You have probably heard that experiencing ASMR is helpful for sleeplessness and insomnia, helpful for reducing stress and anxiety, and can reduce heart rate and blood pressure.
But how many published research studies support these claims?
Would you be surprised if I said there are over 100 published research studies about ASMR? Perhaps so, and it isn’t your fault.
Many mainstream reports about ASMR have a statement similar to this, “Although ASMR is a global phenomenon, very little research has been done on this sensation.”
This statement is accurate, but it is also inaccurate.
Let me explain.
It is accurate if you interpret the statement to imply, “Very little research has been done on ASMR compared to the amount of research done on other health topics such as happiness, depression, love, migraines, diabetes, strength training, hypertension, memory, etc.”
Most common health topics have at least a thousand peer-reviewed research studies. This is simply due to these topics being well-known for decades, centuries, or longer.
The global awareness of ASMR started in 2007, the term “ASMR” was coined in 2010, and the first peer-reviewed research study was published in 2015.
In short, ASMR is a new field of study, so it makes sense that it has not been as studied as many other health-related topics.
So let’s get to the critical question.
How many research studies have been done on ASMR?
The answer is somewhere between 100 and 2000. Below is a full explanation with helpful links.
Although the first peer-reviewed research study was published in 2015, ASMR research had started before that.
These early ASMR studies were mostly college theses/dissertations that were not published in a scientific journal.
Scroll down on this page to see a list of 25 unpublished ASMR studies that I’ve compiled, which were completed between 2012-2023: https://asmruniversity.com/asmr-research-and-publications/
What about the total number of peer-reviewed research studies that were published in scientific journals?
A good way to find this number is to search databases of published research studies.
Keep this in mind:
- Do search for “Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response”, but be careful when searching for “ASMR”. Searching for ASMR will yield a mix of other terms with the same acronym, such as Age-Specific Mortality Rate and American Society of Mining and Reclamation. So why even search for “ASMR” if it is less specific? At one database (https://www.tandfonline.com/) I noticed that “ASMR” resulted in many more results for the sensation than “Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response.” I didn’t test this at all the databases below, so you may need to search for both terms and cull through them for accuracy. Scroll down and read my Jan 29, 2025 update.
- Put “Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response” in quotation marks or else some search engines may return results for each of the separate words, rather than the complete term.
- The same article/study may appear in more than one of the following search engines/databases.
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Search Results for “Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response” with various Search Engines
Search Engine #1: PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
- ASMR Studies: 73 Search Results as of Aug 30, 2024
- Content: Mostly peer-reviewed research studies published in journals
- Focus: Biological Sciences and Medicine
- Database size: 30+ million papers
- ASMR Search results sorted by date: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=%22autonomous+sensory+meridian+response%22&sort=date
Search Engine #2: Science Open: https://www.scienceopen.com/
- ASMR Studies: 123 Search Results as of Aug 30, 2024
- Content: Mix of articles (mostly), books, conferences, and abstracts
- Focus: Broad science topics
- Database size: 95 million publications; 25,000 journals
- ASMR Search results sorted by date: https://www.scienceopen.com/search#(‘v’~4_’id’~”_’queryType’~1_’context’~null_’kind’~77_’order’~3_’orderLowestFirst’~false_’query’~’autonomous%20sensory%20meridian%20response’_’filters’~!*_’hideOthers’~false)
Search Engine #3: Semantic Scholar: https://www.semanticscholar.org/
- ASMR Studies: 267 Search Results as of Aug 30, 2024
- Content: Mix of papers from journals and conferences
- Focus: Biomedicine, Social Sciences, and Computer Sciences.
- Database size: 8+ million full-text papers (and 200 million metadata entries)
- ASMR Search results sorted by date: https://www.semanticscholar.org/search?q=%22autonomous%20sensory%20meridian%20response%22&sort=pub-date
Search Engine #4: Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/
- ASMR Studies: 2,410 Search Results as of Aug 30, 2024
- Content: Mix of articles, theses, books, abstracts, and court opinions.
- Focus: Multi-disciplinary
- Database size: 100+ million articles (estimated)
- ASMR Search results sorted by relevance: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C47&inst=16636579234572216029&q=%22autonomous+sensory+meridian+response%22&oq=
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[Jan 29, 2025 update]
Search Results for “ASMR” vs “Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response”
I found some surprising results at https://www.tandfonline.com/
Searching for “Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response” = 55 results
Searching for “ASMR” = 397 results
I figured that the extra results for “ASMR” would not be about Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, but this assumption was incorrect.
The search term “ASMR” returned many more specific results about Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response than the search term “Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response”
Note #1: You may need to use both terms in all databases and look through the results.
Note #2: I also noticed that the above database returned results that were not shown when searching Pubmed.
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Other helpful Search Engines, Databases, & Directories
- Log-in not required:
- Log-in may be required:
Summary
I think it is safe to say that there are at least 100 published, peer-reviewed research studies about ASMR as of August 2024. The studies focused on Biology and Medicine can be found easily in PubMed. But ASMR studies are done in other fields like Social Sciences, Education, Marketing, and more – so you would need to dig through the other databases to find those peer-reviewed published studies.
The total number of research studies done about ASMR must be over several hundred, because this would include published research papers, published abstracts (full study not published yet), theses and dissertations not published in a journal, unpublished online surveys, and many other types of ASMR research projects that collected data but haven’t published the results in a journal.
Of course, the understanding and application of ASMR will be best served by research that complies with ethical guidelines, uses proper controls and statistical analysis, undergoes peer review, and is published in a respected journal.
Conclusion
Hopefully, all of this will help you to better interpret this common statement you will read or hear in the media: “Although ASMR is a global phenomenon, very little research has been done on this sensation.”
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
- TED Talk: ASMR Benefits and Brain Science
- Podcast: ASMR University Podcast
- Book: Brain Tingles
ASMR podcasts for Sleep & Relaxation:
- Podcast for Sleeping: Sleep Whispers
- Podcast for Relaxing: Calm History
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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.
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