Research

Can ASMR help to boost the effectiveness of your flu vaccine?

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ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityGetting an appropriate amount and quality of sleep has long been known to be important to good health.

In particular, scientists have shown that white blood cells, the cells which defend your body against germs, are strongest in people who get appropriate sleep.

In the latest issue of the journal, Trends in Neurosciences, scientists have gathered together lots of evidence to support that appropriate sleep not only helps your cells to fight germs but it also helps your cells to remember which germs to fight.

And remembering which germs to fight is the key to vaccination.

Let me highlight how this all works.

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Could watching lots of ASMR videos be a symptom of sleep apnea?

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ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityTwo reasons some people watch lots of ASMR videos is to help them with sleep problems and/or depression.

And although this may be helpful to some who have these problems, the cause of their sleep problems and depression may still need to be diagnosed so the underlying disorder can be best treated.

Recent research in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine demonstrated that sleep problems and depression are both common symptoms in people with sleep apnea.

So what is sleep apnea?

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The potential biology of ASMR stimulated by light touch

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ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityPopular triggers for ASMR include someone playing with your hair, cutting your hair, stroking your arm, drawing words on your back with their finger (back writing game), and/or examining you for health concerns (clinical exams).

What do all these strong triggers for ASMR have in common?

Light touch.

Being touched lightly has been perceived as pleasurable for a while.  In contrast, the biological understanding of these pleasant sensations has only recently begun to be understood – and may help to understand ASMR.

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How do the speech patterns of ASMR artists compare to Bob Ross, Bill O’Reilly, and Geraldo Rivera?

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ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityGordon McGladdery is a professional composer and sound designer living in Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada.

He has his Bachelor of Arts in English literature from University of Victoria in Canada and an additional diploma in Sound Design for Visual Media from the Vancouver Film School.

Gordon first learned about ASMR in 2012 and immediately created his own research project.

He analyzed the speech patterns of several ASMR artists (GentleWhispering, VeniVidiVulpes, AppreciateASMR, and others) and compared them to the speech patterns of others (Bob Ross, Bill O’Reilly, Geraldo Rivera, and others).

He initially shared his findings with the ASMR community in an ASMR subreddit thread.

In my interview with Gordon he shares how he first learned about ASMR, the objectives of his study, his ideas about further analysis that could be done on ASMR-related audio, his favorite ASMR artist, and more.

Below are my questions in bold and his replies in italics.

Immediately following the interview is Gordon’s detailed description of how he did his analysis and his data findings.

The post concludes with a podcast Gordon created about his study, as well as, links to his initial ASMR subreddit post, to his spreadsheet of the speech pattern data, to his website, to his musical compositions, and more.

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Update on Bryson Lochte and his MRI study on ASMR

/ Dr. Richard / 4 Comments

ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityIn 2012, Bryson Lochte selected ASMR as his research topic for his undergraduate Senior Honors Thesis at Dartmouth College.  He chose to investigate the effects of ASMR videos on the brain by using fMRI analysis.

fMRI stands for functional magnetic resonance imaging and reveals changes in the blood flow to specific areas of the brain.  His project’s goal was to demonstrate which areas of the brain show increased activity while participants watched ASMR videos.

In February of 2013 Bryson posted a thread on the ASMR subreddit website requesting volunteers for his research project.  He completed his thesis by May and submitted the results to the Dartmouth College Library Catalog.

In November, 2013 Bryson posted on the ASMR subreddit site that he would not be able to publicly release a copy of his thesis until his data was published.

Bryson graduated from Dartmouth College in 2013 with his undergraduate degree in Neuroscience.  He is currently a medical student at the University of California, San Diego.

In my interview with Bryson he shares an update on his undergraduate thesis data, his inspiration for delving into ASMR research, his current ASMR research project, his insights into the biology of ASMR, advice for those researching ASMR, and more.

Below are my questions in bold, his replies in italics, and links to his website, his LinkedIn page, and his original ASMR subreddit post.

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ASMR data from website polls (August 2015 update)

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ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityMy co-investigators and I are still collecting data for our on-going ASMR research survey.  That research survey has collected data from 13,000 individuals.  Information about that research survey is HERE.

This blog post is an update about the data collected by my website polls which are located on the “First Time Visitor” page.

My prior summary of the website poll data was when there were data from about 150 people.  You can read about that prior summary HERE.

This updated summary has website poll data from about 600 people.

This data is specific to the population of visitors to this website who take the website polls and may not be applicable to other populations.

Below is a short summary of the data, followed by the full data from the polls.

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*Participate now in research survey about ASMR and misophonia*

/ Dr. Richard / 5 Comments

ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityDr. Tammy Dempster has her BSc in Psychology and her Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuropsychology.  She is currently researching ASMR and misophonia with colleagues at Canterbury Christ Church University in the UK.

About a year ago she first learned about ASMR and quickly became fascinated in the topic.  She has now created an online research survey to begin collecting data to help progress the understanding of ASMR and to help guide further ASMR research projects.

In my interview with Dr. Dempster she shares how she first learned about ASMR, the objectives of her research study, some preliminary trends in the data collected so far, and more.

Below are my questions in bold, her replies in italics, and a link to her online research survey so you may participate.

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One man’s story of depression and his discovery of ASMR

/ Dr. Richard / 2 Comments

ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityRhys Baker is a first year journalism student at the University of Sussex, as well as a freelance writer and co-founder of the Hip-Hop brand theSTASHBOX.

He is also one of the millions of individuals in the world who struggles with major depressive disorder.

Rhys has experienced his depression since adolescence. He has tried several types of traditional and non-traditional therapies – but he was unable to achieve appropriate relief of his sadness.

Then he stumbled across ASMR by participating in a research study a few months ago. He has written an article about how he has felt more relief for his depression via ASMR than from other methods.

His story is not scientific evidence of the therapeutic value of ASMR.  His story is an anecdote, one expressed often on the internet, of how he feels ASMR helps him.  A thousand anecdotes does not create a fact, but a thousand anecdotes should catch the attention of researchers.

I share his story because it is one of many that should help to motivate researchers to pursue scientific investigations into the potential value of ASMR for health disorders.

I interviewed Rhys and he shared the history of his depression, how he learned about ASMR, what he would say to a room full of researchers, and more.

Below are my questions in bold, his replies in italics, and a link to the story he wrote about his depression and his discovery of ASMR.

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*Participate now in research survey about ASMR and Personality Traits*

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ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityBeverley “Bev” Fredborg recently received her B.Sc. degree in Biopsychology from the University of Winnipeg in Canada. As part of a summer project, she is continuing an ASMR research project about personality traits which she was involved with as an undergraduate student.

I’ve reported on several students working on ASMR research projects previously, but this one has two important differences which demonstrate the progress of ASMR research.

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