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.
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
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.
I was watching in amazement this week as a colleague edited together a video for use on Instagram using only his phone. I was recognising why the age of the blog has truly sailed. Although it was obvious that the video editing took skill, and it took time, the output was so easy to consume. I could recognise, instantly, why thousands of followers migrate towards channels which produce video content.
It is quite easy to understand why people who, at one time,
would have read a manual or would have looked at a diagram, are now watching a YouTube video to try and get the same information. However, I cannot see myself producing YouTube material reviewing material which is also on YouTube.
Luddite I maybe, but I am not yet ready to give up on the idea that there is value in writing things down. Even if by so doing I am missing out on the more skilful operation of my mobile phone.
I hope, if you are reading this, you agree.
I have not changed the format of these posts for a while now (perhaps it is overdue for a change). This week, again, I recommend something from Calm for no better reason than I have a subscription to Calm and I listen with reasonable frequency.
(You should be aware that relatively limited free material exists on Calm and the following isn’t part of that).
The tendency to want to re-live perfect memories, attempts to recreate the experience never quite measure up. Comparison of the new experience with the previous one tends to make it less enjoyable. Resisting the urge to compare can improve the involvement in the present by leaving the past behind.
For some time, I have been on the lookout for material outside of YouTube because I would rather like the ability to leave adverts far behind. In practice I have found the results a bit variable. In some ways paying up for a service to get an advert-free experience may be the better approach. But, assuming for whatever reason you do not wish to do that, I remembered that during lockdown I came across a track by Rhonda Magee who I recall had a good voice. However, of course, I could not remember where I had come across Rhonda.
It turns out that Rhonda has a website and that there is a part of the site dedicated to meditations. But sadly, this just redirects to YouTube: https://rhondavmagee.com/meditations/
However, I did find a podcast page with a recording which is quite open to a listen for free:
There is a small amount of hiss on the track but I think there is enough material here to get an idea of the quality of the voice.
Recently when I have been reviewing professional YouTube ASMR artists, I have been going back into the past to re-listen to some tracks that I used to listen to years ago. At the time I was not sticking to a medical theme. The idea of reviewing ASMR videos had not even occurred, so the odd one has cropped up which is not even distantly medical. Today’s is like that:
ASMR Back Tracing w/ Scratch, Brushing, Buds & Oil Massage
So not even remotely medical then. Normal service will resume fairly soon.
It is from the channel WhispersRed ASMR. This has 1.12m subscribers, nine hundred and one videos, twenty nine playlists of which none at all seem to be on a medical theme. This could be the reason that WhispersRed has not appeared previously on this blog.
The video has notes (of course it does) and as usual (for a professional ASMR artist) these are extensive:
“10,592,056 views 3 Jun 2018 #whispersred #asmr
An ASMR Back treatment with nail tracing, a back scratch, brushing and oil massage.
Uploaded with love, Emma
Other back pampering videos –
• Childhood ASMR Triggers – #1 Back Tracing …
• ASMR Back Pampering | Brushing, Oil, Massa…
—————————————————————————————————————- 📚My ASMR Book – Unwind Your Mind: The Life-changing power of ASMR https://campsite.bio/whispersredasmr Published by Ebury/PenguinRandomHouse in the UK and Harper One in the US and Canada.
🎧 ASMR albums are available to download or stream on all services worldwide Search – WhispersRed ASMR 🎧
🌟Please LIKE if you do and SUBSCRIBE if you’d like to! This makes sure that new videos show up in your feed. Click the bell if you would like notifications for new uploads🌟
Disclaimer – This video is not intended to replace any medical care, therapy or counselling that might be needed. The benefits of ASMR in terms of a therapy is so far anecdotal and in the early stages of published research. This video is intended for a mature audience for the purposes of mindfulness, relaxation and entertainment.
Product links – These are usually affiliate links. Anything you purchase through them will help in the running of my YouTube channels. However, I only link items I bought myself and/or use regularly.
#asmr #whispersred”
So, we have now discovered that WhispersRed is called Emma. Later on (whilst watching the video) we find that her subject is called Stephanie. Comments are permitted, and there are literally thousands of these. One that stands out for me is one that asks for YouTube to ensure that ASMR videos are not accompanied by loud adverts. A drum which I have been banging for a considerable time now.
The video is in excess of forty three minutes which is long for one we have reviewed of late.
It starts in full-on whisper mode accompanied by that strange mouth clicking sound that ASMR artists love so much. It is not off-putting though. At intervals it does get a little breathy for me.
There are of course noises not associated with the voice – nail clicking (these seem to go on a bit), hand rubbing, liquid noises, the sound of skin being brushed, squelching noises (I am not a great fan of these in ASMR videos, but I read comments that indicate some ASMR fans come to YouTube for just such content). This comes back to my theory that artists are hammering in every ASMR “trigger” that they have managed to think of in the hope of gathering more fans. I still feel that a video focusing on the gentle voice tone only would be more appealing but 1.12m subscribers seems to indicate that I am in a group of one…
The voice (as we might expect) is properly relaxing and I can hear why it was that I used to listen to this all those years ago. The pace is lovely, even slow in places; the volume is spot on. It is quite old-school now, in that there are not artificial breaks in the video to permit an (objectionably loud) advert to butt-in part way through. For me this makes the experience far more calming.
Around the half hour mark I did feel that I was ready to listen to something else, but then I was reviewing the video rather than trying to fall asleep to it. I’m sure if you’re reviewing it as a sleep aid you will find it is absolutely ideal.
Following the theme of recent blog posts, I will now turn to inadvertent ASMR (which has been the theme of this blog for some while now).
It probably should not be unexpected, but to me is still surprising, when people post medical videos some of the comments are from people who are really looking for a medical diagnosis. Perhaps this points to an area that people could home in on. A whole audience of people whose needs are not being satisfied and I doubt that they can be satisfied by those persons who are posting videos.
As you can probably tell from the above, we are back in the professional medical video category i.e. videos created with a purpose which is unrelated to ASMR. Historically some of these are quite good for ASMR purposes, some are barely adequate, and some are just awful.
But that is the reason this blog exists, to try and identify the odd diamond in all that refuse. Regular readers will have seen videos reviewed, videos trialled in the main Procrastination Pen playlist and videos retired into the Procrastination Pen archive list.
At the same time the video content is itself dynamic. We have seen videos, lauded by ASMR fans, removed on copyright grounds. Channels, apparently with thousands of fans, which disappear and some videos so popular that they disappear (often with their respective channel) only to appear again on another channel sometime later.
This blog will attempt to navigate these changes by maintaining a list of videos that can be played prior to sleep with the intention of allowing you to relax and minimising, as much as is feasible, jarring noises that might disturb that restful state.
Today’s video is listed in the order found, however, it is obvious from the title that it is the third in the series:
Neurology – Topic 3 – Sensory aspects of gait including Romberg’s test
This is a short video at less than four minutes. We seem to have arrived at the point in this review process where short videos have become the norm but I never know what I will find next, so you may find an hour-long video in the next review.
In common with the majority of professional videos we have seen recently this one has some notes: “20 Dec 2012
Sensory aspects of gait including Romberg’s test”
Not the most comprehensive notes but notes, nonetheless.
The comments, as usual, are a bit variable; I have previously concluded that permitting comments with a video is a brave move indeed.
The video is from University College Dublin and, as we expect, they have a YouTube channel eight hundred and twenty eight videos as at the time of review which is rather too many to examine in one sitting. Habitually such channels are university promotional vehicles which is exactly what we would expect.
Sadly, the video has startup music. Startup music is the bane of any ASMR video research. In this case it is not as offensive as some. I have, in the past, weeded out videos purely on startup music. I am hoping that in the future YouTube will introduce a function which allows me to add parts of videos to the playlist; in which case a great many will be subjected to top and tail behaviour. i.e., removing any funky music inclusions from these videos.
Professor Niall has a great voice; there is minimal background noise, not your classic ASMR but it should be calm enough to be relaxing (funky startup music allowing). Sadly, there are periods where it gets louder as if Professor Niall is presenting to a lecture theatre. It is quite fascinating, which is not the reason we are here, but causes me to stick with it.
Thankfully there is no tail end music to this particular video. Good enough for the Procrastination Pen playlist I think, although I aways reserve the right to weed it out if after a few reviews it doesn’t stand the test of time. There’s a couple in there right now that I am mulling over with a view to foisting them out.
The channel is UCD Medicine which has one hundred and sixty-three videos. That is a few I’m sure you will agree. Small wonder then that the channel has 52.7K subscribers.
There are five playlists and none of those seem to be connected with Professor Niall or with Neurology.
However, scanning the list of videos there are at least thirty-one videos on this subject and probably a great many more than that. I’m not sure I would feature thirty-one videos at one time in a single blog post even if they were all to feature Hollie Berry. On that basis therefore I’ll select the first five (including number three, which we just reviewed) and the later videos can form the basis of subsequent blog posts.
We are now into classic cranial nerve examination – which has been the subject of several blog posts previously
This is less than three minutes and yet again with the startup music – grr.
This time Professor Niall seems a bit on the loud side. I have the sense that this video captures a presentation to a class.
The location does not seem to assist in this respect I suspect a large room with a slight echo via the microphone. I always wonder why lapel mics are not more frequently in use. But I imagine additional microphones=additional cost.
A much more substantial video in that it is nearly nine minutes but still short in terms of some of the videos reviewed previously.
I think we can now take it that all of these will share the irritating startup music. Here again we encounter Professor Niall at his best in terms of his voice. We discover that the patient is “Peter”.
Unfortunately, Professor Niall gets louder. It’s a shame because at the start the video is lovely and quiet. If only I felt empowered to take the video and edit it down but I have no doubt a number of solicitors would be delighted if I tried that and the Procrastination Pen would be added to the channels on YouTube that disappear without trace.
However, there are long periods where Professor Niall settles into what must be his default which is a lovely voice to listen to. Perhaps in the future I will look for other material by Professor Niall as there might be the odd one which is properly quiet throughout.
Now, the assurance that we would cover up to video five was made without understanding how the videos progress on this channel, whilst videos one to four were individual videos there is now video 5a to 5j with some of the videos appearing both with and without notes.
I feel it is fair therefore to split the approach to video 5 I think your attention muscles probably will have had enough if I push too far so I think as far as 5c in this blog item and then pick up a future blog item at 5d.
Neurology – Topic 05a Cranial Nerve 1
Here Professor Niall is obviously presenting to a class, it is loud. Again, there are moments where the voice is excellent. Each one of these videos is tantalising in that it is not quite excellent for ASMR but has the potential to be so.
Neurology – Topic 5a Cranial Nerve 1 with notes
A duplicate of the above video – with notes included.
Neurology – Topic 5b – Cranial Nerve 2
A truly substantial video in excess of eighteen minutes. It starts loud and continues loud. Fair doos, the guy at the back of the class needs to hear what you are saying but it makes it less than gorgeous from an ASMR perspective.
Here the patient, in fact has a better intonation for the purposes of ASMR (well he is quieter). I think his name might be Donnacha (with apologies to Irish readers if I messed that name up).
It is even possible that Donnacha may have a channel all of his own but that is for a future blog item if so.
Neurology – Topic 05b – Cranial Nerve 2 with notes
As before a duplicate video to allow for the addition of notes.
Neurology – Topic 5c – Cranial Nerve 3,4,6
A little over seven minutes in length but sadly no quieter. Shame about that classroom setting. I suppose we can take succour from the fact that there are no infernal air conditioning noises.
Neurology – Topic 5c – Cranial Nerve 3,4,6 with notes
With notes
And that’s it this time, I think I’ll come back and give it another try Professor Niall probably has a few gems to offer.
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.
I had been stockpiling blog articles and had built up quite a number, to the extent that for several months I simply stopped writing. There was every danger that videos would be taken down from YouTube before the article ever saw the light of day and hence any evaluation of the videos would have been a waste of time.
I am happy to report that the backlog is now so tiny that I am danger of running out of material for the blog altogether. I am sure that regular readers would be delighted deeply concerned in case that happened.
Perhaps this is now a good time to start bringing some changes, in order to inject a little more life into the blog, but without the drama of a revolution. To this end I thought I would review at least one video on a medical theme that comes from a professional ASMR artist. If this proves to be a popular change, perhaps I will make it permanent.
Moonlight Cottage ASMR has 1.39M subscribers at the time I am looking at the channel. Some details of Moonlight Cottage have been recorded online., So obviously Moonlight Cottage is a professional ASMR artist (and a very successful one). The channel has one hundred and twenty nine videos and so there is space there for many videos which are not on a medical theme. So far so good.
However, I have self-elected to stick to a medical theme for the moment, so I have selected the following video:
It is a little over half an hour and so substantial enough in length and, given it is a professional ASMR video, we are setting the standard very high in terms of review.
It starts with an ocean which is that great standby of relaxing tracks but sadly also with music… It isn’t particularly oppressive music, but I was expecting something spoken or even whispered. It is beautifully constructed in the manner of a professional film, good costumes, effects, scenery but that isn’t why we are here. What does it sound like?
There are a number of distractions in terms of triggering sounds that work for some ASMR fans but sadly not for me: rustling noises, scraping noises, beeping noises. If one of these is your trigger then fill your boots.
As expected, the person participating has an excellent voice and is exactly the correct tone. I am guessing if this was not the case then 1.39M subscribers would be subscribing elsewhere.
However (and no doubt due to the science fiction theme) there are a number of less welcome noises as well. Clicks, beeps and whirring noises crop up sufficiently often to be distracting. There is also a constant background hum as if the video was shot in an area with air conditioning, but I suspect was added to improve the perception of the video being shot inside of a spaceship or similar. Usually I hope to get videos entirely without such background noises but I can see why it was done in this case. There are clunks from equipment, and further sounds from it being dragged – the sort of noises I have avoided in inadvertent ASMR videos.
The tail end of the video contains no speech at all, but more of the beeps, sliding noises, background air conditioning noises i.e. the parts that were less impressive about the rest of the video.
All that said, the bar was set very high, precisely because this is a professional ASMR video and I do think you could do worse than listen to the video for yourself. I’ll add it to the Sweetie Jar list which currently is the only one I have for such professional videos.
That may change if this aspect of the blog proves to be more popular.
So, now we have dispensed with the additional extra video, what about the meat and potatoes of this blog i.e. an inadvertent ASMR video.
Today’s video comes from a site which regular readers will well recognise:
It is only five- and three-quarter minutes long and has a little of the straight-to-video quality about it. The patient is Mr Jackson. The notes tell us something about the participants “Presented by Dr Adrian Stanley PhD FRCP Consultant in Cardiovascular Medicine. Produced and Directed by Dr Irene Peat FRCR FRCP, Dr Nicholas Port MBChB BSc and Jon Shears.”
Fortunately for us Dr Stanley has a great voice. The video is not hampered by startup music but it is by the constant background noise, presumably from air conditioning. The pace is good rather than excellent. But it is quite relaxing, I think.
This forms part of the Clinical Examinations playlist which is ten videos long – perhaps a little long for us today.
However, the University of Leicester does have another Cardiovascular based video worth examining, which is this one:
Cardiovascular Examination – Explanation
This one is nearly thirteen minutes long and shares many of the attributes of the last one, only more so, obviously. There are a few more noises as Mr Jackson gets to undress at the beginning, but Dr Stanley still has a great voice and in this longer video the pace seems much more measured (that might purely be personal perception). There are heart sounds included in this one but these are not excessively loud or off-putting.
The University of Leicester Playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:
I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.
The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:
I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.
I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.
If you liked this blog article why not follow this blog.
Recently I have been thinking about the various ways that I have tried to assist sleep over the years. Some of those have, of course, been chemical and only one of those was truly effective.
For the briefest of occasions, I did receive genuine-prescribed-by-a-doctor sleeping pills. These definitely work and I seemed to have none of the side effects detailed in the included pieces of paper. However, I suspect they are addictive as the prescription covered a bare few days and then it was back to one’s own devices.
The night before days in the office, I commonly have problems sleeping. For that I have often taken Nytol. Nytol is odd stuff. Some nights I take it and I barely make it upstairs before my eyes are closing. Then I am zonko. Some nights it is as if I have taken a sugar pill and I am laid there counting the marks on the ceiling. I have often wondered if there is some circulation problem in the manufacturing plant and the odd pill has zero active ingredient in it. No doubt the manufacturers of Nytol would have a completely different take on it.
Some years ago, I saw a YouTube presentation by a UK sleep expert who recommended popping a melatonin pill about half an hour before sleep and there would be no need for counting sheep.
The problem being it is almost impossible to get in the UK. I have taken some when travelling in either North or South America (where it is widely available). I found it rather like the Nytol. Sometimes it is as if the doors of sleep have wanged shut all of a sudden and somedays it is as if I had an unhealthy caffeine habit. It has been recommended to take it in association with 5-HTP and I did try that. I’d say the efficacy is improved but marginally in my experience.
I have tried standard Kalms and night-time Kalms, Bach Rescue Remedy and the herbal version of Nytol. These seem to have limited effects other than sometimes the nature of my nightmares were much more vivid and therefore more nightmarish… (However, if you love a good nightmare, it is as nothing compared to St John’s Wort which could win records).
The issue with all such remedies to my mind (and was not shared by the genuine sleeping pills) is that they get you to sleep but do not keep you there. Marvellous being in zzzs land at 9pm. Not so marvellous when you spring wide awake at 3am despite feeling that you have done so from the bed of a river. Worse that, having thus sprung awake, no other remedy is available to get you back off to sleep before the inevitable alarm at 5am.
It was for this reason that I went in search of a soothing backtrack. If I have to lie awake in the early hours of the morning, better to do so calmly and in as relaxed state as I can possibly accomplish than to lie fretting about all the sleep I am not getting.
Most recently I have been using Calm, for this to a greater or lesser degree of efficiency. I am going to start making recommendations from there. I have hesitated only because it is a paid-for option and I hate to leverage people into paying for anything. I am no salesperson and have no ambitions to become one.
Of late, I am making the odd foray into professional ASMR artists in these articles, if only to contrast with the inadvertent ASMR that this blog has specialised in for so long. I haven’t been featuring the many that are frankly awful. (There seem to be a fair few of these). I have the bias that if you set yourself up as a professional ASMR artist, then your offerings should be excellent. At the very least, they should be consistently restful.
Of course, YouTube now has adverts shoehorned into every corner and most of them are about as restful as a thoroughgoing slap.
This video is a foray away from the medical theme that I have stuck with for a long time. Mainly because I am having trouble finding a good one on the medical theme. I thought the tone of this video rather good; you may not share my opinion on it.
ASMR | Night massage with gua sha, herbs, natural oils (soft spoken)
I am always nervous about anything massage in case that is a euphemism for some other kind of video (which hopefully I don’t need to define). Both participants have clothing, excessive skin does not seem to be exposed and there are no offers to see more on an OnlyFans site somewhere.
This is a bit breathy for me but at least it does not seem to involve fingernails on fabric, strange vocal intonations into a microphone or bizarre squelching noises coming from who knows where.
It eschews music (hurrah) but there are some noises coming from brushing hair. (Perhaps that is even your thing, who knows).
Itsblitzz is the channel and it has 840K subscribers and three hundred and eighty videos. I see that there are three playlists. However, beware, some of these videos actively promote certain products. I have made this an attribute which embargoes a video from featuring in this blog. They will start with “the sponsor of the video this week…”. At which point I just move on.
The video is a little over forty-two minutes in length (hopefully enough to get you nodding off) and contains notes:
In tonight’s video, I have brought back one of my favorite humans to experiment with some new techniques and tools (our other video can be found here: ASMR | Head massage and energy healin… ). This was a spur of the moment session, and I am happy that Elizabeth was free to come over. She is such an easy person to be around, and everything felt very natural and relaxed. I use some gua sha tools in our session as well as some natural sprays and oils. Gua sha is a skin scraping technique used in traditional East Asian medicine that can also be performed with a spoon or other smooth object. Typically, it leaves marks (petechiae) but tonight I will just be using the tools to aid in massage. I am using light to medium pressure to avoid abrasions. I will demonstrate and discuss other gua sha techniques in the very near future on my channel.”
There are of course comments, and as we have noted, where comments are permitted there shall ye find less than helpful comments. So here too.
Anyway, that was the distraction of the week, onto the main feature which takes us back to the world of YouTube medical videos.
MRCP Paces: Station 1, Neurology section (Upper Limbs)
This is fifteen- and three-quarter minutes long and surprisingly for a video from a hospital has no notes. Less surprisingly it has no comments either. I can probably by now guarantee that if it has ASMR content then ASMR fans have already discovered it.
It features Dr Shuja Punekar who straight away has a good voice. It also features air conditioning noises which are less welcome. It does not have start up music which is great.
The feedback section of the video which occurs at eleven minutes has air conditioning noises akin to the sound of the M25 at rush hour. It is actually loud and would have discounted the video had it been there from the start of the video. It also serves to partially mask the voices of the participants.
This one is from Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust YouTube channel. There are five hundred and fourteen videos, twenty-six playlists (one with one hundred and eight videos in it). So, there is hope that this channel might be an ASMR resource for us for a lengthy period of time.
MRCP Paces History
Again, this features Dr Punekar and is very similar at the start as the last video. If anything the background noise is higher and the voices of the participants sound more distant than in the previous video.
There are various background noises which sound rather like doors opening and closing (possibly in an adjacent room).
The participants voices are calm and measured, with just the air conditioning for company.
This time the post-mortem phase in which progress of the student is discussed does not appear to have any higher participation by the air conditioning.
MRCP Paces Station 4: Communication and Ethics
This is a bit over nineteen and a quarter minutes and features Dr Punekar again. Again, the introduction is calm and quiet. The air conditioning’s participation is not excessive.
However, this is really quite stressful, not the kind of video that I think we will want in the Procrastination Pen playlist.
There are a lot of videos in the MRCP Paces series and so I use this as a whet your appetite introduction and we can return in the future and hopefully do a few more.
The Blackpool Teaching 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.
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The Procrastination Pen 