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
The Procrastination Pen 