#NOT queue-posting this because functionally new babes
Note
Hands rubbing together to warm them up + damerey kiddos
It is 2023 and I am formally back in this spiral and... doing my usual vaguely-post-canon thing that didn't happen several years ago due to Assorted Unrelated Personal Bullshit. Turns out I missed these babes. PG-ish, pre-relationship, and also on ao3.
She’s cold. She hates this.
There is, admittedly, a lot of life that Rey hasn’t experienced yet. An extended stay on an ice planet is not nor will it be the weirdest, but it’s still…
“Warm enough?”
There’s a lot more she needs to get used to, really. The fact that people care about her – both on a peripheral level, where it is very important that someone of her position have adequate clothing for every stop on what one of her friends described as the victory tour, and the existence of said friends, the fact that there are other living beings she trusts completely and-
Rey turns to look at her designated minder, who looks even less thrilled than she is about this particular adventure. “I will be. Eventually. Maybe.”
Normally this is the part where she’d add some little comment about how her comfort doesn’t matter, as long as she’s functional she’ll deal, but she’s learning to moderate that around certain people. Well, one specific person who absolutely refuses to listen to her and-
It’s not personal. It’s deeply personal. She’s not used to duality.
What she’s figured out, in these months of closure or whatever, is that the official reason they’re stuck together is the droid apparently has separation anxiety and that’s definitely a new one by her standards, and the unofficial one is that someone somewhere in Resistance administration figured that two chaotic humans would cancel each other out. This is… not exactly what’s happened, but it’s kept both of them out of trouble better than she suspects any other scheme would, and-
“So, not warm enough and going to pretend otherwise because you’re a self-sacrificing-“
“Like you’re any better!”
This is the part she’s gotten used to, the too-public verbal sparring matches that are still… affectionate, somehow. She heard all the rumors long before they got to this point, and she knows there’s no harm meant in whatever too-perceptive accusations might get thrown around, and-
“I think I’ve at least figured out layers,” Poe mutters, giving her an unimpressed look. “Whereas you…”
“Don’t… don’t make my inexperience into-“
“Worried, not amused. You look frozen.”
“I feel worse.”
“C’mere.”
She takes half a step closer and is unsurprised when his gloved hands wrap around hers, moving just slightly in repetitive motion, very careful not to touch the little strip of exposed skin between glove and jacket sleeve and-
“We’re getting you better gloves,” he murmurs.
“These are fine. They do fit. That’s more than-”
He gives her that look she’s starting to recognize as a specific flavor of… not exactly disappointment, that would imply more harm than she thinks he intends, but…
“Do you know how bad it looks for them if you get frostbite?”
“No?”
“Disaster. Complete petty disaster. We do not want that, understand?”
“Since when do you-“
Her voice cuts off as she processes the accusations that want to fall out that… aren’t quite accurate, really. Almost everyone she’s met in this world has been kind to her, at worst in awe and confused, but this man is…
“I’m sorry,” she says just a little too soft. “I know you care. I’m not sure why, but-“
“I have a droid who likes you more than me, you kinda saved the galaxy, and…”
“And?”
“I like you. Does it have to be more complicated than that?”
Yes, she thinks, yes it absolutely does have to be more complicated, but… she has months of evidence that it may not be. He’s been consistently kind and protective in a different way than anyone else, but it hasn’t gone any clear direction yet. No comments about her appearance, let alone-
“You like me,” she repeats, and the words taste right in her mouth. “That’s…”
“I didn’t mean to-“
“I don’t mind. I’m just… unsure what you want me to do with it.”
“Right now… nothing? I’m not sure I should’ve said that but-“
“Probably better to get it over with. Gives me time.”
“No pressure, okay? I’m not-“
“Do you ever stop talking?”
“What, is that not helping?”
Rey rolls her eyes in a way she hopes comes off as flirtatious and okay she’s never wanted to do that before and-
“I trust you,” she says, glancing down at their hands. “That isn’t…”
“Still-“
“We can fight about this when I’m not an icicle. Deal?”
“Deal.”
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I posted 4,848 times in 2022
1,253 posts created (26%)
3,595 posts reblogged (74%)
Blogs I reblogged the most:
@beatrice-otter
@lupinerage
@magnesiumflare
@ltleflrt
@tanoraqui
I tagged 1,551 of my posts in 2022
#i eat fic for breakfast - 774 posts
#fic recs - 774 posts
#schrödinger's content warnings - 774 posts
#via:pinboard - 773 posts
#queue me up scotty - 773 posts
#just talk to your therapist mkp - 69 posts
#nona the ninth spoilers - 49 posts
#fandom ate my soul (fanart edition) - 20 posts
#ho shit how do you talent - 20 posts
#current events - 14 posts
Longest Tag: 140 characters
#i suppose it's nice that other people are feeling validated by this post but literally it is one of the most upsetting and infuriating takes
I sent 1 gift in 2022
My Top Posts in 2022:
#5
wake up babe new pain scale just dropped
Discernible
Distracting
Distressing
Disabling
(Wish I Were) Dead
16 notes - Posted February 13, 2022
#4
he is wearing BOOT SOLES as PAULDRONS, this KID
(@kedreeva, mkp's znation liveblog, take 2)
19 notes - Posted May 17, 2022
#3
Was trawling back through my AO3 history and I started deleting deleted fics, which reduced the page count by like, 20 before I’d even gotten a 200 pages back from the oldest entries, so this is your reminder to check out and regularly use @nianeyna‘s ao3 downloader!!
(all gods bless you for sharing that, for serious, especially the pinboard functionality as apparently I AM a fandom dinosaur which is hilarious and somewhat inspirational at the same time)
(I am having some difficulties now finding and downloading the stuff I missed because it isn’t bookmarked on Pinboard from the AO3, only from LJ or whatever, which is why I started trawling my history in the first place and huh it looks like for the first few years I only left kudos when my head had been practically blown off, unlike my current categorizing system of ‘seen - tried, didn’t like’, ‘kudosed - read, liked’, ‘pinned to pinboard - read, liked enough to re-read’, ‘bookmarked on ao3 - read and holy shit i need a quick link to this fucker so i can read it again immediately on demand, and/or oh hey! series!’)
(I’m trying to make use of some other Python utilities I found for scraping my personal AO3 reading history but uh. I keep running into problems. u_u)
24 notes - Posted March 16, 2022
#2
D&D as Disability Metaphor
N.B. Most of the ideas herein about spell slots/cantrips and mana/health points were sourced from various tumblr posts; please reblog with links if you have them! Also reblog with additional links to those tumblr posts about forks and knives!
In this metaphor, YOU are a D&D/RPG character!
Your CHARACTER BUILD reflects your strengths and weaknesses.
First: you have your basic STATS – INT, CON, WIS, DEX, STR, CHA – these are primarily determined by your baseline nature and your early nurture. (e.g., you may be born with a certain facility for learning, a natural sense of balance, perfect pitch, etc., or you may have spent much of your life playing sports and building strength and dexterity, or have been forced by circumstance to become Very Good at identifying people’s true motives and/or playing the part you need to play in any given situation, etc.)
Secondly: You have your basic ADVANTAGES and DISADVANTAGES. These are primarily determined by your baseline nature but can be affected by nurture and change over time just as you do!
For example, you may be vision impaired – any task requiring good vision will have you at a natural disadvantage that can be mitigated by the use of an accessory or tool. So long as you have your accommodation, your natural disadvantage is entirely or partially nullified – instead of a negative 3 to skill checks involving vision, you might have a modifier of only negative 1 or even zero!
Another example:
You might be autistic or have other sensory processing issues that mean certain textures are ILLEGAL – any time you’re required to interact with that texture, you have to roll a WIS save to see how it impacts you.
On a bad day (in the metaphor, you roll a 1), you might be completely incapacitated for a time. On a good day, you might be able to use a positive modifier from a learned skill like DISTRESS TOLERANCE or DISENAGE to overcome the badness and only be partially incapacitated, or maybe not even incapacitated at all, just inflicted with a DEBUFF of some kind for a period of time. (This gives you a negative modifier for future skill checks and saving throws until the debuff expires or you take a LONG REST.)
On any given day, your disability (physical, mental, developmental, etc.) may give you a GENERAL DEBUFF that affects your skill checks and saving throws.
For example, if you have bipolar disorder and are in a depressive episode, you might have a negative 1 modifier to any social interaction, even if ‘normally’ you have a plus 3.
Or you might have chronic migraines and be having a debilitating headache that actually precludes the use of some skills/spells/actions at all – you might be incapable of leaving a dark room or of using your computer/phone.
Thirdly: In general, you can think of your overall capability to COPE as mana points, stamina points, spell slots, or anything similar. SPELL SLOTS is the easiest metaphor, just because of how the magic system is structured.
You have a given number of SPELL SLOTS on any single day, although a DEBUFF might reduce your baseline of slots for the day or a BUFF might actually give you an extra one! These spell slots correspond to the energy needed to perform various activities/tasks. The more difficult the task, the higher level of spell slot is required. BUT! If you’ve already used your third level spell slot for the day and need to “cast” another third level spell (another difficult activity), you can sacrifice multiple lower level spell slots in order to do so, with the disadvantage of having fewer slots left until your next LONG REST.
Some activities don’t drain you at all and can be done at any time (in this metaphor, they can be considered CANTRIPS). Some might even return used spell slots! (Think of this as taking a SHORT REST.) CANTRIPS are typically less effort or are of such benefit that they cancel out the level of effort required. They vary wildly based on the individual. An example for one person might be listening to an audiobook or taking a hot shower, while a different person might consider both of those first level spells.
Finally: The final part of this metaphor switches genres a little bit, so bear with me. This doesn’t tend to happen in the most well-known tabletop RPGs, but you’ve probably seen it in other popular media. Sometimes, you’re completely out of spell slots / mana / stamina, but you’ve got something you absolutely HAVE to do – either because it’s a necessity for your survival, or because you simply care about the thing so much that you’re willing to borrow against your future self.
In this kind of situation, you can ‘borrow’ spell slots from your future self (meaning you use it now, and therefore don’t have it available to use the next day), or you might start using your own health points in place of the missing mana.
Think about in fantasy media, when the magic user runs out of magic in the FINAL BATTLE and starts sacrificing their own life force to continue powering the spell. In some circumstances, they might drain themselves so completely that they can never use magic again, or it takes them years to recover. Similarly, a person with CFS who pushes themselves too hard one day might end up bedbound for days, weeks, or even months following.
Another example:
Someone with a torn ACL who stresses it during the healing process might find that it never heals completely/properly, permanently affecting their athletic ability.
TL;DR – D&D is actually a great extended metaphor for both short-term and long-term disabilities and how they impact a person’s life!
But it does. Uh. Require some background in RPG terms and tropes in order to fully understand it. If the person you’re trying to explain the concepts to is completely unfamiliar with RPGs, you may be better off with sticking with something more basic like Spoon* Theory (or the Unified Cutlery** Theory).
Citations etc. under the cut.
*See Christine Miserandino's spoon article here: https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/. Learn more @thespoontheory
**Unified Cutlery Theory, very overly simplified: Spoons = Energy, Forks = Things That Make Your Spoons Worth Less, Knives = Something You Need Help Addressing Or It’ll Make Things Worse
See @jenrosess' original post here: https://www.tumblr.com/jenroses/635100154258735104 and the update including knives here: https://www.tumblr.com/jenroses/635100154258735104/sheepscot-cipheramnesia-jenroses-have-i
(Apparently there are two competing Fork Theories? The one I'm used to is the one referenced above.)
***Mana and spell slots metaphors are really hard to source, y'all, so if you have links please add them in your reblogs!
71 notes - Posted December 5, 2022
My #1 post of 2022
testing something
525 notes - Posted October 22, 2022
Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →
#tumblr2022#year in review#my 2022 tumblr year in review#your tumblr year in review#oh my god i know why the number 1 post is number 1 but also i'm still dying#that's just#objectively possibly the most hilarious post for it to have been
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but does that mean you won't be posting any more gk gifs?????? and I have been mostly liking posts because I didn't know 😕
Hi! No, I won't stop making gifs for this blog, but I have been less inspired lately and I'm more active on my other blogs. To compare the two wouldn't be right, as the gk tag isn't that big, but when you put time and effort into a gifset of a movie/series you love and you get more engagement it's just different. Like I never would've imagined one of my posts there would get over 900 notes, that's just crazy to me and it motivates me a lot more to make stuff. To put it simply, I still enjoy making gifs, as that's the first and foremost reason as to why I do it, yet the moment you do get engagement and other users love the thing you made, sharing said thing so other users can see it and/or love the thing you've made with their own tags and insight, it makes the whole tumblr experience a lot more fun.
Of course, I experience that here too, and there are lovely peeps hanging around here, but it's sad to see really amazing gifsets/edits that I know must've taken hours to make by just looking at it, not getting the engagement, and thus disappearing into the tumblr void. Like the only thing I can do about it is put stuff into the hbowardaily queue but that also takes time and I don't always have the time and energy of the world lol.
For example, I scrolled through my blog real quick and these are the notes on a bob gifset and a gk gifset. Likes are nice, and every creator must adore everyone who even wants to look at their stuff, but it isn't how this website works.
Anyway, no worries anon!! I understand it's probably mostly new users who just don't know and that's fine. I rb'd the post because it is bothering me again lately and I thought maybe some of my followers would have some use of it to better understand this hellsite. I see you blank blogs lol 👀. I'm just afraid that if this continues, there won't be a tumblr anymore after a few years because it can't function properly, and then where do we go? Not twitter lmao.
Have a nice day!!💜💜
Edit: I'm not here to dictate how you should live your life just pointing out a problem in the current tumblr 'culture' that can't really be argued on as this website isn't built with an algorithm where likes matter but revolves around reblogs and that this currently doesn't help the website in any way whatsoever and that some creators, including me, rather put their effort where there is actual engagement. I love you babes, but let's keep this site alive, please. If you love something some other users make, REBLOG it.
The post I rb'd for context.
#ask#sorry this is long but i have a lot of feelings about this#generation kill#yes i tagged it because i feel this is important and i love this corner and i would be very sad if it died one day
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Inside the ASMR Meditation People Are Calling a Brain Orgasm
One Yoga Journal editor replaced her daily meditation practice with ASMR YouTube videos for a week. Here’s what happened.
Curious about the ASMR meditation technique some people are calling an orgasm for your brain? We were, too, so we had one of our editors try it. Here’s her story.
“O.K., I have to give you a shot; but it’ll only hurt for a second,” my little sister says to me as I lie completely still on her bed. We’re ages 4 and 6, and playing “doctor” is one of our favorite games. In a few months, she’ll decide on a career in dentistry (she’s since changed her mind), and our mock physicals will quickly morph into make-believe oral procedures. I’ll open wide in our cotton-candy-blue bathtub (“the dentist’s chair”) and she’ll count my teeth thoughtfully one by one.
Rarely would you find me on the other side of the table, so to speak. Being the administrator of mythological medicine never interested me. Yet being still and quiet while my sister “fixed” my feigned ailments relaxed me in a way I could never describe. It was just like the feeling I’d get when we’d sneak into our mom’s bathroom and steal her makeup brushes, taking turns whisking the soft bristles across each other’s faces: gentle tingles running up and down my spine, dancing around my scalp—like tummy butterflies for the spinal cord. But no one else I knew ever mentioned butterflies of the brain; no one talked about it on TV. So, I figured it was just me.
See also How to Meditate Daily
What is ASMR Meditation?
Two-and-a-half decades later, and the euphoria I felt from getting fake fillings has a cult following to rival Game of Thrones. Dubbed ASMR (short for autonomous sensory meridian response) in 2010, it’s a highly relaxing, pleasurable tingling that’s felt on the skin and scalp after certain stimuli. The phenomenon gained a huge online following after someone asked the internet about “head orgasms” back in 2007. All of a sudden, people like me were realizing they weren’t alone in their tingling—and wanted to know more about what made them feel great.
Fans quickly took to YouTube, posting videos of mock physicals, face massages, and even crinkling potato chip bags—all intended to trigger the zombie-like relaxation that comes with what became known as ASMR. While the sensation itself is still clouded in mystery (no one knows why some people are triggered and some aren’t), experts now say that for those who experience it, it can be as powerful a tool as meditation. To wit: New research from Sheffield University, published in June in the journal PLOS One, found that ASMR was associated with reduced heart rate and increased skin conductance levels (a fancy term for physical arousal that’s linked with better attention and memory). The researchers determined that ASMR is, in fact, a physiological experience that could have therapeutic benefits for mental and physical health—with the potential to minimize depression, anxiety, insomnia, and chronic pain.
Unfashionably late to this particular party, I first read about ASMR in a Sunday New York Times this past February. In an article titled “The Currency of a Relaxing Sound or Tingle,” reporter Andrea Marks described a therapeutic, interactive theatrical experience where participants played passive roles in scenes including “sitting at a table while someone crinkles paper in your ears, visiting a ‘doctor’s office,’ having your face stroked with makeup brushes, and a hair-brushing encounter.” (Insert brain-exploding emoji here.) The Brooklyn pop-up performance was orchestrated by San Francisco's Whisperlodge—an immersive traveling show that curates intimate, one-on-one ASMR experiences for audiences that usually emerge from the quiet cocoon in a zen-like haze.
“There’s a tangible benefit you can feel in your body after you exit our performance, but we haven’t been able to back it up with science until now,” Whisperlodge co-creator Melinda Lauw says of the University of Sheffield findings. It’s similar to meditation, she says, because “it’s about paying attention—to small sounds and sensations. You become super quiet and aware.”
See also Rx Meditation: Headspace's New Prescription Strategy Could Change the Way We All Meditate
Down the ASMR Meditation Rabbit Hole
As someone who’s struggled diligently for years to achieve euphoria through meditation, I wanted to see what would happen if I subbed a daily ASMR YouTube video for my regular meditation practice. The first one I launched was called “Taps for Your Naps,” created by ASMR darling Maria (she prefers not to reveal her last name), the personality behind popular YouTube channel Gentle Whispering ASMR.
After you skip an advertisement, tourmaline-looking gemstones fill the screen. They line a plastic sheet of paper like stars on an American flag, and a pink-and-white manicure atop ten flittering fingers tenderly strokes each row, producing tingle-inducing little tapping sounds with each stroke. There it is. That inexplicably warm, all-encompassing feeling engulfs my skull like a massage shampoo. My limbs sink a little deeper into my couch cushions as I slowly exhaust the “Up Next” queue.
Your Brain on ASMR
But what is it about soft sounds and borderline-creepy caregiver videos that make some of us—an estimated 20 percent of the population—melt into our mattresses? More neurological research is needed to know for sure, but biopharmaceutical sciences professor Craig Richard, PhD, author of the forthcoming book Brain Tingles: the Secret to Triggering Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response for Improved Sleep, Stress Relief, and Head-to-Toe Euphoria and co-founder of the ASMR Research Project, thinks it’s a genetic response that’s designed to help us feel relaxed, mitigating stress hormones and promoting overall health in the process. “Almost all of our biological functions and reactions are to our benefit,” he says. “So why have we evolved? Why might this be?”
The answer may be in the basic way primates soothe their offspring, he says. How a mother coos and nurtures her fussy babe: She hushes her tone, offers a caring gaze and a gentle touch, conveying with every molecule that It’s alright. You’re OK. “That’s what these videos are doing,” says Richard. “They’re sending a signal to viewers that they’re safe and cared for in a non-threatening way. When a child scrapes his knee, it’s hugging; it’s lowering your voice; it’s focused personal attention. Our brains are hardwired for patterned recognition of those stimuli.” Most likely, certain brain chemicals are at play, Richard says. Research has shown that when a parent soothes an infant, or a teacher comforts an unhappy child, a “brain cocktail” of endorphins, oxytocin (love hormone), dopamine, serotonin (happiness hormone), GABA (relaxation and sleepiness stimulator), and melatonin (sleep hormone) are released, which probably work together to evoke ASMR.
If our brains are primed to feel good when we’re pampered, why is it that we all don’t bliss-out watching Bob Ross paint on PBS (a common ASMR trigger)? It’s likely that a genetic mutation is responsible, says Richard.
We can think of ASMR like the mirror image of a panic attack, he says—an extreme negative reaction to an event or experience. Most of us might get agitated on a crowded subway platform, but fewer of us are apt to feel faint. “We know about phobias and anxiety,” he says, (genetics play a role in both). “But there was no word for the opposite—the other extreme, where people are highly relaxed by certain stimuli.” That is, of course, until ASMR earned its title.
It’s still a new frontier. Richard and Lauw hope forthcoming studies will prove ASMR’s potential health benefits by comparing blood pressure, cortisol levels, and brain scans of people experiencing ASMR against control groups. Anecdotally, devotees already claim that ASMR has helped them overcome anxiety, insomnia, drug addiction, and PTSD.
See also 5 Yoga Teachers Who Overcame Addiction
You can access ASMR on YouTube in the comfort of your own home.
ASMR and yoga—and me
On a Friday afternoon, a week into my ASMR experiment, I propped up on my sunroom sofa to try out a new (to me) YouTube ASMRtist. I had plans to meet a friend at 5 o’clock. But at 4:47, there I remained, limp-limbed on the couch while a 40-something redhead performed “skin treatments” into the camera—wafting essential oils in front of “my nose” and encouraging me, in a British accent, to “take deep, slow breaths.” I couldn’t move—let alone call a Lyft. Like sinking deep into Savasana (Corpse Pose) at the end of a restorative yoga class, all desire to re-enter the so-called real world had diminished. In this moment, it dawned on me that I’d been experiencing ASMR in my favorite yoga classes all along.
Richard says that yoga classes that incorporate ASMR are a no-brainer, although as founder of ASMRUniversity.com, he may be biased. Not unlike the intimate in-person experiences curated by Whisper Lodge, he says, yoga classes try to foster safe environments where one can relax and make room for self-nurturing. To this end, Kim, a New Zealand yogi and ASMRtist (who goes by the moniker Miss Synchronicity and like most ASMRtists, chooses to keep her last name private), has integrated yoga into some of her ASMR videos, and her audience loves it. She’s not alone: More and more instructional yoga videos are popping up on YouTube that incorporate ASMR triggers like whispering, tapping sounds, and pretend pampering. “Just like ASMR, yoga brings together the body and mind, expressing relaxation and mindfulness through the breath,” she says.
I can vouch for this. After my daily ASMR sessions, I find myself breathing deeper, moving slower, staying more in the moment, and feeling less attached to future results and outcomes. This new-found chill can last from 30 minutes to a couple of hours.
And the best part for me? Unlike my oft-failed attempts at getting present through meditation, ASMR works every time.
See also A One-Strap Restorative Yoga Sequence for Self-Care
About the Author
Lindsay Tucker is a senior editor at Yoga Journal.
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One Yoga Journal editor replaced her daily meditation practice with ASMR YouTube videos for a week. Here’s what happened.
Curious about the ASMR meditation technique some people are calling an orgasm for your brain? We were, too, so we had one of our editors try it. Here’s her story.
“O.K., I have to give you a shot; but it’ll only hurt for a second,” my little sister says to me as I lie completely still on her bed. We’re ages 4 and 6, and playing “doctor” is one of our favorite games. In a few months, she’ll decide on a career in dentistry (she’s since changed her mind), and our mock physicals will quickly morph into make-believe oral procedures. I’ll open wide in our cotton-candy-blue bathtub (“the dentist’s chair”) and she’ll count my teeth thoughtfully one by one.
Rarely would you find me on the other side of the table, so to speak. Being the administrator of mythological medicine never interested me. Yet being still and quiet while my sister “fixed” my feigned ailments relaxed me in a way I could never describe. It was just like the feeling I’d get when we’d sneak into our mom’s bathroom and steal her makeup brushes, taking turns whisking the soft bristles across each other’s faces: gentle tingles running up and down my spine, dancing around my scalp—like tummy butterflies for the spinal cord. But no one else I knew ever mentioned butterflies of the brain; no one talked about it on TV. So, I figured it was just me.
See also How to Meditate Daily
What is ASMR Meditation?
Two-and-a-half decades later, and the euphoria I felt from getting fake fillings has a cult following to rival Game of Thrones. Dubbed ASMR (short for autonomous sensory meridian response) in 2010, it’s a highly relaxing, pleasurable tingling that’s felt on the skin and scalp after certain stimuli. The phenomenon gained a huge online following after someone asked the internet about “head orgasms” back in 2007. All of a sudden, people like me were realizing they weren’t alone in their tingling—and wanted to know more about what made them feel great.
Fans quickly took to YouTube, posting videos of mock physicals, face massages, and even crinkling potato chip bags—all intended to trigger the zombie-like relaxation that comes with what became known as ASMR. While the sensation itself is still clouded in mystery (no one knows why some people are triggered and some aren’t), experts now say that for those who experience it, it can be as powerful a tool as meditation. To wit: New research from Sheffield University, published in June in the journal PLOS One, found that ASMR was associated with reduced heart rate and increased skin conductance levels (a fancy term for physical arousal that’s linked with better attention and memory). The researchers determined that ASMR is, in fact, a physiological experience that could have therapeutic benefits for mental and physical health—with the potential to minimize depression, anxiety, insomnia, and chronic pain.
Unfashionably late to this particular party, I first read about ASMR in a Sunday New York Times this past February. In an article titled “The Currency of a Relaxing Sound or Tingle,” reporter Andrea Marks described a therapeutic, interactive theatrical experience where participants played passive roles in scenes including “sitting at a table while someone crinkles paper in your ears, visiting a ‘doctor’s office,’ having your face stroked with makeup brushes, and a hair-brushing encounter.” (Insert brain-exploding emoji here.) The Brooklyn pop-up performance was orchestrated by San Francisco's Whisperlodge—an immersive traveling show that curates intimate, one-on-one ASMR experiences for audiences that usually emerge from the quiet cocoon in a zen-like haze.
“There’s a tangible benefit you can feel in your body after you exit our performance, but we haven’t been able to back it up with science until now,” Whisperlodge co-creator Melinda Lauw says of the University of Sheffield findings. It’s similar to meditation, she says, because “it’s about paying attention—to small sounds and sensations. You become super quiet and aware.”
See also Rx Meditation: Headspace's New Prescription Strategy Could Change the Way We All Meditate
Down the ASMR Meditation Rabbit Hole
As someone who’s struggled diligently for years to achieve euphoria through meditation, I wanted to see what would happen if I subbed a daily ASMR YouTube video for my regular meditation practice. The first one I launched was called “Taps for Your Naps,” created by ASMR darling Maria (she prefers not to reveal her last name), the personality behind popular YouTube channel Gentle Whispering ASMR.
After you skip an advertisement, tourmaline-looking gemstones fill the screen. They line a plastic sheet of paper like stars on an American flag, and a pink-and-white manicure atop ten flittering fingers tenderly strokes each row, producing tingle-inducing little tapping sounds with each stroke. There it is. That inexplicably warm, all-encompassing feeling engulfs my skull like a massage shampoo. My limbs sink a little deeper into my couch cushions as I slowly exhaust the “Up Next” queue.
Your Brain on ASMR
But what is it about soft sounds and borderline-creepy caregiver videos that make some of us—an estimated 20 percent of the population—melt into our mattresses? More neurological research is needed to know for sure, but biopharmaceutical sciences professor Craig Richard, PhD, author of the forthcoming book Brain Tingles: the Secret to Triggering Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response for Improved Sleep, Stress Relief, and Head-to-Toe Euphoria and co-founder of the ASMR Research Project, thinks it’s a genetic response that’s designed to help us feel relaxed, mitigating stress hormones and promoting overall health in the process. “Almost all of our biological functions and reactions are to our benefit,” he says. “So why have we evolved? Why might this be?”
The answer may be in the basic way primates soothe their offspring, he says. How a mother coos and nurtures her fussy babe: She hushes her tone, offers a caring gaze and a gentle touch, conveying with every molecule that It’s alright. You’re OK. “That’s what these videos are doing,” says Richard. “They’re sending a signal to viewers that they’re safe and cared for in a non-threatening way. When a child scrapes his knee, it’s hugging; it’s lowering your voice; it’s focused personal attention. Our brains are hardwired for patterned recognition of those stimuli.” Most likely, certain brain chemicals are at play, Richard says. Research has shown that when a parent soothes an infant, or a teacher comforts an unhappy child, a “brain cocktail” of endorphins, oxytocin (love hormone), dopamine, serotonin (happiness hormone), GABA (relaxation and sleepiness stimulator), and melatonin (sleep hormone) are released, which probably work together to evoke ASMR.
If our brains are primed to feel good when we’re pampered, why is it that we all don’t bliss-out watching Bob Ross paint on PBS (a common ASMR trigger)? It’s likely that a genetic mutation is responsible, says Richard.
We can think of ASMR like the mirror image of a panic attack, he says—an extreme negative reaction to an event or experience. Most of us might get agitated on a crowded subway platform, but fewer of us are apt to feel faint. “We know about phobias and anxiety,” he says, (genetics play a role in both). “But there was no word for the opposite—the other extreme, where people are highly relaxed by certain stimuli.” That is, of course, until ASMR earned its title.
It’s still a new frontier. Richard and Lauw hope forthcoming studies will prove ASMR’s potential health benefits by comparing blood pressure, cortisol levels, and brain scans of people experiencing ASMR against control groups. Anecdotally, devotees already claim that ASMR has helped them overcome anxiety, insomnia, drug addiction, and PTSD.
See also 5 Yoga Teachers Who Overcame Addiction
You can access ASMR on YouTube in the comfort of your own home.
ASMR and yoga—and me
On a Friday afternoon, a week into my ASMR experiment, I propped up on my sunroom sofa to try out a new (to me) YouTube ASMRtist. I had plans to meet a friend at 5 o’clock. But at 4:47, there I remained, limp-limbed on the couch while a 40-something redhead performed “skin treatments” into the camera—wafting essential oils in front of “my nose” and encouraging me, in a British accent, to “take deep, slow breaths.” I couldn’t move—let alone call a Lyft. Like sinking deep into Savasana (Corpse Pose) at the end of a restorative yoga class, all desire to re-enter the so-called real world had diminished. In this moment, it dawned on me that I’d been experiencing ASMR in my favorite yoga classes all along.
Richard says that yoga classes that incorporate ASMR are a no-brainer, although as founder of ASMRUniversity.com, he may be biased. Not unlike the intimate in-person experiences curated by Whisper Lodge, he says, yoga classes try to foster safe environments where one can relax and make room for self-nurturing. To this end, Kim, a New Zealand yogi and ASMRtist (who goes by the moniker Miss Synchronicity and like most ASMRtists, chooses to keep her last name private), has integrated yoga into some of her ASMR videos, and her audience loves it. She’s not alone: More and more instructional yoga videos are popping up on YouTube that incorporate ASMR triggers like whispering, tapping sounds, and pretend pampering. “Just like ASMR, yoga brings together the body and mind, expressing relaxation and mindfulness through the breath,” she says.
I can vouch for this. After my daily ASMR sessions, I find myself breathing deeper, moving slower, staying more in the moment, and feeling less attached to future results and outcomes. This new-found chill can last from 30 minutes to a couple of hours.
And the best part for me? Unlike my oft-failed attempts at getting present through meditation, ASMR works every time.
See also A One-Strap Restorative Yoga Sequence for Self-Care
About the Author
Lindsay Tucker is a senior editor at Yoga Journal.
0 notes
Text
Inside the ASMR Meditation People Are Calling a Brain Orgasm
One Yoga Journal editor replaced her daily meditation practice with ASMR YouTube videos for a week. Here’s what happened.
Curious about the ASMR meditation technique some people are calling an orgasm for your brain? We were, too, so we had one of our editors try it. Here’s her story.
“O.K., I have to give you a shot; but it’ll only hurt for a second,” my little sister says to me as I lie completely still on her bed. We’re ages 4 and 6, and playing “doctor” is one of our favorite games. In a few months, she’ll decide on a career in dentistry (she’s since changed her mind), and our mock physicals will quickly morph into make-believe oral procedures. I’ll open wide in our cotton-candy-blue bathtub (“the dentist’s chair”) and she’ll count my teeth thoughtfully one by one.
Rarely would you find me on the other side of the table, so to speak. Being the administrator of mythological medicine never interested me. Yet being still and quiet while my sister “fixed” my feigned ailments relaxed me in a way I could never describe. It was just like the feeling I’d get when we’d sneak into our mom’s bathroom and steal her makeup brushes, taking turns whisking the soft bristles across each other’s faces: gentle tingles running up and down my spine, dancing around my scalp—like tummy butterflies for the spinal cord. But no one else I knew ever mentioned butterflies of the brain; no one talked about it on TV. So, I figured it was just me.
See also How to Meditate Daily
What is ASMR Meditation?
Two-and-a-half decades later, and the euphoria I felt from getting fake fillings has a cult following to rival Game of Thrones. Dubbed ASMR (short for autonomous sensory meridian response) in 2010, it’s a highly relaxing, pleasurable tingling that’s felt on the skin and scalp after certain stimuli. The phenomenon gained a huge online following after someone asked the internet about “head orgasms” back in 2007. All of a sudden, people like me were realizing they weren’t alone in their tingling—and wanted to know more about what made them feel great.
Fans quickly took to YouTube, posting videos of mock physicals, face massages, and even crinkling potato chip bags—all intended to trigger the zombie-like relaxation that comes with what became known as ASMR. While the sensation itself is still clouded in mystery (no one knows why some people are triggered and some aren’t), experts now say that for those who experience it, it can be as powerful a tool as meditation. To wit: New research from Sheffield University, published in June in the journal PLOS One, found that ASMR was associated with reduced heart rate and increased skin conductance levels (a fancy term for physical arousal that’s linked with better attention and memory). The researchers determined that ASMR is, in fact, a physiological experience that could have therapeutic benefits for mental and physical health—with the potential to minimize depression, anxiety, insomnia, and chronic pain.
Unfashionably late to this particular party, I first read about ASMR in a Sunday New York Times this past February. In an article titled “The Currency of a Relaxing Sound or Tingle,” reporter Andrea Marks described a therapeutic, interactive theatrical experience where participants played passive roles in scenes including “sitting at a table while someone crinkles paper in your ears, visiting a ‘doctor’s office,’ having your face stroked with makeup brushes, and a hair-brushing encounter.” (Insert brain-exploding emoji here.) The Brooklyn pop-up performance was orchestrated by San Francisco's Whisperlodge—an immersive traveling show that curates intimate, one-on-one ASMR experiences for audiences that usually emerge from the quiet cocoon in a zen-like haze.
“There’s a tangible benefit you can feel in your body after you exit our performance, but we haven’t been able to back it up with science until now,” Whisperlodge co-creator Melinda Lauw says of the University of Sheffield findings. It’s similar to meditation, she says, because “it’s about paying attention—to small sounds and sensations. You become super quiet and aware.”
See also Rx Meditation: Headspace's New Prescription Strategy Could Change the Way We All Meditate
Down the ASMR Meditation Rabbit Hole
As someone who’s struggled diligently for years to achieve euphoria through meditation, I wanted to see what would happen if I subbed a daily ASMR YouTube video for my regular meditation practice. The first one I launched was called “Taps for Your Naps,” created by ASMR darling Maria (she prefers not to reveal her last name), the personality behind popular YouTube channel Gentle Whispering ASMR.
After you skip an advertisement, tourmaline-looking gemstones fill the screen. They line a plastic sheet of paper like stars on an American flag, and a pink-and-white manicure atop ten flittering fingers tenderly strokes each row, producing tingle-inducing little tapping sounds with each stroke. There it is. That inexplicably warm, all-encompassing feeling engulfs my skull like a massage shampoo. My limbs sink a little deeper into my couch cushions as I slowly exhaust the “Up Next” queue.
Your Brain on ASMR
But what is it about soft sounds and borderline-creepy caregiver videos that make some of us—an estimated 20 percent of the population—melt into our mattresses? More neurological research is needed to know for sure, but biopharmaceutical sciences professor Craig Richard, PhD, author of the forthcoming book Brain Tingles: the Secret to Triggering Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response for Improved Sleep, Stress Relief, and Head-to-Toe Euphoria and co-founder of the ASMR Research Project, thinks it’s a genetic response that’s designed to help us feel relaxed, mitigating stress hormones and promoting overall health in the process. “Almost all of our biological functions and reactions are to our benefit,” he says. “So why have we evolved? Why might this be?”
The answer may be in the basic way primates soothe their offspring, he says. How a mother coos and nurtures her fussy babe: She hushes her tone, offers a caring gaze and a gentle touch, conveying with every molecule that It’s alright. You’re OK. “That’s what these videos are doing,” says Richard. “They’re sending a signal to viewers that they’re safe and cared for in a non-threatening way. When a child scrapes his knee, it’s hugging; it’s lowering your voice; it’s focused personal attention. Our brains are hardwired for patterned recognition of those stimuli.” Most likely, certain brain chemicals are at play, Richard says. Research has shown that when a parent soothes an infant, or a teacher comforts an unhappy child, a “brain cocktail” of endorphins, oxytocin (love hormone), dopamine, serotonin (happiness hormone), GABA (relaxation and sleepiness stimulator), and melatonin (sleep hormone) are released, which probably work together to evoke ASMR.
If our brains are primed to feel good when we’re pampered, why is it that we all don’t bliss-out watching Bob Ross paint on PBS (a common ASMR trigger)? It’s likely that a genetic mutation is responsible, says Richard.
We can think of ASMR like the mirror image of a panic attack, he says—an extreme negative reaction to an event or experience. Most of us might get agitated on a crowded subway platform, but fewer of us are apt to feel faint. “We know about phobias and anxiety,” he says, (genetics play a role in both). “But there was no word for the opposite—the other extreme, where people are highly relaxed by certain stimuli.” That is, of course, until ASMR earned its title.
It’s still a new frontier. Richard and Lauw hope forthcoming studies will prove ASMR’s potential health benefits by comparing blood pressure, cortisol levels, and brain scans of people experiencing ASMR against control groups. Anecdotally, devotees already claim that ASMR has helped them overcome anxiety, insomnia, drug addiction, and PTSD.
See also 5 Yoga Teachers Who Overcame Addiction
You can access ASMR on YouTube in the comfort of your own home.
ASMR and yoga—and me
On a Friday afternoon, a week into my ASMR experiment, I propped up on my sunroom sofa to try out a new (to me) YouTube ASMRtist. I had plans to meet a friend at 5 o’clock. But at 4:47, there I remained, limp-limbed on the couch while a 40-something redhead performed “skin treatments” into the camera—wafting essential oils in front of “my nose” and encouraging me, in a British accent, to “take deep, slow breaths.” I couldn’t move—let alone call a Lyft. Like sinking deep into Savasana (Corpse Pose) at the end of a restorative yoga class, all desire to re-enter the so-called real world had diminished. In this moment, it dawned on me that I’d been experiencing ASMR in my favorite yoga classes all along.
Richard says that yoga classes that incorporate ASMR are a no-brainer, although as founder of ASMRUniversity.com, he may be biased. Not unlike the intimate in-person experiences curated by Whisper Lodge, he says, yoga classes try to foster safe environments where one can relax and make room for self-nurturing. To this end, Kim, a New Zealand yogi and ASMRtist (who goes by the moniker Miss Synchronicity and like most ASMRtists, chooses to keep her last name private), has integrated yoga into some of her ASMR videos, and her audience loves it. She’s not alone: More and more instructional yoga videos are popping up on YouTube that incorporate ASMR triggers like whispering, tapping sounds, and pretend pampering. “Just like ASMR, yoga brings together the body and mind, expressing relaxation and mindfulness through the breath,” she says.
I can vouch for this. After my daily ASMR sessions, I find myself breathing deeper, moving slower, staying more in the moment, and feeling less attached to future results and outcomes. This new-found chill can last from 30 minutes to a couple of hours.
And the best part for me? Unlike my oft-failed attempts at getting present through meditation, ASMR works every time.
See also A One-Strap Restorative Yoga Sequence for Self-Care
About the Author
Lindsay Tucker is a senior editor at Yoga Journal.
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One Yoga Journal editor replaced her daily meditation practice with ASMR YouTube videos for a week. Here’s what happened.
Curious about the ASMR meditation technique some people are calling an orgasm for your brain? We were, too, so we had one of our editors try it. Here’s her story.
“O.K., I have to give you a shot; but it’ll only hurt for a second,” my little sister says to me as I lie completely still on her bed. We’re ages 4 and 6, and playing “doctor” is one of our favorite games. In a few months, she’ll decide on a career in dentistry (she’s since changed her mind), and our mock physicals will quickly morph into make-believe oral procedures. I’ll open wide in our cotton-candy-blue bathtub (“the dentist’s chair”) and she’ll count my teeth thoughtfully one by one.
Rarely would you find me on the other side of the table, so to speak. Being the administrator of mythological medicine never interested me. Yet being still and quiet while my sister “fixed” my feigned ailments relaxed me in a way I could never describe. It was just like the feeling I’d get when we’d sneak into our mom’s bathroom and steal her makeup brushes, taking turns whisking the soft bristles across each other’s faces: gentle tingles running up and down my spine, dancing around my scalp—like tummy butterflies for the spinal cord. But no one else I knew ever mentioned butterflies of the brain; no one talked about it on TV. So, I figured it was just me.
See also How to Meditate Daily
What is ASMR Meditation?
Two-and-a-half decades later, and the euphoria I felt from getting fake fillings has a cult following to rival Game of Thrones. Dubbed ASMR (short for autonomous sensory meridian response) in 2010, it’s a highly relaxing, pleasurable tingling that’s felt on the skin and scalp after certain stimuli. The phenomenon gained a huge online following after someone asked the internet about “head orgasms” back in 2007. All of a sudden, people like me were realizing they weren’t alone in their tingling—and wanted to know more about what made them feel great.
Fans quickly took to YouTube, posting videos of mock physicals, face massages, and even crinkling potato chip bags—all intended to trigger the zombie-like relaxation that comes with what became known as ASMR. While the sensation itself is still clouded in mystery (no one knows why some people are triggered and some aren’t), experts now say that for those who experience it, it can be as powerful a tool as meditation. To wit: New research from Sheffield University, published in June in the journal PLOS One, found that ASMR was associated with reduced heart rate and increased skin conductance levels (a fancy term for physical arousal that’s linked with better attention and memory). The researchers determined that ASMR is, in fact, a physiological experience that could have therapeutic benefits for mental and physical health—with the potential to minimize depression, anxiety, insomnia, and chronic pain.
Unfashionably late to this particular party, I first read about ASMR in a Sunday New York Times this past February. In an article titled “The Currency of a Relaxing Sound or Tingle,” reporter Andrea Marks described a therapeutic, interactive theatrical experience where participants played passive roles in scenes including “sitting at a table while someone crinkles paper in your ears, visiting a ‘doctor’s office,’ having your face stroked with makeup brushes, and a hair-brushing encounter.” (Insert brain-exploding emoji here.) The Brooklyn pop-up performance was orchestrated by San Francisco's Whisperlodge—an immersive traveling show that curates intimate, one-on-one ASMR experiences for audiences that usually emerge from the quiet cocoon in a zen-like haze.
“There’s a tangible benefit you can feel in your body after you exit our performance, but we haven’t been able to back it up with science until now,” Whisperlodge co-creator Melinda Lauw says of the University of Sheffield findings. It’s similar to meditation, she says, because “it’s about paying attention—to small sounds and sensations. You become super quiet and aware.”
See also Rx Meditation: Headspace's New Prescription Strategy Could Change the Way We All Meditate
Down the ASMR Meditation Rabbit Hole
As someone who’s struggled diligently for years to achieve euphoria through meditation, I wanted to see what would happen if I subbed a daily ASMR YouTube video for my regular meditation practice. The first one I launched was called “Taps for Your Naps,” created by ASMR darling Maria (she prefers not to reveal her last name), the personality behind popular YouTube channel Gentle Whispering ASMR.
After you skip an advertisement, tourmaline-looking gemstones fill the screen. They line a plastic sheet of paper like stars on an American flag, and a pink-and-white manicure atop ten flittering fingers tenderly strokes each row, producing tingle-inducing little tapping sounds with each stroke. There it is. That inexplicably warm, all-encompassing feeling engulfs my skull like a message shampoo. My limbs sink a little deeper into my couch cushions as I slowly exhaust the “Up Next” queue.
Your Brain on ASMR
But what is it about soft sounds and borderline-creepy caregiver videos that make some of us—an estimated 20 percent of the population—melt into our mattresses? More neurological research is needed to know for sure, but biopharmaceutical sciences professor Craig Richard, PhD, author of the forthcoming book Brain Tingles: the Secret to Triggering Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response for Improved Sleep, Stress Relief, and Head-to-Toe Euphoria and co-founder of the ASMR Research Project, thinks it’s a genetic response that’s designed to help us feel relaxed, mitigating stress hormones and promoting overall health in the process. “Almost all of our biological functions and reactions are to our benefit,” he says. “So why have we evolved? Why might this be?”
The answer may be in the basic way primates soothe their offspring, he says. How a mother coos and nurtures her fussy babe: She hushes her tone, offers a caring gaze and a gentle touch, conveying with every molecule that It’s alright. You’re OK. “That’s what these videos are doing,” says Richard. “They’re sending a signal to viewers that they’re safe and cared for in a non-threatening way. When a child scrapes his knee, it’s hugging; it’s lowering your voice; it’s focused personal attention. Our brains are hardwired for patterned recognition of those stimuli.” Most likely, certain brain chemicals are at play, Richard says. Research has shown that when a parent soothes an infant, or a teacher comforts an unhappy child, a “brain cocktail” of endorphins, oxytocin (love hormone), dopamine, serotonin (happiness hormone), GABA (relaxation and sleepiness stimulator), and melatonin (sleep hormone) are released, which probably work together to evoke ASMR.
If our brains are primed to feel good when we’re pampered, why is it that we all don’t bliss-out watching Bob Ross paint on PBS (a common ASMR trigger)? It’s likely that a genetic mutation is responsible, says Richard.
We can think of ASMR like the mirror image of a panic attack, he says—an extreme negative reaction to an event or experience. Most of us might get agitated on a crowded subway platform, but fewer of us are apt to feel faint. “We know about phobias and anxiety,” he says, (genetics play a role in both). “But there was no word for the opposite—the other extreme, where people are highly relaxed by certain stimuli.” That is, of course, until ASMR earned its title.
It’s still a new frontier. Richard and Lauw hope forthcoming studies will prove ASMR’s potential health benefits by comparing blood pressure, cortisol levels, and brain scans of people experiencing ASMR against control groups. Anecdotally, devotees already claim that ASMR has helped them overcome anxiety, insomnia, drug addiction, and PTSD.
See also 5 Yoga Teachers Who Overcame Addiction
You can access ASMR on YouTube in the comfort of your own home.
ASMR and yoga—and me
On a Friday afternoon, a week into my ASMR experiment, I propped up on my sunroom sofa to try out a new (to me) YouTube ASMRtist. I had plans to meet a friend at 5 o’clock. But at 4:47, there I remained, limp-limbed on the couch while a 40-something redhead performed “skin treatments” into the camera—wafting essential oils in front of “my nose” and encouraging me, in a British accent, to “take deep, slow breaths.” I couldn’t move—let alone call a Lyft. Like sinking deep into Savasana (Corpse Pose) at the end of a restorative yoga class, all desire to re-enter the so-called real world had diminished. In this moment, it dawned on me that I’d been experiencing ASMR in my favorite yoga classes all along.
Richard says that yoga classes that incorporate ASMR are a no-brainer, although as founder of ASMRUniversity.com, he may be biased. Not unlike the intimate in-person experiences curated by Whisper Lodge, he says, yoga classes try to foster safe environments where one can relax and make room for self-nurturing. To this end, Kim, a New Zealand yogi and ASMRtist (who goes by the moniker Miss Synchronicity and like most ASMRtists, chooses to keep her last name private), has integrated yoga into some of her ASMR videos, and her audience loves it. She’s not alone: More and more instructional yoga videos are popping up on YouTube that incorporate ASMR triggers like whispering, tapping sounds, and pretend pampering. “Just like ASMR, yoga brings together the body and mind, expressing relaxation and mindfulness through the breath,” she says.
I can vouch for this. After my daily ASMR sessions, I find myself breathing deeper, moving slower, staying more in the moment, and feeling less attached to future results and outcomes. This new-found chill can last from 30 minutes to a couple of hours.
And the best part for me? Unlike my oft-failed attempts at getting present through meditation, ASMR works every time.
See also A One-Strap Restorative Yoga Sequence for Self-Care
About the Author
Lindsay Tucker is a senior editor at Yoga Journal.
0 notes
Text
The Instagram Generation is Really Bad News for Beauty Spots
Photography is an ever-evolving, ever-changing hobby, career and art-form. Over the years the cameras have evolved from primitive wooden boxes powered by chemicals, into technologically-advanced power-packed gizmos that enable pretty much anyone to take a good photograph in pretty much any environment.
In the process, what used to be a niche and highly specialized interest, was democratized. However, of all the advancements, progressions and transformations of the last 100 years, the one that has most recently had far-reaching effects on the world is Instagram.
First launched in 2010, Instagram combined the immediacy of a Polaroid with the social sharing functions that the current generation was born into. The app’s popularity exploded, with one million registered users within its first two months alone, then 10 million in a year, 800 million as of September 2017 and well north of one billion users now.
It has always been a controversial app, from the hard-baked 1:1 square ratio of the original release, to the one-click filters, through its apparent disregard for the niceties of copyright ownership, to the bullying the platform enabled, the changes to its timeline algorithm and most recently the move away from photographs towards videos via its Story function and spin-off IGTV app.
Instagram propelled some photographers from relative anonymity into the big league. It took other non-photographers who had simply been taking photographs of what interested them and transformed them into Insta-stars. Above all, Instagram helped to bring forth a whole new career path for the millennial generation – the influencer.
The problem is that Instagram is a voracious beast. It demands a never-ending supply of new images in order to satisfy that massive audience and their infinitely scrolling timelines. Influencers, once they were on the treadmill, found that they had to find new places to photograph, new ways of telling the same story over and over again, new photographic styles to keep their feed interesting, new collaborations to increase their follower count, new experiences to share, new restaurants to #foodstagram and new products to pretend they weren’t being paid to promote.
Photo by Creaslim.
One of the unfortunate side-effects of all of this is the hug of death. Certain locations, which offer the perfect backdrop for an Instagram selfie, have been inundated with visitors. In some cases, the locations have been damaged to such an extent that they have been closed to public access. The motto of the landscape photographer used to be “Leave nothing but footprints. Take nothing but pictures. Kill nothing but time.” But these days the Instagammer’s motto is more like “Leave nothing but litter. Take nothing but souvenirs. Kill nothing but the environment.”
As a direct result of the dawn of this new breed of photographer — namely the person who takes images purely to share online with a following on social media — locations that have been visited for a hundred years by photographers are being damaged, destroyed and closed.
It might sound sensationalist, but the evidence is clear.
Bush tracks and paths that were once little used and overgrown are now worn to the point of collapse. Rock structures that survived for millions of years have been eroded and destroyed. Land-owners who were happy to let the occasional person cross their properties are now closing the gates forever. In many cases, it was just the serenity that attracted the occasional photographer to a location – but that too has been shattered. What were once quiet and lovely spots out in the countryside are now simply locations to be ticked off a checklist as Instagram users try to create their versions of the photos they’ve admired online.
Figure 8 Pools
The rock platform at Figure Eight Pools. Photo by David Croft/OEH.
Here in Australia, there are plentiful examples of the Instagram hotspot phenomenon. Once upon a time, the Figure 8 Pools were a little known natural rockpool structure located on the edge of the Royal National Park near Burning Palms. Then the location started appearing in the feeds of some well-known Instagrammers and then in Australia.com’s official feed, and before you knew it the place had become insanely busy. People who had no knowledge or awareness of the dangers of the coast arrived in large numbers and, when they weren’t queueing for their turn in the pools, were getting swept off the rocks by rogue waves and being badly injured in the process.
It’s got so bad there that National Parks have totally changed their information page about the Figure 8 Pools. Back in 2015, it used to say, “Deep enough to take a swim or paddle your feet, the rockpools are home to a variety of sea life including sea urchins, chitons and zebra snails.” Visit the same page now and you’ll see nothing but extensive warnings about how dangerous it is and how far it is (four hours apparently). Further down the page they clearly identify the issue: “Pick a better spot for a selfie. Instead of breaking a limb at Figure Eight Pools, take photos at some other beautiful places. Avoid the crowds that Figure Eight Pools is now infamous for.”
Bombo Quarry
Long before it became one of the flagship photography locations on the south coast of New South Wales, Bombo Quarry was a mecca for rock climbers. These days some of the photographers who visit the quarry do employ some basic rock climbing skills but this is to put themselves in the frame of their photograph. I’ve only lived in this part of the world for 12 years but I find it amazing how much busier Bombo is these days – it would be a rare day when you get the place to yourself.
Moreover, it does not matter when you visit because it’s an extremely popular spot at sunrise, during the day and for night sky photography. Within the last couple of years, it has also become established as a wedding photography location for Sydney newly-weds looking for something other than the classic Observatory Hill shots. It will soon become far busier still because the local state M.P. Gareth Ward announced funding for a trail hilariously named the Bombo Headland Eco Walk. I think he meant Ego, not Eco.
Drawing Room Rocks
Drawing Room Rocks is a fabled lookout on the edge of the brilliantly named Barren Grounds National Park. When we first moved to this area virtually nobody knew how to get to it and we only ever found out how to reach the location through a tortuous series of connections with various locals. The first time we walked the indistinct bush track to the top it was really overgrown and so well hidden that we took four wrong-turns on the way up. Then a couple of years ago, a travel show featured the spot and the local Wollongong newspaper ran an article about the location and faster than you could say tan-and-teal it was well and truly on the map.
The tiny carpark is full before sunrise and people park on the edges of the unsealed road, damaging the side banks. The track itself is badly eroded and you certainly wouldn’t have any problems following the right path to the top, it’s like a road now. The delicate stones at the top that give the location its name are also showing the signs of wear and there is graffiti on some of the rocks. Visit the place during the summer holidays and there are as many as 100 other people up there.
Helensburgh Tunnel
Took a while but finally got the shot . . . Canon t3i (600D) | 10-18mm @10mm | ISO 100 | 13 sec | f/6.3 . . . #mitchkara #canon #canon600d #steelwoolphotography #steelwool #longexposureshot #longexposure #longexpoelite #slowshutterspeed #slowshutter #helensburgh #helensburghtunnel #wideangle #tunnel #sparks #lighttrails #t3i #canont3i #600d #spark
A post shared by Mitchell Kara (@mitchkara) on Mar 9, 2018 at 1:04am PST
If you guys want to see some epic artistic shots check out my girl @aussiegirladventurer – You're amazing girl, keep doing your thing! Hope to see you soon ❤️ #haunted #railway #smoke #orange #flare #smokeflare #photography #photographylovers #photooftheday #picoftheday #nature #landscape #helensburgh #helensburghtunnel #quote #love #amazing #instagood #instadaily #travel #explore #adventure #sydney #mustdo #hike #glowworms #australia
A post shared by R E B E C C A • L E E 🦋 (@fromsydneywithlove__) on Aug 3, 2016 at 2:31am PDT
Red rails at the old 'Helensburg Railway Tunnel. Capture by babe @alexandra_zumbo #helensburghtunnel #exploreaustralia #adventures #hiddengem #abandonedearth #travelnsw #seekandfind #hikeandseek
A post shared by A S H A S K A R O (@ashaskaro) on Nov 12, 2016 at 12:53pm PST
The photographic community where I live has recently been mourning the loss of one of the most photogenic locations south of Sydney – the abandoned railway tunnel at Helensburgh. An extremely cool location in its own right, it was also home to a colony of extremely rare glowworms which you could photograph at night using long exposures.
Unfortunately, the tunnel has been on the Instagram map for a few years now and many of those visitors to the site used flares or spun steel wool in the tunnel to create cliched ember shots and, in the process, nearly wiped out the poor old glowworms. Consequently, the owner of the tunnel (Crown Lands) has erected a steel fence across the entrance to the tunnel and have said that they will keep it closed until the glowworms have had sufficient time to recover. They will only be permitting limited access thereafter, probably at weekends only. And that’s why we can’t have nice things.
These same issues are playing out at locations all around the world. All of those locations that were previously only known to a handful of locals have been photographed, Instagrammed and geo-tagged and now the world and its cousin are beating down the door with selfie-sticks, GoPros, and drones.
The managers of these locations, usually one of the national park organizations, try their best to manage the sudden influx of visitors. But parks organizations worldwide suffer badly from being under-resourced and they do not have the manpower or the funds to do enough to fully protect these locations. Often the only option they have, as custodians of the land, is to close that location completely.
Photo by Tom Holmes.
The problem I have with all this is that I am complicit in the very problem I am highlighting. For years I have shared my landscape photographs online and given full location information for anyone that would like to visit. In my defense, I did this in the mistaken belief that the people who would visit would share the same values as me – to leave no trace – to respect the landscape. Unfortunately, I was wrong. In recent months it has led me to reevaluate how I share and what I share.
For many amazing places, the cat is well and truly out of the bag, but others remain relatively unknown. So I have taken the decision to stop geotagging the photographs of all but the most obvious locations in the hope that they stay the way they are. We’ve thrown enough amazing locations under the bus already, let’s start protecting what’s left.
Update: I want to address some concerns and clear up a few things that other folks have raised.
Firstly – yes, I probably should have finished on a more upbeat note in which I encouraged folks to clean up after themselves, to consider the natural environment and to ‘leave it like you found it’. In my defense, I don’t think that the kind of people who are the problem are going to be reading articles like mine in the first place. The kind of people who treat the natural world such disregard care only about getting to 50,000 Instagram followers and if that means a few pristine bush trails get trampled in the process then so-be-it. I guess the mantra ‘education not vilification’ is a worthy one and an ideal that I will aim for in the future.
Secondly – as I say in the mea culpa in the last paragraph – I am part of the problem too. I fully accept it and henceforth I will be taking steps to ensure that I am not part of the problem.
I think the central issue here is that two worlds have collided.
For many years the world of the landscape photographer was a largely closed one in which a few geeky souls went out into the countryside, at ludicrous hours of the day and night and, using skills learned through years of practice and took photographs of the natural world. It was a genuinely small clique of people who, by and large, operated under the same unwritten code of ethics. As I see it, it all changed in three stages – 1) when we went from film to digital, 2) when we went from high-end DSLR to smartphone camera and 3) when we went from printing our photos to uploading them to social media. The bottom line is that in 2018 – everyone is a photographer and that old unwritten code of ethics simply does not figure in the lives of most people. Combine the exponential increase in the number of people taking photographs with the world of social media and, in hindsight, it’s easy to see that it was always going to play out the way it has.
It has been pointed out to me – and I completely agree – that the massive increase in tourism since the 1990s is also to blame for the current situation. Even extremely well known places that have been on the tourist map for a hundred years, such as Yellowstone in the states, Abel Tasman National Park in New Zealand, Lofoten in Norway, the Lake District in England, Santorini in Greece and pretty much the whole of Iceland, have all been suffering from a massive increase in visitation rates. Even newly ‘discovered’ locations such as Torres Del Paine in Patagonia, have been feeling the pressure of greatly increased visitor numbers. It is becoming increasingly clear that the only way of managing this in the long-term is by limiting the number of people who can access a particular area at one time – although I suspect the situation will have to get much worse than it currently is for the authorities to step in.
The other argument – and again I completely agree – is that there is no malice intended by the people sharing locations. In many cases, they had no idea that their photograph would go viral, or be noticed by an influencer and copied, or get picked up by a tourism organization and shared.
About the author: Andy Hutchinson is a photographer and journalist based in South Coast, New South Wales, Australia. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can find more of his work and words on his website, or by following him on Facebook and Instagram. This article was also published here.
Image credits: Header photo by rawpixel
from Photography News https://petapixel.com/2018/07/06/the-instagram-generation-is-really-bad-news-for-beauty-spots/
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Inside the ASMR Meditation People Are Calling a Brain Orgasm
One Yoga Journal editor replaced her daily meditation practice with ASMR YouTube videos for a week. Here’s what happened.
Curious about the ASMR meditation technique some people are calling an orgasm for your brain? We were, too, so we had one of our editors try it. Here’s her story.
“O.K., I have to give you a shot; but it’ll only hurt for a second,” my little sister says to me as I lie completely still on her bed. We’re ages 4 and 6, and playing “doctor” is one of our favorite games. In a few months, she’ll decide on a career in dentistry (she’s since changed her mind), and our mock physicals will quickly morph into make-believe oral procedures. I’ll open wide in our cotton-candy-blue bathtub (“the dentist’s chair”) and she’ll count my teeth thoughtfully one by one.
Rarely would you find me on the other side of the table, so to speak. Being the administrator of mythological medicine never interested me. Yet being still and quiet while my sister “fixed” my feigned ailments relaxed me in a way I could never describe. It was just like the feeling I’d get when we’d sneak into our mom’s bathroom and steal her makeup brushes, taking turns whisking the soft bristles across each other’s faces: gentle tingles running up and down my spine, dancing around my scalp—like tummy butterflies for the spinal cord. But no one else I knew ever mentioned butterflies of the brain; no one talked about it on TV. So, I figured it was just me.
See also How to Meditate Daily
What is ASMR Meditation?
Two-and-a-half decades later, and the euphoria I felt from getting fake fillings has a cult following to rival Game of Thrones. Dubbed ASMR (short for autonomous sensory meridian response) in 2010, it’s a highly relaxing, pleasurable tingling that’s felt on the skin and scalp after certain stimuli. The phenomenon gained a huge online following after someone asked the internet about “head orgasms” back in 2007. All of a sudden, people like me were realizing they weren’t alone in their tingling—and wanted to know more about what made them feel great.
Fans quickly took to YouTube, posting videos of mock physicals, face massages, and even crinkling potato chip bags—all intended to trigger the zombie-like relaxation that comes with what became known as ASMR. While the sensation itself is still clouded in mystery (no one knows why some people are triggered and some aren’t), experts now say that for those who experience it, it can be as powerful a tool as meditation. To wit: New research from Sheffield University, published in June in the journal PLOS One, found that ASMR was associated with reduced heart rate and increased skin conductance levels (a fancy term for physical arousal that’s linked with better attention and memory). The researchers determined that ASMR is, in fact, a physiological experience that could have therapeutic benefits for mental and physical health—with the potential to minimize depression, anxiety, insomnia, and chronic pain.
Unfashionably late to this particular party, I first read about ASMR in a Sunday New York Times this past February. In an article titled “The Currency of a Relaxing Sound or Tingle,” reporter Andrea Marks described a therapeutic, interactive theatrical experience where participants played passive roles in scenes including “sitting at a table while someone crinkles paper in your ears, visiting a ‘doctor’s office,’ having your face stroked with makeup brushes, and a hair-brushing encounter.” (Insert brain-exploding emoji here.) The Brooklyn pop-up performance was orchestrated by San Francisco's Whisperlodge—an immersive traveling show that curates intimate, one-on-one ASMR experiences for audiences that usually emerge from the quiet cocoon in a zen-like haze.
“There’s a tangible benefit you can feel in your body after you exit our performance, but we haven’t been able to back it up with science until now,” Whisperlodge co-creator Melinda Lauw says of the University of Sheffield findings. It’s similar to meditation, she says, because “it’s about paying attention—to small sounds and sensations. You become super quiet and aware.”
See also Rx Meditation: Headspace's New Prescription Strategy Could Change the Way We All Meditate
Down the ASMR Meditation Rabbit Hole
As someone who’s struggled diligently for years to achieve euphoria through meditation, I wanted to see what would happen if I subbed a daily ASMR YouTube video for my regular meditation practice. The first one I launched was called “Taps for Your Naps,” created by ASMR darling Maria (she prefers not to reveal her last name), the personality behind popular YouTube channel Gentle Whispering ASMR.
After you skip an advertisement, tourmaline-looking gemstones fill the screen. They line a plastic sheet of paper like stars on an American flag, and a pink-and-white manicure atop ten flittering fingers tenderly strokes each row, producing tingle-inducing little tapping sounds with each stroke. There it is. That inexplicably warm, all-encompassing feeling engulfs my skull like a message shampoo. My limbs sink a little deeper into my couch cushions as I slowly exhaust the “Up Next” queue.
Your Brain on ASMR
But what is it about soft sounds and borderline-creepy caregiver videos that make some of us—an estimated 20 percent of the population—melt into our mattresses? More neurological research is needed to know for sure, but biopharmaceutical sciences professor Craig Richard, PhD, author of the forthcoming book Brain Tingles: the Secret to Triggering Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response for Improved Sleep, Stress Relief, and Head-to-Toe Euphoria and co-founder of the ASMR Research Project, thinks it’s a genetic response that’s designed to help us feel relaxed, mitigating stress hormones and promoting overall health in the process. “Almost all of our biological functions and reactions are to our benefit,” he says. “So why have we evolved? Why might this be?”
The answer may be in the basic way primates soothe their offspring, he says. How a mother coos and nurtures her fussy babe: She hushes her tone, offers a caring gaze and a gentle touch, conveying with every molecule that It’s alright. You’re OK. “That’s what these videos are doing,” says Richard. “They’re sending a signal to viewers that they’re safe and cared for in a non-threatening way. When a child scrapes his knee, it’s hugging; it’s lowering your voice; it’s focused personal attention. Our brains are hardwired for patterned recognition of those stimuli.” Most likely, certain brain chemicals are at play, Richard says. Research has shown that when a parent soothes an infant, or a teacher comforts an unhappy child, a “brain cocktail” of endorphins, oxytocin (love hormone), dopamine, serotonin (happiness hormone), GABA (relaxation and sleepiness stimulator), and melatonin (sleep hormone) are released, which probably work together to evoke ASMR.
If our brains are primed to feel good when we’re pampered, why is it that we all don’t bliss-out watching Bob Ross paint on PBS (a common ASMR trigger)? It’s likely that a genetic mutation is responsible, says Richard.
We can think of ASMR like the mirror image of a panic attack, he says—an extreme negative reaction to an event or experience. Most of us might get agitated on a crowded subway platform, but fewer of us are apt to feel faint. “We know about phobias and anxiety,” he says, (genetics play a role in both). “But there was no word for the opposite—the other extreme, where people are highly relaxed by certain stimuli.” That is, of course, until ASMR earned its title.
It’s still a new frontier. Richard and Lauw hope forthcoming studies will prove ASMR’s potential health benefits by comparing blood pressure, cortisol levels, and brain scans of people experiencing ASMR against control groups. Anecdotally, devotees already claim that ASMR has helped them overcome anxiety, insomnia, drug addiction, and PTSD.
See also 5 Yoga Teachers Who Overcame Addiction
You can access ASMR on YouTube in the comfort of your own home.
ASMR and yoga—and me
On a Friday afternoon, a week into my ASMR experiment, I propped up on my sunroom sofa to try out a new (to me) YouTube ASMRtist. I had plans to meet a friend at 5 o’clock. But at 4:47, there I remained, limp-limbed on the couch while a 40-something redhead performed “skin treatments” into the camera—wafting essential oils in front of “my nose” and encouraging me, in a British accent, to “take deep, slow breaths.” I couldn’t move—let alone call a Lyft. Like sinking deep into Savasana (Corpse Pose) at the end of a restorative yoga class, all desire to re-enter the so-called real world had diminished. In this moment, it dawned on me that I’d been experiencing ASMR in my favorite yoga classes all along.
Richard says that yoga classes that incorporate ASMR are a no-brainer, although as founder of ASMRUniversity.com, he may be biased. Not unlike the intimate in-person experiences curated by Whisper Lodge, he says, yoga classes try to foster safe environments where one can relax and make room for self-nurturing. To this end, Kim, a New Zealand yogi and ASMRtist (who goes by the moniker Miss Synchronicity and like most ASMRtists, chooses to keep her last name private), has integrated yoga into some of her ASMR videos, and her audience loves it. She’s not alone: More and more instructional yoga videos are popping up on YouTube that incorporate ASMR triggers like whispering, tapping sounds, and pretend pampering. “Just like ASMR, yoga brings together the body and mind, expressing relaxation and mindfulness through the breath,” she says.
I can vouch for this. After my daily ASMR sessions, I find myself breathing deeper, moving slower, staying more in the moment, and feeling less attached to future results and outcomes. This new-found chill can last from 30 minutes to a couple of hours.
And the best part for me? Unlike my oft-failed attempts at getting present through meditation, ASMR works every time.
See also A One-Strap Restorative Yoga Sequence for Self-Care
About the Author
Lindsay Tucker is a senior editor at Yoga Journal.
from Yoga Journal https://ift.tt/2NapmbL
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One Yoga Journal editor replaced her daily meditation practice with ASMR YouTube videos for a week. Here’s what happened.
Curious about the ASMR meditation technique some people are calling an orgasm for your brain? We were, too, so we had one of our editors try it. Here’s her story.
“O.K., I have to give you a shot; but it’ll only hurt for a second,” my little sister says to me as I lie completely still on her bed. We’re ages 4 and 6, and playing “doctor” is one of our favorite games. In a few months, she’ll decide on a career in dentistry (she’s since changed her mind), and our mock physicals will quickly morph into make-believe oral procedures. I’ll open wide in our cotton-candy-blue bathtub (“the dentist’s chair”) and she’ll count my teeth thoughtfully one by one.
Rarely would you find me on the other side of the table, so to speak. Being the administrator of mythological medicine never interested me. Yet being still and quiet while my sister “fixed” my feigned ailments relaxed me in a way I could never describe. It was just like the feeling I’d get when we’d sneak into our mom’s bathroom and steal her makeup brushes, taking turns whisking the soft bristles across each other’s faces: gentle tingles running up and down my spine, dancing around my scalp—like tummy butterflies for the spinal cord. But no one else I knew ever mentioned butterflies of the brain; no one talked about it on TV. So, I figured it was just me.
See also How to Meditate Daily
What is ASMR Meditation?
Two-and-a-half decades later, and the euphoria I felt from getting fake fillings has a cult following to rival Game of Thrones. Dubbed ASMR (short for autonomous sensory meridian response) in 2010, it’s a highly relaxing, pleasurable tingling that’s felt on the skin and scalp after certain stimuli. The phenomenon gained a huge online following after someone asked the internet about “head orgasms” back in 2007. All of a sudden, people like me were realizing they weren’t alone in their tingling—and wanted to know more about what made them feel great.
Fans quickly took to YouTube, posting videos of mock physicals, face massages, and even crinkling potato chip bags—all intended to trigger the zombie-like relaxation that comes with what became known as ASMR. While the sensation itself is still clouded in mystery (no one knows why some people are triggered and some aren’t), experts now say that for those who experience it, it can be as powerful a tool as meditation. To wit: New research from Sheffield University, published in June in the journal PLOS One, found that ASMR was associated with reduced heart rate and increased skin conductance levels (a fancy term for physical arousal that’s linked with better attention and memory). The researchers determined that ASMR is, in fact, a physiological experience that could have therapeutic benefits for mental and physical health—with the potential to minimize depression, anxiety, insomnia, and chronic pain.
Unfashionably late to this particular party, I first read about ASMR in a Sunday New York Times this past February. In an article titled “The Currency of a Relaxing Sound or Tingle,” reporter Andrea Marks described a therapeutic, interactive theatrical experience where participants played passive roles in scenes including “sitting at a table while someone crinkles paper in your ears, visiting a ‘doctor’s office,’ having your face stroked with makeup brushes, and a hair-brushing encounter.” (Insert brain-exploding emoji here.) The Brooklyn pop-up performance was orchestrated by San Francisco's Whisperlodge—an immersive traveling show that curates intimate, one-on-one ASMR experiences for audiences that usually emerge from the quiet cocoon in a zen-like haze.
“There’s a tangible benefit you can feel in your body after you exit our performance, but we haven’t been able to back it up with science until now,” Whisperlodge co-creator Melinda Lauw says of the University of Sheffield findings. It’s similar to meditation, she says, because “it’s about paying attention—to small sounds and sensations. You become super quiet and aware.”
See also Rx Meditation: Headspace's New Prescription Strategy Could Change the Way We All Meditate
Down the ASMR Meditation Rabbit Hole
As someone who’s struggled diligently for years to achieve euphoria through meditation, I wanted to see what would happen if I subbed a daily ASMR YouTube video for my regular meditation practice. The first one I launched was called “Taps for Your Naps,” created by ASMR darling Maria (she prefers not to reveal her last name), the personality behind popular YouTube channel Gentle Whispering ASMR.
After you skip an advertisement, tourmaline-looking gemstones fill the screen. They line a plastic sheet of paper like stars on an American flag, and a pink-and-white manicure atop ten flittering fingers tenderly strokes each row, producing tingle-inducing little tapping sounds with each stroke. There it is. That inexplicably warm, all-encompassing feeling engulfs my skull like a message shampoo. My limbs sink a little deeper into my couch cushions as I slowly exhaust the “Up Next” queue.
Your Brain on ASMR
But what is it about soft sounds and borderline-creepy caregiver videos that make some of us—an estimated 20 percent of the population—melt into our mattresses? More neurological research is needed to know for sure, but biopharmaceutical sciences professor Craig Richard, PhD, author of the forthcoming book Brain Tingles: the Secret to Triggering Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response for Improved Sleep, Stress Relief, and Head-to-Toe Euphoria and co-founder of the ASMR Research Project, thinks it’s a genetic response that’s designed to help us feel relaxed, mitigating stress hormones and promoting overall health in the process. “Almost all of our biological functions and reactions are to our benefit,” he says. “So why have we evolved? Why might this be?”
The answer may be in the basic way primates soothe their offspring, he says. How a mother coos and nurtures her fussy babe: She hushes her tone, offers a caring gaze and a gentle touch, conveying with every molecule that It’s alright. You’re OK. “That’s what these videos are doing,” says Richard. “They’re sending a signal to viewers that they’re safe and cared for in a non-threatening way. When a child scrapes his knee, it’s hugging; it’s lowering your voice; it’s focused personal attention. Our brains are hardwired for patterned recognition of those stimuli.” Most likely, certain brain chemicals are at play, Richard says. Research has shown that when a parent soothes an infant, or a teacher comforts an unhappy child, a “brain cocktail” of endorphins, oxytocin (love hormone), dopamine, serotonin (happiness hormone), GABA (relaxation and sleepiness stimulator), and melatonin (sleep hormone) are released, which probably work together to evoke ASMR.
If our brains are primed to feel good when we’re pampered, why is it that we all don’t bliss-out watching Bob Ross paint on PBS (a common ASMR trigger)? It’s likely that a genetic mutation is responsible, says Richard.
We can think of ASMR like the mirror image of a panic attack, he says—an extreme negative reaction to an event or experience. Most of us might get agitated on a crowded subway platform, but fewer of us are apt to feel faint. “We know about phobias and anxiety,” he says, (genetics play a role in both). “But there was no word for the opposite—the other extreme, where people are highly relaxed by certain stimuli.” That is, of course, until ASMR earned its title.
It’s still a new frontier. Richard and Lauw hope forthcoming studies will prove ASMR’s potential health benefits by comparing blood pressure, cortisol levels, and brain scans of people experiencing ASMR against control groups. Anecdotally, devotees already claim that ASMR has helped them overcome anxiety, insomnia, drug addiction, and PTSD.
See also 5 Yoga Teachers Who Overcame Addiction
You can access ASMR on YouTube in the comfort of your own home.
ASMR and yoga—and me
On a Friday afternoon, a week into my ASMR experiment, I propped up on my sunroom sofa to try out a new (to me) YouTube ASMRtist. I had plans to meet a friend at 5 o’clock. But at 4:47, there I remained, limp-limbed on the couch while a 40-something redhead performed “skin treatments” into the camera—wafting essential oils in front of “my nose” and encouraging me, in a British accent, to “take deep, slow breaths.” I couldn’t move—let alone call a Lyft. Like sinking deep into Savasana (Corpse Pose) at the end of a restorative yoga class, all desire to re-enter the so-called real world had diminished. In this moment, it dawned on me that I’d been experiencing ASMR in my favorite yoga classes all along.
Richard says that yoga classes that incorporate ASMR are a no-brainer, although as founder of ASMRUniversity.com, he may be biased. Not unlike the intimate in-person experiences curated by Whisper Lodge, he says, yoga classes try to foster safe environments where one can relax and make room for self-nurturing. To this end, Kim, a New Zealand yogi and ASMRtist (who goes by the moniker Miss Synchronicity and like most ASMRtists, chooses to keep her last name private), has integrated yoga into some of her ASMR videos, and her audience loves it. She’s not alone: More and more instructional yoga videos are popping up on YouTube that incorporate ASMR triggers like whispering, tapping sounds, and pretend pampering. “Just like ASMR, yoga brings together the body and mind, expressing relaxation and mindfulness through the breath,” she says.
I can vouch for this. After my daily ASMR sessions, I find myself breathing deeper, moving slower, staying more in the moment, and feeling less attached to future results and outcomes. This new-found chill can last from 30 minutes to a couple of hours.
And the best part for me? Unlike my oft-failed attempts at getting present through meditation, ASMR works every time.
See also A One-Strap Restorative Yoga Sequence for Self-Care
About the Author
Lindsay Tucker is a senior editor at Yoga Journal.
0 notes
Text
Inside the ASMR Meditation People Are Calling a Brain Orgasm
One Yoga Journal editor replaced her daily meditation practice with ASMR YouTube videos for a week. Here’s what happened.
Curious about the ASMR meditation technique some people are calling an orgasm for your brain? We were, too, so we had one of our editors try it. Here’s her story.
“O.K., I have to give you a shot; but it’ll only hurt for a second,” my little sister says to me as I lie completely still on her bed. We’re ages 4 and 6, and playing “doctor” is one of our favorite games. In a few months, she’ll decide on a career in dentistry (she’s since changed her mind), and our mock physicals will quickly morph into make-believe oral procedures. I’ll open wide in our cotton-candy-blue bathtub (“the dentist’s chair”) and she’ll count my teeth thoughtfully one by one.
Rarely would you find me on the other side of the table, so to speak. Being the administrator of mythological medicine never interested me. Yet being still and quiet while my sister “fixed” my feigned ailments relaxed me in a way I could never describe. It was just like the feeling I’d get when we’d sneak into our mom’s bathroom and steal her makeup brushes, taking turns whisking the soft bristles across each other’s faces: gentle tingles running up and down my spine, dancing around my scalp—like tummy butterflies for the spinal cord. But no one else I knew ever mentioned butterflies of the brain; no one talked about it on TV. So, I figured it was just me.
See also How to Meditate Daily
What is ASMR Meditation?
Two-and-a-half decades later, and the euphoria I felt from getting fake fillings has a cult following to rival Game of Thrones. Dubbed ASMR (short for autonomous sensory meridian response) in 2010, it’s a highly relaxing, pleasurable tingling that’s felt on the skin and scalp after certain stimuli. The phenomenon gained a huge online following after someone asked the internet about “head orgasms” back in 2007. All of a sudden, people like me were realizing they weren’t alone in their tingling—and wanted to know more about what made them feel great.
Fans quickly took to YouTube, posting videos of mock physicals, face massages, and even crinkling potato chip bags—all intended to trigger the zombie-like relaxation that comes with what became known as ASMR. While the sensation itself is still clouded in mystery (no one knows why some people are triggered and some aren’t), experts now say that for those who experience it, it can be as powerful a tool as meditation. To wit: New research from Sheffield University, published in June in the journal PLOS One, found that ASMR was associated with reduced heart rate and increased skin conductance levels (a fancy term for physical arousal that’s linked with better attention and memory). The researchers determined that ASMR is, in fact, a physiological experience that could have therapeutic benefits for mental and physical health—with the potential to minimize depression, anxiety, insomnia, and chronic pain.
Unfashionably late to this particular party, I first read about ASMR in a Sunday New York Times this past February. In an article titled “The Currency of a Relaxing Sound or Tingle,” reporter Andrea Marks described a therapeutic, interactive theatrical experience where participants played passive roles in scenes including “sitting at a table while someone crinkles paper in your ears, visiting a ‘doctor’s office,’ having your face stroked with makeup brushes, and a hair-brushing encounter.” (Insert brain-exploding emoji here.) The Brooklyn pop-up performance was orchestrated by San Francisco's Whisperlodge—an immersive traveling show that curates intimate, one-on-one ASMR experiences for audiences that usually emerge from the quiet cocoon in a zen-like haze.
“There’s a tangible benefit you can feel in your body after you exit our performance, but we haven’t been able to back it up with science until now,” Whisperlodge co-creator Melinda Lauw says of the University of Sheffield findings. It’s similar to meditation, she says, because “it’s about paying attention—to small sounds and sensations. You become super quiet and aware.”
See also Rx Meditation: Headspace's New Prescription Strategy Could Change the Way We All Meditate
Down the ASMR Meditation Rabbit Hole
As someone who’s struggled diligently for years to achieve euphoria through meditation, I wanted to see what would happen if I subbed a daily ASMR YouTube video for my regular meditation practice. The first one I launched was called “Taps for Your Naps,” created by ASMR darling Maria (she prefers not to reveal her last name), the personality behind popular YouTube channel Gentle Whispering ASMR.
After you skip an advertisement, tourmaline-looking gemstones fill the screen. They line a plastic sheet of paper like stars on an American flag, and a pink-and-white manicure atop ten flittering fingers tenderly strokes each row, producing tingle-inducing little tapping sounds with each stroke. There it is. That inexplicably warm, all-encompassing feeling engulfs my skull like a message shampoo. My limbs sink a little deeper into my couch cushions as I slowly exhaust the “Up Next” queue.
Your Brain on ASMR
But what is it about soft sounds and borderline-creepy caregiver videos that make some of us—an estimated 20 percent of the population—melt into our mattresses? More neurological research is needed to know for sure, but biopharmaceutical sciences professor Craig Richard, PhD, author of the forthcoming book Brain Tingles: the Secret to Triggering Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response for Improved Sleep, Stress Relief, and Head-to-Toe Euphoria and co-founder of the ASMR Research Project, thinks it’s a genetic response that’s designed to help us feel relaxed, mitigating stress hormones and promoting overall health in the process. “Almost all of our biological functions and reactions are to our benefit,” he says. “So why have we evolved? Why might this be?”
The answer may be in the basic way primates soothe their offspring, he says. How a mother coos and nurtures her fussy babe: She hushes her tone, offers a caring gaze and a gentle touch, conveying with every molecule that It’s alright. You’re OK. “That’s what these videos are doing,” says Richard. “They’re sending a signal to viewers that they’re safe and cared for in a non-threatening way. When a child scrapes his knee, it’s hugging; it’s lowering your voice; it’s focused personal attention. Our brains are hardwired for patterned recognition of those stimuli.” Most likely, certain brain chemicals are at play, Richard says. Research has shown that when a parent soothes an infant, or a teacher comforts an unhappy child, a “brain cocktail” of endorphins, oxytocin (love hormone), dopamine, serotonin (happiness hormone), GABA (relaxation and sleepiness stimulator), and melatonin (sleep hormone) are released, which probably work together to evoke ASMR.
If our brains are primed to feel good when we’re pampered, why is it that we all don’t bliss-out watching Bob Ross paint on PBS (a common ASMR trigger)? It’s likely that a genetic mutation is responsible, says Richard.
We can think of ASMR like the mirror image of a panic attack, he says—an extreme negative reaction to an event or experience. Most of us might get agitated on a crowded subway platform, but fewer of us are apt to feel faint. “We know about phobias and anxiety,” he says, (genetics play a role in both). “But there was no word for the opposite—the other extreme, where people are highly relaxed by certain stimuli.” That is, of course, until ASMR earned its title.
It’s still a new frontier. Richard and Lauw hope forthcoming studies will prove ASMR’s potential health benefits by comparing blood pressure, cortisol levels, and brain scans of people experiencing ASMR against control groups. Anecdotally, devotees already claim that ASMR has helped them overcome anxiety, insomnia, drug addiction, and PTSD.
See also 5 Yoga Teachers Who Overcame Addiction
You can access ASMR on YouTube in the comfort of your own home.
ASMR and yoga—and me
On a Friday afternoon, a week into my ASMR experiment, I propped up on my sunroom sofa to try out a new (to me) YouTube ASMRtist. I had plans to meet a friend at 5 o’clock. But at 4:47, there I remained, limp-limbed on the couch while a 40-something redhead performed “skin treatments” into the camera—wafting essential oils in front of “my nose” and encouraging me, in a British accent, to “take deep, slow breaths.” I couldn’t move—let alone call a Lyft. Like sinking deep into Savasana (Corpse Pose) at the end of a restorative yoga class, all desire to re-enter the so-called real world had diminished. In this moment, it dawned on me that I’d been experiencing ASMR in my favorite yoga classes all along.
Richard says that yoga classes that incorporate ASMR are a no-brainer, although as founder of ASMRUniversity.com, he may be biased. Not unlike the intimate in-person experiences curated by Whisper Lodge, he says, yoga classes try to foster safe environments where one can relax and make room for self-nurturing. To this end, Kim, a New Zealand yogi and ASMRtist (who goes by the moniker Miss Synchronicity and like most ASMRtists, chooses to keep her last name private), has integrated yoga into some of her ASMR videos, and her audience loves it. She’s not alone: More and more instructional yoga videos are popping up on YouTube that incorporate ASMR triggers like whispering, tapping sounds, and pretend pampering. “Just like ASMR, yoga brings together the body and mind, expressing relaxation and mindfulness through the breath,” she says.
I can vouch for this. After my daily ASMR sessions, I find myself breathing deeper, moving slower, staying more in the moment, and feeling less attached to future results and outcomes. This new-found chill can last from 30 minutes to a couple of hours.
And the best part for me? Unlike my oft-failed attempts at getting present through meditation, ASMR works every time.
See also A One-Strap Restorative Yoga Sequence for Self-Care
About the Author
Lindsay Tucker is a senior editor at Yoga Journal.
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