Some people listen to music to relax, while others turn to white noise. But there’s a third type of relaxing audio you may not be familiar with: ASMR. The whispery sound-effects videos and audios have made a splash on platforms like YouTube, Spotify, and Tingles, an app dedicated solely to ASMR content, and the most popular content creators, or ASMRtists, have hundreds of thousands or even millions of subscribers. But what exactly is ASMR?
ASMR is short for autonomic sensory meridian response, a clinical-sounding term that describes the tingly feeling you might experience when a friend whispers in your ear, for example, or when you open a crinkly bag of chips. Many people find this feeling relaxing and watch ASMR videos or listen to ASMR audios to intentionally trigger these tingles. Some videos and audios focus on just the sounds themselves, which can include whispering, tapping, crinkling plastic, etc, whereas others use roleplay-like techniques to simulate an experience such as a massage, haircut, or getting your makeup done. The tone of ASMR content is generally quiet and soothing, which in itself is good for relaxation whether or not you “get the tingles,” and it can sometimes overlap with guided meditation. Many people also use ASMR content to help them fall asleep–a quick YouTube search reveals an entire subgenre of “ASMR for sleep”–and some ASMRtists create videos that purport to help with anxiety.
So how do these videos work? The typical setup is the ASMRtist sitting in front of a microphone, which may not be in frame, whispering into the mic and making sounds with a variety of props. Some videos are soft-spoken, include background music, or have no talking at all, and some also use binaural audio techniques, which is a way to record audio in 3-D for headphone users (the Virtual Barbershop video from 2007 is a vivid demonstration of the potential of this technique). While it is possible to get ASMR without headphones, it’s generally recommended that listeners use headphones to get the full effect. ASMR videos are rarely under 20 minutes, and some stretch to over two hours, although the longer ones are usually no-talking compilations of sounds stitched together after the fact.
Some might think that watching a video of a person whispering and tapping on a coffee cup for the better part of an hour in the hope of getting a tingly feeling is a little weird, but while it may be a little out of the ordinary, using ASMR content is no stranger than putting on some white noise or forest sounds to help with sleep. If you want to try it out but don’t know where to start, some of the most popular YouTube channels are ASMRDarling, Gentle Whispers ASMR, and ASMR Glow, and there are many more you can explore to find out which flavor of ASMR works best for you.