Sleeping With ASMR

I discovered this week that supplementing magnesium may not just help with sleep but may also assist with attention during the waking moments of the day. From the same source I discovered that supplementing zinc intake could assist in the same way. I have not yet put this to the test (to be honest in search of a benign sleep cure I am getting to the stage of taking so many supplements that I rattle). However, I am going to try this next and will report back as to whether it makes any noticeable difference.

This week a Calm selection which illustrates the reason that I so frequently listen to Jay Shetty, even though he very probably does not have my favourite voice on Calm. This one I found inspirational:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/iViiLizTTt

Daily Jay

Soul Grow

NARRATOR

Jay Shetty

It is about becoming a more extraordinary version of yourself. As part of which Jay explores this letter: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/kurt-vonnegut-xavier-letter_n_4964532.

Today’s professional ASMR offering comes from an artist that I used to listen to all the time. Indeed, the video itself is an oldie but goodie.

The channel is Isabel imagination ASMR this has six hundred and thirty four videos, 379K subscribers thirty three playlists of which the following seems to be on theme for this blog so far:

The video is this one:

ASMR Doctor’s Visit Memory test (soft spoken/whisper/personal attention)

It has notes, and oh, what notes: “428,480 views 28 Sept 2016

Hello! My name is Isabel and I’m Dutch. I’ve been crazy about ASMR for about 4 years now and I am finally posting my very own ASMR videos since the 20th of June 2016! This is video #28. I hope you like it!

I’ve recorded this video with a JVC camera and an audio recorder. Here are the links:

Cam: http://www.videocamerashop.nl/product…

And it’s recorded on to an audio recorder called: Roland R26 portable recorder

Editing program: http://www.magix.com (I used Magix video deluxe 2016)

In this ASMR video Dr. Clarck will examine you because you are forgetting lots of things lately. You will answer some questions, and Dr. Clarck will perform a few memory tests on you and you will have a smelling test and a listen and memorise test. So, lots of personal attention and soft spoken and whispers included! Sleep tight and enjoy the tingles!!!

Instagram (to stay updated on new ASMR projects of mine):

  / isabel_asmr 

This video is meant for relaxation and can also help relieve anxiety, depression or stress, however I am not a psychiatrist, so if you are dealing with severe anxiety, depression or stress I suggest you go to a professional. “

It would not be a professional ASMR artist if they did not feel the need to write a novel with each and every video. Comments are permitted and seem to major in the “odd” feedback rather than sycophantic, which is not unusual for YouTube, but is unusual for a professional ASMR artist. This usually does not bode well, to be honest.

The video is thirty and a half minutes and so is reasonably substantial for videos that we have reviewed of late. It starts with a strange crackling background noise as if it was played on a badly stored vinyl record and straight away it gets into whispering. We’re on fairly well-established ground then. The voice is excellent and indeed the setting of the video itself looks rather professional (not that I expect any readers of this blog will be doing much in the way of watching given that you’re using this material to fall asleep to).

It occasionally gets a bit on the breathy side. It also seems to be falling prey to the “how many triggers can I get into this video” approach to sound recording. There is the stroking of paper, that mouth clicking sound that ASMR artists seem to love so much, nails clicking on a glass jar, but that said we have heard videos where the artist tries to feed in every squelch, tap, and scratching noise that they have heard some ASMR afficionado would rather like. By comparison I’d say that this was a much more measured approach to inserting spurious ASMR triggers and I did not find it obtrusive. However, as I have related before, I am only interested in the quality of the voice personally and additional noises are, for me anyway, merely a distraction.

That said the enunciation is spot on. Quite amazing that a Dutch person speaks English much better than a number of English ASMR artists that I have heard. As some commentators relate, it is interesting that a person from the Netherlands speaks American rather than English but it does mean that Isabel has an interesting accent to listen to in this video. I think I will be coming back to Isabel in the future for any further medical-orientated ASMR videos that come up.

For the ASMR offering which does not involve YouTube, I thought I would try the Internet Archive and see if they had anything for today’s professional ASMR artist. And they do:

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

https://archive.org/details/isabel-imagination-asmr-2020-06-12-asmr-for-when-you-feel-down-hugs-cuddles-kisses

Just like professional ASMR videos on YouTube, the person has gone mad with the notes in connection with this one:

“Publication date

    2020-06-12

Topics

    ASMR, female, hugs, kisses, positiveaffirmation, personalattention

Language

    English

Item Size

    618.3M

video_url – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVu4gmugEPk

channel_url – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGfbWCJjPwcAlBNkHT3gQ6w

In this triggering ASMR video, you can sit back and relax with headphones on!

In this relaxing ASMR cuddle & positive affirmation video, you can relax to the sound of my close-up ear to ear breathy whispers and get tingles from the warm hugs. Hopefully this calming video will comfort you for sleep!!

Triggers are: scratching, tracing, brushing, wet mouth sounds, whispering, ramble, mouth sounds, hair sounds, visual triggers, hand movements, tapping, shiny objects, crinkle, deep ear whispers, soft spoken, mouth sounds, tapping, finger flutter, whispering ear to ear, breathy whispers, binaural sounds, personal attention, close up tingles.

What is ASMR? Check out this short explanation video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc-SCxXdI0Y

All my info:

Webshop: https://www.isabelimagination.com/nl/

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/isabel_imagination

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/isabel.imagination/

My email address for questions or business deals: info@isabelimagination.com

Patreon (if you’d like to support me, get early access and see patreon exclusive videos) : https://www.patreon.com/Isabelimaginationasmr

Tingles (to avoid advertisement and support me at the same time): https://www.gettingles.com/

The Tingles app is available on IOS and Android!!

For a look behind the scenes visit my other youtube channel “isabel backstage”!! This is the link to my 2nd channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_R9MQkCOSew6FswsZtHOEw

I’m always trying to improve the quality of my video’s, if you’d like to contribute to this purpose, than that’s possible via donations on PayPal. My email is: isabelimaginationasmr@gmail.com

Who am I :

My name is Isabel and I’m Dutch. My approach to ASMR video’s is combining entertainment in a form of imagination and fantasy (almost movie like) with relaxation. All wrapped into one video for you. This way you can enjoy my videos either before you go to bed to drift off easier, or you can just take a moment of relaxation during the day to calm down and relieve stress.

I’ve been posting ASMR video’s since the 20th of June 2016! I hope you like it!”

I’ve edited them a bit as they are really long.

Sadly, it is not on theme for the medical series I have been pursuing, so I’ll leave you to try it out if you so wish.

For the inadvertent ASMR video which really is what this blog has been about since the ASMR reviews began, I am looking this week at this one:

The Dermatology Exam

I have reviewed a number of videos from this channel previously it is Top Hat Tutorials with 67k subscribers, one hundred forty one videos and all three of the playlists are on theme for the material that I have been covering in this blog:

and

and

the notes on the channel convey what it is all about:

“Top Hat Tutorials

Description

Clinical skills videos for medical professionals and students

More info

            http://www.youtube.com/@tophattutorials9113

            Joined 3 Sept 2015

            67k subscribers

            141 videos

            10,408,946 views “

There are also notes with the video although, thankfully, they are not excessively long: “296,857 views 22 Jan 2016

A video of the main points of the Dermatology Exam.

The video was created as part of the Top Hat Tutorials app, a new doctor and student designed guide to the clinical examinations in medicine and surgery.

‘TOP HAT TUTORIALS’ is available in the Apple, Google and Windows app stores today.

Reached number 1 medical app in its first week of launch!

A must have for medical students no matter where they are studying.

Download using the following links:

Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/top-h…

Google: https://play.google.com/store/apps/de…

Windows: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store… “

The video permits comments and as with the previous video I find that the comments are more strange than sycophantic. This may not be a great omen of what is to come.

It is another brief video at just over four and a half minutes so it isn’t going to keep us long. It begins with my personal bugbear: startup music which seems even more sacrilege given we have such scant video real estate to begin with. However, once Dr Tom Branigan introduces himself, we realise we have a safe pair of hands. Tom has a great voice. The patient is Dermot (or assuming this examination is located in Ireland more probably Diarmuid). There is some background noise, probably air conditioning. It is very calm and measured, just the kind of thing I like to hear (music excepting). Sadly, we get the music once again at the close of the video.

So, it is a reasonable one but also a rather brief one this week.

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

Sleeping With ASMR

Once upon a time I had a job which required me to get up at 4am and sadly the habit stays in my mind. This means that if something wakes me close to 4am that is pretty much any sleep done for me. I was awakened by a loud clang in one of the videos recently so I have embarked upon a campaign of weeding the main Procrastination Pen playlist to take loud clang-containing videos out of it.

As I have relayed many times in this blog, if there were a feature to edit the videos down such that removal of the noisy bits were feasible then I would do it.

In some cases, simply truncating the video such that it started later or finished earlier would do that. I do not own the videos. Wars with copyright solicitors sound tiresome (and doomed to failure) and I do not want to act as an archive for other people’s videos.

However, if someone knows of a method by which I can set the start time of the video in the YouTube playlist (and preferably the end time as well), let me know.

It is likely that some of the videos are more likely to survive in the main Procrastination Pen playlist for longer if some of that jarring start-up music were consigned to the bin for example.

Today’s video is continuing in the theme we have enjoyed for some weeks now, which is of medical examinations which may engender relaxation or in some people, ASMR symptoms. The motivation being to get off to sleep more swiftly and to remain asleep as long as your mind will permit you to do so.

The Rheumatology Exam

Slightly less than half an hour so a bit longer than some we have evaluated of late. The patient appears to be yellow, which I assume is a camera artefact rather than some regrettable condition that he has developed.

It is a professional video and in common with a number of such videos has some notes associated with it: “22 Jan 2016

A video on the main points of the rheumatology exam.

The video was created as part of the Top Hat Tutorials app, a new doctor and student designed guide to the clinical examinations in medicine and surgery.

‘TOP HAT TUTORIALS’ is available in the Apple, Google and Windows app stores today.

Reached number 1 medical app in its first week of launch!

A must have for medical students no matter where they are studying.

Download using the following links:

Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/top-h…

Google: https://play.google.com/store/apps/de…

Windows: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store…”

The URLs have not been tested – but we have found that download links that old are often orphaned – there is no telling where you might end up clicking such things.

Comments are permitted (bring on the trolls) they confirm that ASMR fans are here in number and so this is no revolutionary find on my part (which is also what we have come to expect).

Oh no start-up music, but at least it is muted. Please video-recording-people have mercy on the sleeping.

The medical professional is Dr Tom Brian (almost certainly misspelled). The patient is Luke – I feel on stronger ground spelling wise there.

The narration also appears to be Dr Tom and he has a good voice for our purposes. His approach is methodical and unhurried. Pretty well ideal in fact.

The channel is Top Hat Tutorials, there are one hundred and forty-two videos on this channel and 38.6K subscribers – phewee.

The latest such videos seem to be posted three years ago. The oldest seven years ago.

There are three playlists the shortest of which contains thirteen videos, which might be sufficient to be excessively distracting to anyone popping into this blog for a swift read.

Dr Tom appears in quite a few of them and so does Luke.

Therefore I decided to narrow the number of videos by searching the channel for videos associated with “Rheumatology”. This gives us eight videos of which ours is one of the longest.

These are as follows:

The Rheumatological examination of the Hands

Six and three quarter minutes so it is short even by our recent standards. As before there are notes “23 Jan 2016

A video of the main points of the rheumatological exam of the hands.

The video was created as part of the Top Hat Tutorials app, a new doctor and student designed guide to the clinical examinations in medicine and surgery.

‘TOP HAT TUTORIALS’ is available in the Apple, Google and Windows app stores today.

Reached number 1 medical app in its first week of launch!

A must have for medical students no matter where they are studying.

Download using the following links:

Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/top-h…

Google: https://play.google.com/store/apps/de…

Windows: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store…”

As before comments are permitted and again many are not helpful. There are no obviously ASMR-related comments this time though. Again with the start-up music, can it people.

This time Dr Tom is narrating (well I’m pretty certain it is him) and the patient is Luke.

It is beautifully measured in presentation and Dr Tom has a great voice. Although this is better in the examination part of the video as it is more modulated than in the narration part (where people always seem to believe that volume is a requirement).

The Rheumatology Exam

This, of course is where we came in.

The Rheumatological Examination of the Ankles and Feet

This one is even more brief at just under three and a half minutes. The notes are pretty repetitive so I will not go into them again for this one.

The comments are as helpful as a person determined to be unhelpful and there are no ASMR-related comments.

These videos are so consistent it is probably of minimum utility to go into each one. However, I feel it important to review them all up front in case of any unwelcome surprises (a brass band playing trumpet voluntary at minute two for example, actually there are some YouTube adverts which are equally jarring).

The theme for these videos consists of: startup music, Dr Tom – narrator, Dr Tom performs examination, Luke patient. Dr Tom has a consistently good voice during the examination, slightly less so in narration.

I suspect all of the videos to be identical in approach and this is one of the great advantages of professionally produced videos – i.e., their consistency.

The Rheumatological Examination of the Back

Unhelpful comments persist. YouTube comments are like the wall in a public urinal, I think. (Although I have yet to find any mouldy and hardened chewing gum remnants, which is something to be thankful for).

This one is a little over four minutes such that we seem to have two types of videos the half an hour ones and the short – barely five minutes – ones. There is probably a method to these given that they are designed for an app and probably have some utility within it. If any app subscribers are reading please write a comment and let me know how this works.

The Rheumatological examination of the knees

This is just less than four and a quarter minutes in length. There are similar notes, few comments worth mentioning, the same approach.  It is again a gentle procedure which has the benefit of a quiet voice (louder narration allowing).

The Rheumatological examination of the Shoulders

Four and a quarter minutes and it is exactly the same as those that have gone before.

Indeed some aspects of the video seem to be repetitions of sections from previous videos. I suspect that there is a good deal of overlap between them. It is definitely worthwhile using the shuffle function on YouTube or the watching of this part of the playlist on the Procrastination Pen is going to be somewhat repetitive.

The Rheumatological examination of the Elbows

This is the shortest one so far at just over two and a quarter minutes. Unsurprisingly there are zero comments with this one. Notes, music, style remain as before.

The Rheumatological Examination of the Hips

Four and three quarter minutes, zero comments, startup music, but now you’re in the swing of this of course…

The Top Hat Tutorials 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 Hussam Abd on Unsplash