Escaping Anxiety

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) is often described as a tingling feeling or sensation that starts in the head and travels down through the body.

ASMR videos are one of the ways I try to relieve anxiety and try and relax.  My favourite content creators are ASMR Zeitgeist,  Heather Feather, and DelucaASMR the latter two of which at time of writing haven't been very active lately.

I've always experienced ASMR but I never knew what it was, or that it had a name, until a few years ago when someone on twitter told me about it.  I've experienced it in person, close personal contact or being very close but not actually making contact can trigger it in me.  As for sounds I like rough or crinkly sounds most, ear to ear whispering, and soft blowing in each ear.  My favourite video by Heather Feather is her ASMR Circle Time video.

Beyond the fact the sensation of ASMR is pleasant to me, the quiet and calm nature of the videos in itself is one of the reasons I return to them to relieve anxiety.  ASMR Immunity is something I get quite often when I overdo these types of videos - ASMR Immunity is when you stop getting ASMR in response to triggers.  The best way I can describe this is to say the only part of your body you should be able to tickle yourself is the roof of your mouth with the tip of your tongue.  If you lightly flutter your tongue gently briskly touching the roof of your mouth and the back of your top row of teeth you'll feel a tickling sensation but after a while it becomes less intense until you can't actually cause the sensation anymore.  At which point you have to take a break before you can do it again.

The other element that appeals to me in consuming this type of content is really the immersion you you feel when listening.  Which is odd because I've always listened to music and for a long time the way I lost myself when I needed to was to play music that drowned out the world so I could feel immersed in my own world.  ASMR videos achieve the same goal but with the exact opposite method - rather than being loud and overpowering and blocking out the world that way, they are crafted to be content that grabs your attention and draws your focus in a way that makes you forget everything else.

I think one of the reasons these videos became so popular is because people want to escape their lives but are less and less willing to do it in destructive ways.  I have read various studies that have stated younger generations are doing less drugs and drinking less alcohol in the UK, I think perhaps part of the reason is that they are finding other ways to escape - I'm not saying ASMR alone is the reason for the decline, I think ASMR videos are in essence a "folk remedy" for something society is trying to treat.