ASMR = Ahhhh

Remember yourself as a child.  Now remember yourself falling asleep listening to something routine, simple, and fairly quiet – someone clipping hedges outside, the clinking sounds of dining and murmured conversation, someone taking a shower.

Remember yourself receiving a routine, enjoyable service in a quiet setting – a haircut, shoeshine, or pedicure.

Do you remember the feelings of calmness, even drowsiness?  Do you remember ever feeling a goose-bumpy tingle, for instance if the murmurs and clinks sounded just right, or if the stylist was snipping around your ear?

Calm, drowsy or tingling sensations are sometimes referred to as autonomous sensory meridian response(s), or ASMR, and are becoming a sought-after YouTube phenomenon.  In our stressed out, sleep-deprived culture, people need ways to soothe themselves in order to relax or fall asleep.  Apparently, more and more people are turning to ASMR videos for just such purposes. 
 
ASME sounds are different from white noise in that they are not flat or constant, and, of course ASMR often includes visuals as well as audios.  If you’ve never experienced ASMR “head tingles,” ASMR folks say you probably won’t experience them from ASMR videos.  But if you’ve gotten drowsy or calm, you likely can expect at least that response.  Common ASMR triggers include:  whispering/slow speech patterns/accents, lip smacking/eating sounds, scissor snipping, clicking/brushing/watery sounds, and painting/drawing/quiet instructional videos – which explains why students sometimes have ASMR responses in class – although not in my classes, EVER, of course.  J 
 
I tried out a couple of the videos – one about water marbles and one where a nice woman whispered about time travel.  I felt relaxed after these videos, but not drowsy.  I didn’t experience the head tingles that some people report, although I don’t usually get those from sounds.

Here’s just one site to try, if you’re interested:  soothetube

What do you think about ASMR?  Do you think you might try one of these videos during a bout of insomnia?  If you tried one of the videos, what was your experience? 
 


Here come the Bagel Heads . . .

What's the latest and greatest new fad in Japan?  The Bagel Head.  Apparently, people voluntarily want to look as if they've had bagels surgically implanted into their foreheads.  Why? Good question.  I can't see the aesthetic, ironic or creative draw to the procedure.  It is shocking, though, and a little weird -- and that's probably the whole point.

 

Bagel heads get that way by having about 14 ounces of saline injected under the skin of their foreheads.  The saline creates a round, domed mass.  To get the bagel look (versus, say, the snowball look), the practitioner pushes his or her thumb deeply into the saline mound to cause an indentation.  The indentation -- in fact, the whole bagel look -- lasts for under a day.  Then, the saline is absorbed into the body and the person goes back to looking like a boring old human again.

 

So, do tell.  Is this a look you've secretly been admiring?  Or does the thought make you want to skip breakfast? 

Coco Tapi Tea?

Recently, I’ve tried two new food trends – coconut water and bubble tea.  Both beverages.  Both tasty.  According to advertising, coconut water is healthy – it is supposed to help you lose weight, prevent diabetes, aid digestion, fight viruses and “revitalize your cells and boost metabolism.”  I don’t know if coconut water does or doesn’t do all of those things, but, frankly, the claims seems a little over-blown.  And, coconut water, while tasty, isn’t, in my humble opinion, that tasty.  Maybe it needs a kick-butt health campaign to sell it. 

And, then there’s bubble tea – the drink that’s fun to eat.  Bubble tea, reportedly invented in Taiwan tea shops, is a tea base beverage that is mixed with fruit or milk.  It can be frozen, chilled or served as a sort-of slushy and comes loaded with small chewy tapioca balls you can slurp up through a wide straw and eat.  Bubble tea may contain some of the same antioxidants as tea, but some recent reports have linked certain types of the tapioca pearls with cancer.  The reports haven’t been verified to date, though.  It might just be a scare tactic. 

It’s interesting that these two trends produce big discussion.  Is coconut water really the fountain of youth and is bubble tea really the end of civilization as we know it? 

I think we should combine the two drinks into a coconut water bubble tea concoction.  The coconut water’s health benefits would negate any negative effects tapioca might have on human cells.  The result?  A tasty, healthful, fun beverage, maybe called Coco Tapi Tea.  Hmmmmm.

Bottoms up!