Every once in a while I like to remind readers why we are here, what this series of blog articles on the Procrastination Pen is designed to achieve, and why you might want to read, especially if you suffer for sleep.
If you are privileged enough to get ASMR symptoms then you will already be familiar with the fact that certain sounds can have a profound effect. For some people, there are physical sensations (often referred to as tingles). For many, there is a sense of wellbeing or relaxation when a certain sound is playing.
The effect is now well documented and so recognised that even mainstream newspapers have articles on it (and not all of them are critical!)
For those not so gifted it is often the case that quiet and calming sounds can be more effective at promoting relaxation than absolute silence (if there is anywhere in your current environment where you can achieve true silence, then you are truly privileged in any case).
For this reason, websites now carry not just articles about ASMR but videos purported to cause such relaxation or full ASMR effects. Sadly, claims for ASMR are a bit of a stretch as it seems that the sounds that cause ASMR are as individual as the person who is listening to them.
A number of people seem to find slurping noises relaxing, some prefer scratching or the sound of running water. For others, some of these sounds are positively off-putting. One person’s ASMR sound is another person’s grating, irritating noise.
I try, therefore, to mute any claims about ASMR for this blog as I can only comment about sounds that work for me. I like quiet voices, gentle and calm behaviour. I think there is a large subset of ASMR fans who like the same thing.
There is no shortage of videos on the popular YouTube site and many of them claim to be great for ASMR. I have listened to many. I found some were interesting, very few effective, most to be irrelevant to me.
I believe that this affects many people. How to arrive at a situation where you only get to listen to those videos which are genuinely relaxing? I considered that the only method was to listen to many – many videos and to keep a record of the ones that are genuinely relaxing for me.
There are probably several people who do the same thing. We are duplicating the effort in order to arrive at playlists of relaxing videos.
I use relaxing videos to get to sleep, I am old, I do not sleep well. There are many people who are either old or who do not sleep well and some of whom who are both old and who do not sleep well.
I have found that having a playlist of relaxing videos playing actually helps. (It would help even more if YouTube would quit playing loud and intrusive adverts during the night time hours – by which I mean any time between 21:00 and 07:00 – when I assume the majority of people have some kind of sleep window. However, I do not control YouTube or have the power even to make suggestions, so I work with what I have.)
I assume that many people would profit from having a playlist like this available to them. This blog is old and hence the name the Procrastination Pen precedes this idea by many years (Perhaps now I would call it ASMR Sleeping or something – however I assume there are many similar sites out there.)
Hence the Procrastination Pen is this blog, the Procrastination Pen is my YouTube channel which contains the playlists, the Procrastination Pen is the Facebook page which links to them, the Instagram page, the Twitter account and so on and so forth…
All of which is designed to inform people that there is a consistent effort going on attempting to identify suitable videos, to create a playlist of such videos and to share the playlist so that they do not have to do the same thing.
With the many ASMR channels on YouTube, I realised that there is little margin in reviewing those (unless there is demand), so I focus instead on videos which were created for another purpose i.e. whose relaxation effects are an unintended side effect rather than the main aim.
For a while now, the focus has been any variant of a medical examination video as these seem a rich source of material. I make occasional forays into other areas.
The blog allows comments, via which you can make suggestions (sensible ones I may even consider for the playlist).
The playlist is also used by me, regularly. One upshot of which is that if I find any of the included videos are not as relaxing as at first thought they get removed.
This should ensure that the playlist remains true to its original intent which is to help people get to sleep and to drift off again if you, as many of us do, wake several times during the night.
If you are still reading this far, well done, you’ve proven that you have a great span of attention and your reward can be today’s video. Which is this one:
Abdominal Examination – OSCE Guide (Latest)
At a bit less than eight and a half minutes this is not a huge video it is a professionally produced video and so has notes, and what notes, possibly the most extensive notes I have read thus far on any of the videos so far reviewed. For this reason I am only including the edited highlights in this article:
“6 Oct 2018 Clinical Examination (OSCE) Guides
We’ve just released a collection of 500+ OSCE Stations! 🙌 https://geekymedics.com/osce-stations/ See the written guide alongside the video on our website https://geekymedics.com/abdominal-exa…
The ability to carry out a thorough and slick abdominal examination is something every medic needs to master. This video aims to give you an idea of what’s required in the OSCE and you can then customise the examination to suit your own personal style.
Check out our other awesome clinical skills resources including:
– 📱Geeky Medics OSCE App: https://geekymedics.com/geeky-medics-…
– 📝 150+ OSCE Checklists (PDF): https://geekymedics.com/pdf-osce-chec…
– 🗂️ 2000+ OSCE Flashcards: https://geekymedics.com/osce-flashcards/
– ❓Over 3000 Free MCQs: https://geekyquiz.com/
– 🩺 Medical Finals Question Pack: https://geekymedics.com/medical-stude…
– 💊 PSA Question Pack: https://geekymedics.com/psa-question-…
– 🏥 Medicine Flashcard Collection: https://geekymedics.com/medicine-flas…
– 🔪 Surgery Flashcard Collection: https://geekymedics.com/surgery-flash…
– 🫁 Anatomy Flashcard Collection: https://geekymedics.com/anatomy-flash…”
So unusually for inadvertent ASMR videos this one pins its colours to the mast up front. It’s a medical video but the notes directly state “Some people have found this video useful for ASMR purposes”.
Comments are permitted and as expected some of these comments do not appear to be from medical students. I think we can conclude that ASMR fans are all over this. I rarely find a video where this is not the case. If there is a relaxing video a few hundred or more likely thousand ASMR fans will already have seen it and often have left some very esoteric comments. I guess it is a community thing which I do not fully comprehend.
The video is calm, quiet, methodical and is more or less perfect from our perspective.
The medical professional is “Andrew” and is a final-year medical student. It isn’t clear which course, or where, Andrew is studying.
The patient is “James Alexander” D.o.B 13/12/1989 (that’s December in case you use a different method of describing dates to the UK one). It might be that we select other videos with James in for review in this article.
There are no objectionable background noises and the introductory music is thankfully very brief. However, the abdominal sounds might prove a bit off-putting for some. It might fall victim to a future weeding process but I intend to include it in the Procrastination Pen playlist.
The channel is not an obvious one for relaxing videos (at least by inference from the name) it is: Geeky Medics and it has 1 million subscribers. This has to be something of a record for a channel reviewed on this blog. I was expecting tens of thousands of videos therefore but in fact two hundred and sixteen videos as at today’s date.
Given “James” does not appear in the comments to the video it is probable that a simple search of the channel isn’t going to pull up videos where he is the patient.
Instead, I’ll go the old-fashioned route and scroll through the two hundred and sixteen videos in the hope of spotting him from the image placeholder for the video.
There are some video shorts that feature James, however the first has funky background music and so is not suitable for what we are looking for:
The latter one features some disturbing breathing sounds and so I think we can discount that one as well:
The next video of any length to feature James Alexander is this one:
Cardiovascular Examination – OSCE Guide
The medical professional is again Andrew.
This is consistent with the last one in terms of approach, volume, startup music. The notes are almost the same as before (I’ll cease to feature the notes now as they are much the same between videos.)
This is just over eight minutes and as before is marvellously calm. However, there are some loud heart sounds which might be off-putting.
The next video is this one:
How to record an ECG – OSCE Guide
At just less than 4 minutes it isn’t huge. The startup music remains muted here. The medical professional is “David,” his voice is not as relaxing as Andrew, but it is still pretty good.
The video is predominantly quiet with limited input from participants. It is methodical and thank goodness, because the procedure looks to be a complex one. Thankfully this time there are no noises from internal organs.
The next one is this one:
How to take an arterial blood gas (ABG) – OSCE guide
This is just less than three and a half minutes and we are back to Andrew as the medical professional – welcome back Andrew.
James is a trooper. He gets asked the same questions at the start of each of these and repeats the answers without blinking.
Those averse to needles I suggest that you just do not watch but lay back and listen, it will be certain to put you off if you actually watch this.
Here we get a concluding screen that tells us the medical student was Dr Andrew Pugh.
And the patient was James Lower
Intravenous (IV) cannulation – OSCE Guide
Seriously if you do not like blood do not watch this. Andrew returns and this video might need to be archived from the Procrastination Pen playlist at some stage as I am sure I am not alone in finding blood related videos distinctly uncomfortable to watch. (It may encourage you to listen rather than watch however).
I decided to look for where Graham Bone was senior clinical lecturer and discovered that he is at South Tees NHS Foundation Trust. These support the following universities University of Hull, University of York, Newcastle University, University of Sunderland.
Therefore, it is likely it was filmed in one of those locations.
Modified Allen’s Test
This is a short extract from one of the videos we have already seen. (It’s possible many of the other shorter videos on this channel have been sourced in the same way).
Respiratory Examination – OSCE Guide (Latest)
I do get the feeling that these videos re-use material from other videos, possibly this is why James is able to blithely respond to those early questions in exactly the same way. Here we have a video just over nine and a half minutes and unsurprisingly it is very similar to those already reviewed.
This one has some quite loud (and possibly off-putting breathing related noises).
So where is Dr Gareth Hynes Respiratory Registrar and does this give us any more information about where this was filmed?
It looks like Gareth is at Oxford University Hospitals so that muddies the waters if anything.
Spine Examination – OSCE Guide
Back with Andrew and a video just less than five and a half minutes in length.
So where is Mr Tejas Yarashi Orthopaedic Registrar (ST7)?
Tejas is currently at Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust but it looks like the last time he had (ST7) as a qualifier was at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.
Lung sounds (respiratory auscultation sounds)
This is just less than one and a quarter minutes and mostly off-putting breathing related noises, I suspect we can discount this one.
So was Dr Gareth Hynes ever at Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust? It appears not.
Heart murmur sounds (cardiac auscultation sounds)
Another short one at just over two minutes and is mainly heart related noises, again I think we can discount this one
So where is Dr Matthew Jackson Cardiology Registrar (ST6)? Well it turns out that I can’t locate him so I’m not too certain.
Shoulder Examination – OSCE Guide (Latest)
just less than six and a quarter minutes and as for the previous videos so for this one. Andrew and James again and at this rate the blog post will be encyclopaedic, I think I will split this post into many and cover all the other videos in a subsequent blog post.
An absence of strange noises on this one though makes it a great deal more appealing.
Definition:
Crepitus, noises from the joint
Supraspinatus small muscle in the upper back
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 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 Chris Vanhove on Unsplash
The Procrastination Pen 