Dr Giulia Poerio (an established ASMR researcher) is the Lead supervisor for this position at the Department of Psychology, University of Essex, UK.

This is an exciting opportunity for a young scientist interested in being a pioneer of ASMR research.

I’ve copied and pasted a lot of details below from  the position posting; such as, criteria, funding, application deadline, start date, duration, project overview, and a link to apply.

Details reproduced from the position announcement (in italics):

ASMR and Mindfulness Meditation for student wellness and resilience

Criteria

To apply for this position the student will need to have either a BSc in Psychology or Cognitive Neuroscience, an MSc in Psychology, Research Methods or Cognitive Neuroscience, or equivalent degree in a disciple related to Health Science or Physiology.

Details

Title: SCH36: ASMR and Mindfulness Meditation for student wellness and resilience

Funding: A full Home/EU fee waiver or equivalent fee discount for overseas students (£5,103 in 2020-21) (further fee details – international students will need to pay the balance of their fees) plus a doctoral stipend equivalent to the RCUK Minimum Doctoral Stipend (£15,285 in 2020-21).

Application deadline: Tuesday 31 March 2020

Start date: October 2020

Duration: 3 years (full time)

Location: Colchester Campus

Based in: Department of Psychology (in collaboration with the School of Health and Social Care)

Overview

Poor mental health amongst students has made finding ways to support wellbeing an important issue for Universities.

This proposal investigates the potential of novel wellness techniques, Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) and Mindfulness Meditation (MM) for improving student health, resilience and academic performance.

ASMR is a complex emotional response involving tingling sensations in the scalp accompanied by feelings of relaxation and euphoria. It is triggered by audio, visual, and tactile stimuli including whispering, soft-speaking and tapping. ASMR has anecdotal benefits such as reducing stress, anxiety, depression, and insomnia and recent research suggests it has reliable effects on mood and physiology (see http://bit.ly/ASMRScience).

Similar health benefits have been reported for MM but these positive outcomes typically require training, which is not necessary for ASMR. ASMR may have the potential to become a low-cost digital wellness tool with broad reach, from enhancing the student experience to helping lonely elderly. In addition to huge online communities, industry increasingly uses ASMR for advertising.

Despite its potential and growing popularity, there is hardly any rigorous scientific research on ASMR’s ostensibly beneficial claims (or potential harms).

The project

We will test ASMR and MM effects on student physical and mental health (including stress and sleep), resilience and academic performance, using qualitative and quantitative measures: diary entries, questionnaires, academic performance, stress response (e.g., solving problems under time constraints) and associated psychophysiology (e.g., heart rate, brain imaging (EEG)) at different times throughout their studies.

The impact of this PhD project could lead to bigger funding from Healthcare grants (NIHR, MRC) or Education Strategic funding (Nuffield).

Funding

The award consists of a full Home/EU fee waiver or equivalent fee discount for overseas students (further fee details), a doctoral stipend equivalent to the Research Councils UK National Minimum Doctoral Stipend (£15,285 in 2020-21), plus £2,500 training bursary via Proficio funding, which may be used to cover the cost of advanced skills training including conference attendance and travel.

Access the link to apply and more details here: https://www.essex.ac.uk/postgraduate-research-degrees/opportunities/asmr-and-mindfulness-meditation-for-student-wellness

Learn more about ASMR research:

• Tips:  How to be an ASMR researcher.
• Insight:   Interviews with ASMR researchers.
• Browse:  ASMR research and publications.

Learn more about ASMR:

• Website: ASMR University
• Podcast: ASMR University Podcast
• Book: Brain Tingles

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This post brought to you by ASMR University.  A site with the mission of increasing the awareness, understanding, and research of the Art and Science of Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response.