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.
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.”
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
The Procrastination Pen 