Stress and anxiety, the two things that have been constantly been a bane to my existence for as long as I can remember. For anyone who’s ever gone through anxiety (and I’d gauge there are many of you if you’re reading this), we all know the symptoms. The tight feeling that grips your chest, the sick, nauseas feeling in the pit of your stomach, pains in your limbs, neck and back, and the shortness of breath.
For a while I tried a few different things but none seemed to help, well not completely anyway. I took part in Yoga, meditated, and carried out a few breathing exercises, as everyone had recommended, tending to zone out or try and think of other things. I would even watch movies and shows just to try and forget the day’s anxiousness.
I thought I was going to lose my mind as I’m not one for taking prescription medications. I feel that natural remedies are the absolute best for our bodies and that’s when I stumbled across ASMR.
Before we go straight into that though, I want to share that I had always found calming voices and even sounds to be of great effect when I viewed or listened to them. To this effect, I would search YouTube videos just to find some semblance of peace from this crippling problem. Now, after a little while of searching videos, I came across a YouTube community that was called ASMR.
It seems that on my journey to discover gentle sounds and voices (or other specific sounds and voices) led me to the community of people who find solace in exactly the same thing! ASMR stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response and (according to Wikipedia) is “a euphoric experience characterized by a static-like or tingling sensation on the skin that typically begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine, precipitating relaxation.”
While not many studies have been carried out into ASMR, there is no doubt that this method has assisted so many other people that were (and still may be) in the same situation as me. Once I found this community though, I found myself clicking video after video, after video, after video. It became an alluring drug almost, to have such calmness after a lifetime of anxiety. Not only that, but the variety of videos and sounds or music available are unbelievable! You can find videos with:
- Whispering
- Soft speaking
- Accented voices
- Crinkling sounds
- Writing sounds
- Keyboard typing sounds
- Tapping sounds
- Water flowing sounds
Just to name a few!
Many of these ASMR videos have millions of hits and continue to rise every day but if YouTube is hard for you to navigate (hey, it is for some okay?) then you can check out the ASMR Reddit thread and find out some great videos that have been working for others.
In the end, it may take some time to find out what works for you and what doesn’t but I can certainly assure you that if nothing is working to fix that crippling anxiety, then maybe ASMR is for you! Not everything in the ASMR video collection will work for you so try them all and find out which one does the job. It could be the difference between total anxiety taking over your life and a manageable situation. I hope this has at least helped in a small way and good luck with your search on YouTube!
Be the first to comment