Head Tingles and Quiet Whispers: A Quick Guide to ASMR

You are getting sleepy. Sleeeeeeeeepy.
Oh, and tingly too. Tinglyyyyyy. *crackle*

Very recently, you may have seen a beer commercial called "The Pure Experience", in which sound plays a huge role. In it, Zoë Kravitz pours a beer in near-silence, whispers into microphones set on either side of her table, and taps her fingernails against the bottle. The very intimate and "close" experience is designed to cause a very particular reaction.

When you saw it, did you get a little pleasant tingle along your scalp that ran down your spine? If so, congratulations! You just experienced something called autonomous sensory meridian response, or ASMR for short. That tingle was an involuntary response your body has to sensory input from the outside. You may have had a similar sensation while getting your hair cut or listening to someone leaf through a book or magazine. You may have even experiences a reaction while watching Bob Ross paint his happy little trees. Ross' show, in fact, was one of the first places people began to notice their reactions. It wasn't until they could gather on the internet to talk about what they were experiencing that people began to connect the sensory inputs to the reactions and found that they weren't rare nor were they accidental. Something for sure was happening to people, though what that is (as the song goes) ain't exactly clear.

ASMR got its name in 2010, which gives you a pretty good idea about how little time scientists have had to study what it's all about. What we do know is that ASMR is one of those things that you either feel or you don't. Lots of people do. Some people have an adverse reaction. Some people just wonder what all the whispering and microphone brushing is about. We also know that the most popular way to stimulate the response is through videos, namely videos on YouTube. One of the more popular ASMR channels is ASMR Darling, who has over 2 million subscribers and reportedly earns a thousand dollars a day in advertising. Most popular ASMR channels belong to women, usually women with accents who split their videos between whispering soothing scenes and making ambient sounds with their fingers, brushes, and crumpled paper. You can also find plenty of ASMR videos that have nothing but nature sounds as well or environmental noises like typewriters or people reading books quietly, as if you were sitting in a library.  

It's enough to make you nod off right now, isn't it? And that's really the point. Most folks who have a positive reaction to ASMR "triggers" feel more relaxed after they experience that tingly sensation. Some even report nodding off before they even know what's happening.

Now, if only you could find a way to get those sounds quietly into your ears while you were comfortable in bed, possibly with Night Owl Speakers™. That would be pretty handy, wouldn't it? Pretty handy indeed.

This is not the optimal ASMR setup.
Try something softer, with fewer wires.

(Photo Credits: PublicDomainPictures and LOC on Pixabay)