Student Video – The Procrastination Pen

I’m sure this happens to a number of people who write blog articles. I often find that in reading back through the blog, I am not convinced that I wrote it. Certainly, there seem to be some articles that do not sound like me at all, as if I had on a Hyacinth Bucket accent whilst typing it. In any case, the endeavour is to produce high-quality output of the type that many of you will desire to read on a weekly basis. If you find that to be true do tell all your friends, by the way.

By this time, we are some way into the journey that has been “Sleeping With ASMR” such that many of you will be familiar with how it has worked so far. This is also how it is probably going to continue to work, unless one day I decide to shake things up a bit.

To fill in the gaps for anyone new to the blog, it exists to review YouTube videos. Each week I will find a video and review it to see if it might be helpful in the drive to encourage the restless to restful. I will focus on whether it is sufficiently quiet and whether the participants have a pleasant, relaxing voice. I will also point out the detractors such as loud equipment noises, oppressive air conditioning, background chatter and so on and so fifth.

Many of the videos I find are posted on a YouTube channel containing more than one video. Where this is the case, I will frequently take the opportunity to look at other videos from that channel to determine if any others would be great for relaxation or better still, could produce ASMR symptoms in those lucky enough to have them.

This week a video which is slightly less than fifteen and a quarter minutes in length, which is not lengthy in comparison with some we have seen.

Respiratory Assessment

Immediately the medical professional has a good quiet voice. Even though the style is of a presentation it is not overly loud which makes a nice change.

The video continues quietly and without extraneous noises, which is great to hear (or not hear perhaps). The video cuts at intervals abruptly from one scene to another, but if you are listening you may well not notice.

It does cut to background breathing noises which might be off-putting for some people. Also, the narrator abruptly changes to someone who is a bit louder (but still not overly loud).

I think I’ll put this in the Procrastination Pen playlist, but it might be subject to weeding in the future.

The channel is:

University of Manitoba Nursing Skills, there are eighty videos and 55K subscribers.

The University of Manitoba turns out to be a university in Western Canada.

Of course, it has its own channel with 1.2K videos as at today’s date. However, experience tells us that these will be predominantly about promoting the university and little to do with ASMR (unless it is quite exceptional).

The medical professional in the video chosen above appears in quite a number of the others. This makes slimming down those eighty videos to a number that can be comfortably reviewed in one blog post less straightforward.

However, as luck would have it the video selected occurs in an existing playlist:

Health Assessment

I will focus on the videos in this playlist, but I may well return to this channel in the future.

There are four further videos in this playlist as follows:

Abdominal Assessment

This video is a little under seven and a quarter minutes. It starts quietly again. There remains no clue as to the participants. The approach is gentle and considered.

This one is a substantial improvement on the first one selected in that there are no intrusive breathing noises added. No doubt for their educational rather than restful value (that is the point of the video after all).

CVS & PVS Assessment

This one is just less than seventeen and a half minutes so the longest we have seen so far and in fact the longest of the five videos in the playlist. At odds with other professional videos we have seen this one has no associated notes. But at least comments are denied (We’ve seen enough bizarre and rude comments to last a long time).

The presenter’s voice is really excellent and if it were not for the odd equipment noise or inserted sound track these videos would be up there with some of the better ones reviewed so far. As it is I will put them all to protracted listening review and if those extraneous noises prove off-putting, I will consign them to the archive list.

This one starts as beautifully quiet as the others. However, there are inserted heart beat sounds which may be off-putting to some people, they are louder than the medical professional for example. There is also a set of pulse sounds and associated crackles which are not fantastic either.

Neurological Assessment

This one is less than seven and a half minutes and as before it starts quietly. We discover that the “patient” is called Justin but still no means of determining who the presenter is. It is consistently quiet and so quite possibly the best one of the set so far.

Integumentary System Assessment

This is the shortest one of the videos featured in this article at just over six and a quarter minutes. It has the same approach as the others and so is equally quiet and well presented. I also like the intonation that the presenter uses, your mileage may vary. The medical professional is very gentle in approach and the video appears to be to be relaxing. Thankfully this one does not have any added noises. That is welcome given so many of the others do have this.

Overall this is a good playlist. I will add them to the Procrastination Pen playlist but some of them, I have a suspicion, will be weeded in the future.

The University of Manitoba Nursing Skills playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

The Procrastination Pen playlist (which is no-doubt what you have all been reading this in order to locate) is found here:

I have been listening to that playlist most nights and some of the videos that were members have now been removed. If any of your favourites are missing from that main playlist you can find them here in the archive list:

Quite often the videos getting removed have no faults other than occasional intrusive noises.

The playlist of items that are great for ASMR (but contain an age verification function), usually a great way to interrupt your listening in the middle of the night, is here:

I hope that you find the playlists restful and that you get a good night’s sleep.

Hope to see you again back here for the next blog article.

If you liked this blog item, why not subscribe to this blog.

Until next time.

Photo by Shona Macrae

On The Procrastination Pen there is the occasional foray into sites purposefully created for ASMR videos, but it is not the main purpose of these blog posts (well not so far anyway).

Occasionally, it is so much easier to just review a video from one of these sites as they’ve been selected previously for ASMR. So I do not have to find one from amidst the many noisy and poorly recorded videos out there.

However ASMR symptoms seem to be stimulated by many different triggers, such that many of these sites cater to people who are looking for a very different kind of video to the ones I would find restful.

Today, I am once again on a channel whose purpose in life is stated right up front “ASMR Sandwich Breath” is the channel. We’ve covered “sandwich breath” before. The whole ASMR world is now like a giant clique with its own terms and ideas (only a very few of which I understand).

The channel has forty eight videos. Fortunately for us all on a medical theme which is an area this blog has largely been focused on (although I do occasionally stray). Unfortunately a number of them have been covered before as they are still available on the original sites.

For that reason I am a bit nervous about today’s video, as I guarantee in a short while I am going to find it wherever it originally came from and will then feature it again.

This is today’s video:

Health Assessment Unintentional ASMR

It seems to be one amongst the rich seam of student videos which has been mined for material on this blog of late.

This one does not have the greatest sound, which makes me wonder why a curated selection of this sort would have nominated it, as we know absolute gems like the Vicki Scott video are out there. However I have chosen to run with it as well, so there must be aspects to it worthy of listening to.

The sound is far too muted, but the approach is gentle and calm which makes a positive difference. I’d be interested in finding the original if it is still out there as I do like to feature original videos (where they still exist).

As usual, where comments are permitted, a smattering of unwarranted nasty comments. I am getting in favour of videos that don’t permit comments for this reason.

The patient “Bernie” (probably misspelled) and the medical professional “Caitlyn” (also likely misspelled), not quite enough for me to go searching independently for the video.

There are playlists on ASMR Sandwich Breath and I could use them to guide selection of videos for this blog article. However, we are in danger of covering videos already featured elsewhere in this blog.

I think I will go for the tested technique of selecting videos which feature the same “patient” or the same medical professional.

I have to make some guesses, but I am pretty certain the following have the same medical professional:

HEENT Exam Unintentional ASMR

As with the previous video the sound is still a bit muted. However the approach remains calm and gentle.

This also features Bernie and Caitlyn – the spellings are fixed now until someone corrects me…

Musculoskeletal Exam Unintentional ASMR

Bernie and Caitlyn again. I notice that they even share nail polish colour (which might be coincidental, but I would have thought indicates this is more likely two students involved in an assessment video).

One of the commentators refers to a participant as “Brittany” so possibly I may have misheard the name here.

Neuro Exam Unintentional ASMR

From the comments, others have been looking for the original videos for this set and not been successful in finding them. So I am a bit reassured in featuring videos from a site designed to curate ASMR videos – it’s doubtful we would find them elsewhere.

We’re now thoroughly used to the approach of this exam. Some people could probably repeat the steps themselves from the sheer number of times they’ve seen videos of this type.

I think these are consistent enough to be in The Procrastination Pen Playlist

In deference to the commentator, I’ve labelled the playlist on The Procrastination Pen “Brittany and Caitlyn” it is here:

The Procrastination Pen playlist (featuring all videos covered so far on this blog) is here:

A number of videos, that were once in that overall playlist, became tiresome to listen to over a period of time. This is usually due to excessive noise of one type or another. All such videos are in the Archive Playlist here:

I only keep this list at all in case I weed out a video that is somebody’s favourite.

I hope you find the videos restful and that they help you to grab what sleep you are able to.

If you liked this article why not subscribe to this blog.

Photo by Shona Macrae.