it makes the situation authentic and that was the reason behind including noises of this kind.

If you are watching the video (say you were reading this blog and you’re not ready for bed yet) you will find that the presentation is amazing in its care and detail. Moonlight Cottage ASMR could otherwise double as a film set, every aspect is so carefully prepared. This puts many a video filmed from someone’s sofa to shame.

The steampunk era equipment (for that is where the video purports to be from) is very believable. The layout of the room very minutely detailed to present the theme of a mythical time when all medical procedures were somewhat different than we would expect today.

It was so peaceful in fact that together with the absence of any tail end music (heaven be praised), I had a nasty surprise at the YouTube advert which came up immediately afterwards.

I would say that this one is well worth a review yourself.

After a period of listening to the Procrastination Pen playlist I find that it is easy to get certain favourites in terms of videos and to disregard the others. The temptation is to keep only those few and dispatch the others. However, I suspect if I followed that philosophy after a while, listening to the playlist would be very dull indeed with the same few videos repeating over and over again.

The defence against this seems to be to continue to discover restful videos and to add them to the Procrastination Pen playlist, such that each night time’s playing brings a fresh surprise.

Today, we are back with a channel that we have reviewed before and it seems to consistently bring up restful videos. It is quite likely therefore that we will be back here again in the future.

The video is this one:

Approach to Nevi (Moles) – Stanford Medicine 25

and it is quite a short one at just over four- and three-quarter minutes. It is a professional video rather than, say, a student assessment video as such it has notes: “65,987 views 22 Jan 2016

From our dermatology series, this video covers all the basics you need to accurately describe complex and multiple skin lesions.

Related webpage: http://stanfordmedicine25.stanford.ed…”

(The notes are considerably longer than this, but I have edited them for length. I doubt you will be interested in spending an extensive period reading notes).

The related webpage is this one.

This informs us that the medical professional in the video is Jennifer Chen there appears no record of who the “patient” in this video is.

The video starts with more than one incidence of music which, as usual, is somewhat unwelcome, but at least it is somewhat muted. Jennifer has a good voice for our purposes but her voice is consistently accompanied by that music. I still have no idea why people recording videos do this, it is distracting.

The video ends with yet more music.

The channel, which regular readers will probably already be aware, is Stanford Medicine 25.

This has eighty-eight videos on the day that I am checking it. The video that we looked at above is the first of a playlist called “Stanford Medicine 25: Dermatology” https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE6bR3gooUQvSTs1iQuK6T5eyMTMf2kWl

This contains four videos and we have already reviewed the first one, so let’s cover the remaining three.

Diagnosing Acne vs. Rosacea (Stanford Medicine 25)

A sample of the notes is: “123,974 views 22 Jan 2016

From our dermatology series, this video covers all the basics you need to accurately differentiate between regular acne and acne rosacea.

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.”

The video is just over three minutes and stars Dr Chen again (the “patient” is not introduced). These videos are certainly fond of their background music, but in this case, Jennifer’s voice seems completely drowned out by it. This is a shame as it is almost the opposite of what we would like to hear. The balance between music and voice is completely off (assuming anyone wanted the music at all). It would have been preferable to delete the background music altogether and just to have Jennifer’s voice here.

Approach to the Dermatology Exam (Stanford Medicine 25)

An extract from the notes is: “154,988 views 22 Jan 2016

From our dermatology series, this video covers all the basics you need to accurately describe and diagnose any skin lesion.

This one is just less than eight minutes in length.

Comments are permitted and as expected they are somewhat variable, with limited contributions which add very much. There seem to be no comments that are feeding back from ASMR fans and given ASMR fans are like a squirrel in a hazelnut store when it comes to ASMR videos, this may not be a great sign.

Again, with the music, sigh. This time our medical expert is Dr Justin Ko. He is again in competition with ongoing background music. On the plus side he has a good voice – well paced in presentation, nice and calm. On the downside, at intervals, the music wins the competition. Please stop doing this Stanford.

The subject matter is quite off-putting. I can’t imagine skin conditions becoming top of the pops on any ASMR review. I certainly recommend that you don’t spend time watching this video, but only listen to it.

Some of the featured images are so unpleasant that I think, despite the quality of Dr Ko’s voice, this one cannot make it into the playlist. Too many people listening are likely to find it disturbing material, I think.

Approach to Multiple Rashes (Stanford Medicine 25)

This video is a bit over four and a half minutes. The (abbreviated) notes state: “57,958 views 22 Jan 2016

From our dermatology series, this video covers all the basics you need to accurately describe complex and multiple skin lesions.”

The comments do not lead us to suspect that ASMR fans have adopted this one (that might not be good for us). The now expected music at the start and, again, it continues as the medical professional is talking. Bernice Kwong who it turns out has a nice gentle voice (at least in this video).

Had the background music desisted, this could well have been a very good video indeed. There is again the finishing music. I am left with the sense that this set of videos could have been so much better without that music. I’ll trial them in the Procrastination Pen playlist, but I have a suspicion that they are going to get weeded in the future.

The Stanford Medicine playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

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

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

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

The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:

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

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

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

Until next time.

Photo by DeepAI

Sleeping With ASMR

A bit of shock this week. Fresh from a recent Procrastination Pen article discussing Melatonin as a sleep aid, an article describing the concerns about it and why it is not available off-prescription in the UK.

Daytime drowsiness is certainly something I have found, but I reasoned that compared to a night with minimal sleep it was not that terrible a side effect.

I leave it up to you to do your own personal risk-assessment, no doubt taking into account how badly your insomnia is affecting you.

Today’s Calm track is again, taken from the Calm Dailies rather than from tracks dedicated to sleep. That will probably continue for a while. Quite a lot of the material that organisations seem to think assist with sleep do not seem to work for me at all. That might be why I often find myself on the sofa watching dirge TV in the early hours rather than listening to “restful” music tracks.

The Calm track is this one:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/Wi1C26rnLi

Daily Calm

Bird by Bird

NARRATOR

Tamara Levitt

AUTHOR

Tamara Levitt

It is an excellent guide to taking each thing in its time. It comes from one of my favourite voices on Calm, Tamara Levitt. It seems certainly worth the few minutes it takes on the assumption that you have a Calm subscription, that is.

On the day I am looking at it, Calm seems to be priced at £39.99 a year (in the UK anyway). I can’t argue it is good value; indeed, I would not try to sell it to you. If it fits with the kind of material you would normally listen to, I leave it up to you to assess whether you want to spend that.

Established readers will know that for a little while (in the history of blog articles on the Procrastination Pen) I break off now to review a professional ASMR artist and to subject them to laser-focused critique. After all, they are setting themselves up as the pinnacle that ASMR can achieve.

Of late it has been a little disappointing, as I am finding the genuine ASMR artist’s videos have the shortcomings of the inadvertent ASMR videos. In addition, there will be a great deal of self-promotion and advertising thrown in.

I’m sure that I just haven’t found the real quality material yet and, any day now, an artist of truly awesome ability will dumbfound me.

Well, I live in hope.

Today’s video is this one:

ASMR POV You Visit the Sleep Clinic – Medical Exam for Insomnia

It is a little over thirty four minutes and so quite substantial, but we have noted of late that these professional ASMR artists do tend to produce videos of a healthy length.

Of course it has notes: “40,406 views 15 Aug 2025 #ASMR

🔔 *Don’t forget to subscribe* for more ASMR roleplays and relaxation content! Hit the notification bell to stay updated on our latest videos.

Thank you for watching, and I hope this ASMR experience brings you peace and comfort! 🥰

#ASMR

⤖ INSTAGRAM / sophiemichellegoodall

BUSINESS ENQUIRES: sophiemichelle_asmr@outlook.com

Lots of love x”

Refreshingly short notes there, and for a change it does not try to sell me anything.

It is from the channel SophieMichelle ASMR, this has seven hundred and three videos and 645K subscribers – crikey.

I am no longer commenting on attractiveness of artists, I’ll let you know if I come across someone of average appearance.

Of course, this channel features on the ASMR Index. I realise I am giving that site a mass of free promotion, feel free to ignore this…

It starts with music, but this is so subdued I think that you’ll barely notice it. The voice as you would expect is perfect, although as we have come to anticipate, veers a little too closely to whispery to be really believable (in a realistic medical context in any case).

There are comments and, given this is an ASMR artist, these have the halo of pleasantness so infrequently found elsewhere on YouTube.

I am not into rubber glove noises, I don’t find clucking sounds that appealing, and I find beeping from equipment to be off-putting. Against that, there is no air conditioning noise, noises from an adjacent road, or people talking in nearby rooms. There are, in addition, no noises from the moving of heavy equipment. I wouldn’t expect any of these in a professional ASMR video but sadly, some of them have decided to include one or more of those sounds.

There are crackling/crinkly noises, noises from paper/page turning and from the rustling of clothing. There are tapping noises, which I find wake me up if anything. I suspect some ASMR devotees are rather fond of one or more of these sounds. I am about the voice. This one is excellent. It does make me wonder how much of a medical-themed video this is. I have wondered this in connection with hair brushing in other videos, which seemed out of place other than to maximise ASMR “triggers”. I have the same suspicion here too.

Moving on to inadvertent ASMR videos (mostly medical videos – at least so far).

This week we are back to a channel that has featured multiple times on this blog here, here, here and also here. It is Geeky Medics. The videos so far have featured Dr James Lower and Dr Andrew Pugh and so below.

The dedication to this site has been because the videos there seem to be of a reasonably consistent quality (given that they are inadvertent ASMR videos in any case).

Of course, some readers will not have read the previous articles so I should mention that Dr Lewis Potter is the founder of Geeky Medics. The videos will all have notes that are similar (this has been established in those past blog articles). However, in order to cover the notes for new readers I will give a precis version with the first video.

How to Feel a Pulse | Radial & Brachial Pulses – OSCE Guide

A sample of the notes with the video: “120,381 views 16 Jul 2022 Cardiovascular OSCE Guides | UKMLA | CPSA | PLAB | MRCS

This video demonstrates how to assess upper limb pulses in an OSCE station including:

Introduction 00:00

Radial pulse 00:06

Brachial pulse 00:30

You can read our guide to peripheral vascular examination here: https://geekymedics.com/peripheral-va…

Check out our other awesome clinical skills resources including:

• 🔥 Geeky Medics Bundles (discounted products): https://app.geekymedics.com/purchase/…

• ✨ 1000+ OSCE Stations: https://app.geekymedics.com/purchase/…

• 🏥 Geeky Medics OSCE Revision Book: https://app.geekymedics.com/purchase/…

• 📝 150+ PDF OSCE Checklists: https://geekymedics.com/pdf-osce-chec…

• 🗂️ 3000+ OSCE Flashcards: https://app.geekymedics.com/purchase/…

• 📱 Geeky Medics OSCE App: https://geekymedics.com/geeky-medics-..

• 🩺 Medical Finals SBA Question Pack: https://app.geekymedics.com/purchase/…

• 💊 PSA Question Pack: https://app.geekymedics.com/purchase/…

Subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to know about our latest content: https://geekymedics.com/newsletter/ ✉️”

This video is a little less than one and a half minutes and yet sadly, it still finds time to squeeze in some startup music. It seems to be one of a sequence of short guides taken from earlier videos. I suppose that in some cases the advantage is that it avoids some of the less desirable noises.

The presentation is quiet, apart from a constant background hiss. The voice is nicely measured and calm.

Sadly, it concludes with more obtrusive music…

Lower Limb Pulses – OSCE Guide

I won’t put the notes in again, they are all similar. This is a little over two minutes and again has the same two participants. All of these videos would be improved by the removal of the music, of course. This is another short guide and I would say it is taken from a much longer video. (In fact, most probably one I have already reviewed – see the above blog articles for details). It is a lovely slow presentation and the voice is as good as in the previous video. The background noise is as before, and I think I’d be safe in saying it is going to be present in every one of these videos.

Neck Lump Examination – OSCE Guide

This one is nearly four minutes long. This time I do not think I have seen the content before. The background noise is, if anything worse than before. There are lots of on-screen sentences which provide guidance for medical students but, of course, these are not of interest to us in the slightest.

I would say that without the music, a string of these shorter videos chained together would be excellent night time – fall-asleep – material. Sadly though what with music and inter-video adverts, I am including them in the Procrastination Pen playlist under strict review. I maybe binning them in the future if they prove to be excessively intrusive.

I think I will make the next one the last one, to prevent this blog post stretching on too long.

It is this one:

Percussion & Auscultation of the Lungs – OSCE Guide | Clip

I am pretty certain this is a subsection of an earlier video. It is four minutes long and it contains breathing noises. These are intrusive and unwelcome and I think this means it can be discounted from the Procrastination Pen playlist.

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

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 DeepAI