Josh Dorsheimer often turned on some background noise to fall asleep.
Something familiar usually worked — a television tuned to interviews, or Bob Ross’s gentle art-instruction lessons quietly murmuring in the background — and the Lancaster actor could let his mind wander and drift off to sleep.
But one night, as he lay there, the sounds triggered a strange sensation in his head. “I was trying to fall asleep, and my head was all,” Dorsheimer says, waving his hands on either side of his head to indicate buzzing. “I was like, ‘What. Is. Going. On?’ ”
The answer, he would later learn, was ASMR. Short for autonomous sensory meridian response, ASMR is a sensation in the head or neck that’s caused by sensory stimuli — most commonly sound or visual but, less often, smell or touch.
There’s tingling.
There might be a buzzing sensation.
And, very often, it’s followed by a sense of calm.
Research science isn’t really sure about the root cause of ASMR, or what’s happening in the brain that causes some people to feel the buzz but not others. But there’s preliminary research being done into its ability to relax some people who experience ASMR. Scientists also are studying its possible use in treating conditions such as depression, anxiety, insomnia and posttraumatic stress disorder.
An entire industry has sprung up around producing ASMR-triggering videos that use sound or visuals — sometimes both — to create the buzz. Maria, of Gentle Whispering ASMR, for instance, has more than 1.2 million YouTube followers.
High-tech recording equipment picks up every nuance of someone brushing her hair, whispering passages from a book, tapping fingers, paging through papers, crinkling aluminum foil or dragging fingernails across different surfaces. Other videos, for the more visually triggered, might show someone dragging their fingers through sand, making relaxing hand gestures or pulling a makeup brush slowly across their face. At another level, ASMR creators may take up role-play, pretending to cut hair, give a neck massage or serve tea.
In a 2017 study in England, most participants said their ASMR-related sensations were prompted either by lower-pitched sounds or by slow-paced, detail-focused videos.
“It’s ‘a thing!’ ”
Those prompts fit Dorsheimer’s ASMR triggers pretty closely. But for the longest time, he says, he didn’t know that what he was experiencing is “a thing,” or that some other people get the buzz, too.
“It doesn’t really come up in conversation, you know?” he says, laughing.
Then one day, he says, “I think I was looking up a nature video on YouTube and, in the comments, someone described the sensation this video had caused, and asked if anyone else felt it.
“And I thought … maybe? And then I realized, ‘Holy crap, there’s a bunch of videos for this! It’s a thing! What is going on?’ ”
Dorsheimer’s ASMR trigger, the low-pitched, soothing voices, came as no surprise once he thought about it. A huge fan of Fred Rogers and the TV show “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” as a child, Dorsheimer says, he realized that many of the actors he most enjoys first gained his attention with the way they speak.
“Something I also appreciate is the characters (ASMR creators) sometimes embody,” he says. “Some of them role-play as certain characters, and some of them are really good actors.”
Being an actor has its drawbacks, though. Dorsheimer laughs as he remembers being lulled into the buzz created by an ASMR video of a Shakespeare soliloquy — until the actor misspoke a line. “That was it for me!” Dorsheimer says. “I couldn’t get back into it after that.”
A good night’s sleep
A natural extension for people who experience ASMR — and for others who just like the soothing sounds and visuals — is to use ASMR as a sleep aid.
For them, Dr. Rajkumar Dasgupta says, “one part of the sleep puzzle could be sound.”
Dasgupta, a fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, serves as that organization’s spokesperson. An assistant professor at the University of Southern California, Dasgupta acknowledges that using technology to trigger an ASMR reaction and relax can be helpful — with some cautions.
“For some individuals, maybe this type of technique is relaxing for them,” Dasgupta says in a telephone interview. “When you want to transition into sleep, you don’t want to be cognitively aroused. And for some this may help because it’s their piece of the puzzle.”
Dasgupta likens listening to ASMR at bedtime to turning on a white noise machine, but “white noise has a lot more science to it. White noise is very specific (and) encompasses different wavelengths of sound. When you’re sleeping, your hearing is still active, (but with white noise) a loud sound won’t wake you” as easily.
ASMR, he says, “is a relatively new topic; there’s not a lot of science behind it yet. But would I prefer (someone try) ASMR instead of taking drugs to sleep? Of course!”
Dasgupta is not alone, however, in cautioning ASMR users to be careful of how they use the technology at bedtime.
There are a couple reasons to be cautious, Dasgupta says. One is that having your phone nearby, even to play music or video that stimulates ASMR, can “create a Pavlovian response.
“You still have the notifications” coming in from social media, Dasgupta says, and it can be nearly impossible for some people to ignore messages.
Another is that the blue light emitted by cellphones and other electronic devices negatively affects levels of the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin and can interfere with sleep patterns.
Tame the tech
There are ways to limit the impact those devices can have on your sleep and get the most out of using ASMR videos to relax.
— Turn off all notifications — including the vibrate feature.
— Make sure you’ve turned the brightness on your device all the way down and shielded the screen as much as possible. Ideally, if you’re just listening to audio, you’ve faced any screen away from the bed. There also are filter apps such as f.lux or Night Filter that will cut down on the amount of blue light your cellphone screen emits. Some phones have “nighttime” settings that do the same.
— Consider using a physical filter that blocks 100 percent of the blue light. Search online for filters that fit devices from cellphones to laptops to televisions.
— Use headbands that have integrated headphones. Often sold for runners, they come in both wired and wireless versions and are perfect for ASMR “surround” sound.
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