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