Brain Tingles At Bedtime: An Expert's Guide To ASMR

When I was in primary school, I used to beg the girls sitting behind me on the carpet to play with my hair. It made me feel all tingly, sleepy and relaxed and - to the dismay of my teachers - completely disinterested in whatever teaching was happening. It’s a sensation that I still find utterly calming, and I am not alone. Welcome to the heady world of ASMR.

What is ASMR?

ASMR, or Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, is a phenomenon that some people experience as a “tingly feeling that begins at the head and spreads down”, according to psychologist Dr. Giulia Poerio. Dr. Poerio is a senior lecturer at the University of Sussex, and has spent much of the last decade researching ASMR. It's a sensation which she compares to “somebody opening a can of fizzy coke and pouring it on your head, but it’s warm and relaxing”. Sounds delicious, right?

What triggers ASMR?

Dr. Poerio explains that having your hair played with is a common trigger for ASMR, as soft touch is one of the strongest and most reliable ASMR triggers. “We asked people about their early experiences of ASMR in our first study”, Dr. Poerio recalls, “And it will be things like having their hair played with or their feet being measured for school shoes".

Close personal attention is the other main ASMR trigger, according to Dr. Poerio. For example, “things like people providing care for you, or people asking you questions”. She claims that the sights and sounds that happen within the context of these close caring interactions, such as “writing sounds, whispering, soft speaking, delicate movements, and tapping”, are all major ASMR triggers.

YouTube Phenomenon

And its videos containing these audiovisual triggers that have taken YouTube by storm in the past decade. Type the 4 letter acronym into YouTube's search bar and you’ll be dazzled by millions of videos created by so-called “ASMR-tists”. From soft-spoken haircut simulations and light touch massages, to microphone brushing and bubble-wrap fondling, some of these videos have racked up millions of views. Anecdotally, viewers have reported that these videos help them to relax, combat stress and anxiety, and most intriguingly, fall asleep (1).

What happens to us when we experience ASMR?

In 2018, Dr. Poerio and her colleagues identified reliable emotional and physiological changes that happened when people experienced ASMR (1). Combining results from a large-scale online study with a laboratory study, they found that watching ASMR videos can decrease heart rate, increase skin conductance levels, and make people who respond to ASMR feel more pleasant.

“We found that ASMR is linked with reductions in heart rate, and this idea of calming the nervous system. There’s a general sense from these objective and neural and biological measures that there’s something different going on when people experience ASMR”, Dr. Poerio says. “It’s related to what people are telling us: that they’re finding it relaxing.”

Whispers in the Night: Could an ASMR YouTube Video Cure Insomnia?

With 71% of Brits failing to get the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep per night (2), many of us are looking for ways to improve our sleep. Could ASMR help?

Exploratory research indicates that people do use it to help them fall asleep, with one study finding 41% of ASMR-viewers used it for this purpose (3,4). We don’t yet have scientific data showing exactly how ASMR might promote sleep, but Dr. Poerio has some theories.

Her first hypothesis is that ASMR distracts you from pre-sleep thoughts that are keeping you awake. “It’s taking your mind off: “Oh my God, I’ve got to do this tomorrow!” and things like that”, she suggests.

Her second suggestion is that ASMR might reduce bodily arousal, an obstacle to sleep. “It might be calming your nervous system so that you’re ready to get into sleep more easily”

Why Don't Some People Experience ASMR?

If you’re scratching your head, wondering why you’ve never experienced these “brain tingles”, you might be in the 80% of the population who don’t experience ASMR (5). Dr. Poerio’s research has identified several differences in people who respond to ASMR and those who don’t. Personality traits such as openness to experience and sensitivity to sensory information, whether that’s coming from sounds, sights or touch, are more common in ASMR- responders.

But even if you don’t feel the tingles, there’s hope. Dr. Poerio suggests that many people can still reap the calming and relaxing benefits of ASMR, tingles or not.

While the phenomenon has only had a name for around a decade, and its scientific understanding is still evolving, much of the existing research and experts suggest promising impacts of ASMR on health and well-being. So if you are an ASMR-addict, or have never even heard of the thing, press play and see how fast you drift off to dreamland.

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