Getting Tingles

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (or ASMR) is something that I actually discovered by accident.

A youtube guilty pleasure of mine is children's make up tutorials. Yep. 7 year-olds with an iPhone putting on make up. God, now I've said it out loud (I guess??) it sounds so weird but it's not! Please tell me I'm not the only one who does this...

One day I stumbled across this video and at first I thought she was whispering because she didn't want to be heard talking to her camera in her bathroom. But as I went down the comments, I kept seeing the term "ASMR" popping up (somehow I'd missed it in the title!) and I decided to look further into it. As it turns out there is an entire ASMR WORLD ON YOUTUBE.

If you can think of an appointment that can be role-played in an ASMR style, it's probably been done. Make-up tutorials, dentist appoinments, cranial nerve examination; everything.

The definition of ASMR (according to wikipedia, that super-reliable source) is as a "perceptual phenomenon characterised as a distinct, pleasurable tingling sensation...in response to visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory (smells) or cognitive stimuli". These tingles are generally felt in their head, limbs and back. Personally, it happens for me at the top of my back in between my shoulder blades and it's a feeling I can't describe. 

It's all about soft sounds as well as specific things that "trigger" the ASMR feeling, such as tapping, clicking etc.

I've found more and more triggers as I get deeper into it. For someone who hates chewing sounds, the sound of a cough drop in someone's mouth is a recently discovered new trigger.

One of my biggest triggers is page turning sounds. I have a really vivid memory of when I was around 12/13 and I was sitting with my friend as she was looking through her exercise book and as I watched her turn the pages my eyes started to get heavy. At the time I didn't realise what was happening to me but now it all makes sense. I have to watch a 50 minute video of page turning/paper sounds in several goes because I keep falling asleep. I still haven't got all the way to the end!

If ever I'm struggling to sleep or can't get my brain to switch off, I whack on an ASMR video, stick my earphones in and usually within 10 minutes I'm so relaxed I could sleep for days.

I'm pretty much obsessed at this point and I will watch at least one video a night before I go to bed.

I've recently been favouring those videos with "binaural" in the title. These ones in particular are filmed using a special microphone so you can hear the sounds move from one ear to the other. For me, it accelerates the tingles by 1000%

Here are a few of my recent favourites that I keep going back to!

Binaural Makeup Roleplay - whisperslily

Makeup Roleplay -Nia M

Binaural Makeup Roleplay - whisperflower

I should mention that apparently it may not work for everyone. But give it a try, look around and you never know what could make those tingling feelings happen!

Let me know how you get on in the comments, I'd love to hear what other people's triggers are!

Thanks for reading.
Lots of love!

p.s. do you know how hard it is to title a post like this so as not to give it away but also without sounding so wrong? My initial idea was "Nighttime Tingles". Good job I heard it before it was too late.

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