ASMR self-care

The unexpected peace of scraping Balkan saucepans

Recently, Keith gave me a Bluetooth headband that I can play podcasts through while I go to sleep. For this I like hosts with soporific voices, like Late Night with Philip Adams, or Karina Longworth from You Must Remember This, who tells stories of Old Hollywood and sounds like she has just imbibed half a bottle of Jack Daniels with a benzo chaser.

Tucked into my flannel sheets, with my headband on, I set the electric blanket on low and let strangers whisper me to sleep. Keith squeezes close (he doesn’t use his side of the blanket but profits from the heat on mine) while he taps away at his laptop, searching for old documents on Ancestry.com. What a time to be middle-aged!

This is self-care.

It always looks weird if you are doing it right. A ridiculously high number of my girlfriends love flinging themselves in the cold ocean or running about the neighbourhood without even a dog chasing them. I wish I could, but I cannot relate.

My self-care is an hour in the bath every morning, drinking my coffee and reading my book and making little notes to myself about my writing projects. I also find it very soothing, when frazzled, to lie in bed and watch YouTube ASMR videos. Specifically, the strange and pleasing world of Balkan ASMR cottage-core food porn.

For anybody new to ASMR, the acronym stands for Autonomic Sensory Meridian Response, and it is a big thing on the internet. Many people use the videos to sleep, with most searches occurring at about 10.30pm, across different time zones, according to Google Trends. Sometimes called “brain massage”, the term ASMR was coined in 2010 for the tingling, pleasurable sensation that ASMR practitioners or “ASMRtists” (explain that one to Aunty Merle at the Easter lunch) can induce in a listener’s body through sound triggers like whispering, tapping, and brushing. It’s like having your brain gently scratched.

ASMR is also induced with scenarios of nurturing, non-sexual “personal care”, so the ASMRTist may talk directly to camera in role-plays of haircuts and doctor visits.

Narration is whispered, paper is scrunched, water is poured and microphones are brushed and tapped with different objects. Meanwhile, devotees (sometimes called “tingleheads”) slump smiling in their headphones, bones turned to jelly, and ASMRtists rake in the big bucks.

It sounds truly nutty, but there is an undeniable physiological response being induced. (It’s a real thing, Aunty Merle! Honestly it is!) While not all people respond to ASMR, those that do describe sensations of tingling that originate in the back of the scalp and radiate down the spine, sometimes into the shoulders, arms and legs. I definitely can feel this.

ASMR is a fascinating technique; part psychology, part biology, part technology. It’s thought to be related to synaesthesia (which can cause people to experience otherwise unrelated secondary sensations to sensory stimuli) and to “chills”, or “frisson”, the name given to the physical sensation sometimes experienced when listening to music. So why does the ASMR response occur? Is it related to dopamine? To serotonin? To oxytocin? Is it some lizard-brain response to nurturing and calming sounds and behaviours that replicate infancy? Are ASMR triggers activating some biological bonding mechanism? All these theories are in play, but the science is not yet in. Nobody really knows.

It is charmingly strange, this is certain. An ASMR video search will throw up “Little Bat Yawning and Flapping Its Wings”, “Ear Massage with Reading Classic Slovak Short Story” and “Eating a Whole Rotisserie Chicken”. One of the most beloved tropes of the ASMR scene is the painter Bob Ross, whose 80s cult-classic TV show, which featured his distinctive gentle voice and the notably loud scraping of his paintbrush on canvas, has an undeniably soporific quality. And in a peak-weirdness, end-times moment, W Magazine posted a celebrity ASMR series, in which Cara Delevigne swore quietly, and Kate Hudson fondled sequins and snipped fabrics with a giant pair of scissors.

ASMR is definitely bizarre. But also, perhaps, brilliant: A mingling of technology and neuroscience, where the freedom of YouTube — to be a citizen filmmaker, to build communities, to do nutty, experimental things — has ended up creating a product way too odd to have gained traction in the traditional business world. And it is, Aunty Merle, I swear to God, the path to superior relaxation. Watch. And see if afterwards you aren’t googling how-to tutorials for making a butter brush out of crow feathers.

Ah! Feel better? Try this one.

A minor book report: At the moment, we are trying to grab half an hour here and there to read Adrian Mole out loud, while we all do puzzles or draw. It doesn’t happen often (Call My Agent often wins the toss) but we are all happy when it does. Three books in to Adrian’s memoir series, Adrian is currently living in a studio flat in Soho and working as a dishwasher at a restaurant called Savages. Adrian is reliably hilarious for all ages. Hard recommend. I’m also reading out loud to each of the three children, in fits and starts, as a way to grab one-on-one time together out on the deck in the sun. With the smallest child, I’m reading Queenie by Jaqueline Wilson, which is set in a post-war tuberculosis ward. With thoughtful 13 y/old middle child, I’m reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, an amazing book to discuss. It’s taking us forever, which is fine - we’re in lockdown. What is time? To 14 y/old film-buff eldest, who is developing an interest in horror, I’m reading The Shining- very slowly, in very occasional, very lovely moments together. As for me, I have discovered the detective novels of Kate Atkinson and I am enjoying them very much.

As we roll into the third month of lockdown, with a couple left to go, I wish you all the self-care you need. However weird you need it to be, *whispers* schedule it in, my comrades.