My experience of ASMR

Over the last few years I stopped being as creative as I used to be and felt that I’d lost my inspiration, motivation and ability.  I’m someone who enjoys writing, and I felt I had writers block, I’m someone who enjoys drawing, and I felt I’d lost my skill. I lacked confidence in myself and so I’d fallen into a one-dimensional hole of boredom.

Truth be told, I’ve been having a bad year.  So, being a proactive person, I decided to find some creative projects to get the juices flowing again and help me to relax and unwind.  That’s my main reason for doing creative projects: to relax.

But today I am not talking about one of my creative projects, and instead am going to practise my writing skills and talk to you about something else I’ve found which helps me to relax.

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response is a name for an experience I’ve had many times in my life and never thought to vocalise before.

It was only very recently (within the last month) that I discovered this was a well-known phenomenon and I found loads of videos on Youtube made to help trigger the experience I’m familiar with.  Many of the videos are redundant for me as the whispering is not a trigger that works, but some videos such as someone wrapping a gift have helped induce the feeling of deep relaxation that I sometimes get at random moments in the day when I see and hear certain triggers.

My personal triggers are brushing sounds, watching someone slowly sweeping or mopping the floor, quiet rustling noises such as with soft plastic or clothing, a hand moving across paper or turning pages of a book, cleaning noises such as wiping windows with a cloth or a soft paper towel and so on.

It’s hard to describe ASMR to someone who hasn’t experienced it, and impossible to explain why it happens when it does, but I will attempt to explain the sensation for you in the hope you might imagine what it’s like: 

Sometimes I’ll be minding my own business when a trigger occurs and I get a “whoosh” of calmness.  It starts at my head, feeling tingly and goes down my spine and arms, sometimes my legs too. I start to feel drowsy.  Do you know that feeling when your eyes relax while staring at something; you’re not really focused but it feels really nice so you don’t want to look away and “snap out of it”?  It’s the same for me with this calm sensation triggered by watching someone mopping the floor, for example.  As soon as a louder noise starts or I have to move or the person stops mopping the sensation dies away and I’m back to the daily grind.

I had never thought to research why this sometimes happens to me, until last month when I decided to watch a few videos on Youtube about orchid care.  I have an orchid and discovered a channel created on Youtube by an orchid collector over a year ago. I love her videos because something about the gentleness and the way she touches her plants really relaxes me.  That particular day I sought out the videos to help me relax after a hard day at work.  Earlier that day I had experienced ASMR while watching someone sweeping the floor and so curiosity led me to search for a video of someone sweeping.  I dived into a world of ASMR trigger videos I’d known nothing of before, and so I discovered that I’m not alone in experiencing this strange and wonderful calmness.

Now, I am someone who experiences anxiety regularly.  I don’t have what I call “emotional anxiety”, which sufferers describe as constantly feeling people are judging them, or being worried about doing the wrong thing, or offending others, or just feeling inadequate.  I experience the sort of anxiety that jumps out at you from dark corners, catching you unawares: I image accidents, I worry that my loved ones will be killed or die before I next see them (and consequently worry about how I would cope with the grief afterwards), I “see” cars crashing in front of me, or someone getting dragged along by a train as they get their hand caught in the door.  That is the kind of anxiety I’m talking about, and it comes unbidden.

There are triggers for my panic: loud noises, being underground or feeling enclosed, seeing people acting strangely or seeing them taking risks I wouldn’t take (such as running onto the train as the doors are closing).  The list goes on.

The reason I’m telling you this is because I feel that ASMR is the opposite of the response my body has to panic triggers, when it reacts to positive triggers around me instead.

- Where my heart starts to pump fast when I’m panicking, it slows down when I’m experiencing ASMR.

- Where my muscles clench when I’m anxious, they relax during ASMR.

- That feeling of wide-eyed hyper-vigilance when I’m “on edge”?  I feel calm and droopy-eyed during ASMR.

- The sensation like my blood is somehow moving wrong in my veins when I feel a panic attack starting?  By contrast I feel pleasurable tingling sensations from my scalp, down my spine and in my hands with ASMR.

I have heard that many people use ASMR videos on Youtube to combat insomnia and help with depression and anxiety.  I can certainly see why.

So I’ve been wondering if there is some link with people suffering from anxiety also having the reverse experience of panic through “safe triggers”.

Delving into the “why” these are my triggers has actually been fairly easy for me:

- My grandmother would brush my hair for hours when I was a child; triggering the exact same deep relaxation feelings I get now through ASMR (tingling down the spine and arms, relaxation of muscles, a calm feeling and sleepiness).  My father also often blow-dried and brushed my hair after my bath as a child.

- Sunday afternoons in our house were always the most relaxed when I was a child.  The whole family would sit in the living room and my parents would read their newspapers.

My sister or mother would read books to me at bedtime.

- My mother would look after me whenever I was sick as a child and I remember watching as she cleaned while I rested.  The family was always happiest when the house was clean.

Are these memories the reason for what I now experience?  Are they my “safe place” and my “opposite triggers” to my panic triggers? 

I’ve been thinking about when I experience ASMR too, and wondering if this holds a key to a clue.  Obviously I cannot remember each experience, but some do stand out:

The first time I remember experiencing ASMR was at school during one of my most detested school subjects.  The teacher had us sitting in complete silence as we worked and I remember the sound of her clothes as she quietly moved around the room triggering relaxation.

Another time I remember experiencing it was while I was in hospital, lying in bed unable to do much.  The cleaner came and cleaned the room from top to bottom, hardly making any noise but taking great care to clean every nook and cranny.  Again, it triggered a deep relaxation.

More recently, I was very unhappy in my last job and was having a few quiet minutes to myself during a stressful day.  A man came to clean the windows and watching and listening to him do his work was again, very relaxing.

I can’t help but wonder if my mind and/or body seeks out the experience of ASMR when I’m feeling the most vulnerable or low.

None of these are questions which can currently be answered as ASMR is a phenomenon which hasn’t really been studied by the scientific community.  But whatever the reasons for it, it’s always a pleasure when I experience a sudden calm and tingling sensation rather than a panic attack.

My goal remains the same, find peace and relaxation, be it through creative projects, writing or ASMR.