ASMR Is Like a Relaxing 'Brain Massage.' Scientists Might Finally Understand Why
I occasionally put on my earplugs before going to bed and let a YouTube video massage my brain. My rate and breathing quiet down quickly, even as my head, neck, and arms tingle with a thousand small points of pleasurable electricity. It only takes 10 minutes for me to fall asleep, owing to the sedative impact of a quiet voice, a stroking of cloth, or the tapping of wooden things with my fingers.
This is my ASMR brain (autonomous sensory meridian response). I had no idea that others found the sound of whispers exhilarating until I discovered a community of ASMR videos on YouTube a few years ago. ASMR is both calming and transporting for people who experience it, typically beginning as a wave of tingles at the scalp and moving down to the arms, chest, and even legs. It's similar to the joy you may feel from having your hair softly combed, or the pleasure a kid could experience from a mother's delicate touch.
Science describes our surroundings. Join ASMR - Brain tingles and we'll help you make sense of it all.
Not unexpectedly, one of ASMR's distinguishing features is the ability to put individuals to sleep. These sentiments can be triggered by peaceful and reassuring sights and sounds, such as whispers, personal attention role plays, or witnessing someone's hair being combed, as well as a foreign accent.
So, what exactly is going on in your brain and body, and why do some individuals actually feel ASMR (you may detect goosebumps) while others simply... don't?
The Rise of ASMR
ASMR has gained popularity over the last decade.
According to Google Trends statistics, "ASMR" has been trending over both "chocolate" and "food" searches on YouTube since 2010, and interest is only growing. Maria's GentleWhispering, the most popular ASMR channel on YouTube, has at least 2.21 million followers, and academics have published well over 500 scholarly publications concerning ASMR.
When ASMR videos became popular on YouTube, they drew the attention of scholars such as Giulia Poerio, who investigates the confluence of cognition and emotion. According to Poerio, a psychology researcher at the University of Sussex who also lectures at the University of Essex, just appreciating this YouTube material does not imply that you are experiencing authentic ASMR.
"A lot of my work has looked at the link between images, or awake thinking and imagination and daydreaming, and our emotions," she explains to Popular Mechanics. Poerio has firsthand experience with the feeling, which prompted her to join ASMR University, a joint effort to increase study into the possible advantages of "brain massaging."
What the Research Reveals
Poerio's study offered the first direct physiological proof of ASMR's soothing benefits. Her team's research, which was published in the journal PLOS ONE in 2018, looked at the physiology of those who have ASMR. They discovered that people's physical reactions, notably heart rate and skin conductance, reflect their feelings during an ASMR encounter (a measure of the sweating of skin). These indicators imply that the individual is having an emotional experience. When participants in the research reported experiencing ASMR while watching YouTube videos, their total heart rate decreased, but their skin conductance rose. "And that pattern represents the complexity that individuals perceive when they say it's both calming and exciting," Poerio explains. Her study is now attempting to reproduce those reactions to discover if a particular tingling feeling is related with an increase in skin conductance, akin to what many people perceive as music-induced shivers down the spine.
The limited fMRI studies conducted thus far during ASMR experiences have revealed that some parts of the brain's reward centers are engaged when viewing an ASMR video, particularly when certain triggers, such as personal attention, are present. According to one study, oxytocin and dopamine appear to be implicated when individuals viewed ASMR films during a brain scan and described their experiences. Craig Richard, one of the study's authors, is also the founder of the ASMR University website and the author of Brain Tingles, a how-to guide for stimulating ASMR, relaxation, and sleep. He hosts the podcast Sleep Whispers, which uses softly spoken narration to relax listeners.
Sound is a significant source of the soothing effect. However, not everyone in a group will find a specific sound equally calming, and there is no magic frequency or other sound quality that produces ASMR, Richard writes in an email to Popular Mechanics. It is instead about the person. "This might be due to a basic biological cause, such as differing gene sequences that make some people more sensitive to oxytocin or other brain chemicals involved in their responses to noises." This might also be related to a past event, cultural factors, or a present attitude that impacts their capacity to be calmed by a certain sound at that time." We don't know why the same noises trigger varied responses in different people, but experts believe there must be numerous explanations.
Hate ASMR? Blame Misophonia
Consider how some individuals react when they hear someone eating. It's simple to discover videos on YouTube that incorporate eating noises to elicit ASMR. (I'm one of them that can't stomach it, therefore I avoid watching those films.) It is possible that persons who are sensitive to the pleasant effects of ASMR are also susceptible to misophonia, a negative emotional response to certain noises, most often chewing, slurping, and snoring. When a person hears such noises, they experience tremendous discomfort, even fury, and a want to flee. It's essentially the inverse of ASMR. Poerio and colleagues discovered that people who are prone to misophonia are also prone to ASMR, and vice versa.
Poerio co-authored a research in March 2022 that surveyed 648 persons in Japan and discovered that around 20% of them experienced ASMR. Researchers also discovered a significant 52 percent overlap in persons with ASMR experiences and synesthesia (experiencing a sensory perception through stimulation of an unrelated sense). The study also discovered that synesthesia is up to four times as likely among ASMR responders (22 percent) than in non-responders (5 percent). According to Peoria, this link has yet to be fully studied. The research was posted on the preprint website ResearchSquare.
Mirror Touch Sensations
Poerio has published a study on the prevalence of associated mirror touch sensations in August 2022. "Essentially, mirror touch is when you witness someone being touched and it seems like you're being touched as well," she adds. "And we discover that those with ASMR are more likely to have mirror touch sensations, and there is also a larger incidence of mirror touch synesthesia in an ASMR community." In this scenario, a person with synesthesia might witness someone getting patted on the head and have the sense of having their own head patted.
"Many people forget that touch is a powerful ASMR trigger. "One working idea is that [films exhibiting touch or certain types of noises] may be helping people to perceive tactile stimulation in the absence of actual contact," Poerio explains. "So sound feels to people like touch, and that touch is relaxing." Decades of study suggest that particular types of contact, such as embracing or having your hair played with, are beneficial to mental health since infancy, she says.
It is yet unknown why some people have ASMR while others do not. And why do some people benefit more than others from it, such as stress relief? Poerio believes that developmental origins may be linked to how you were calmed as a youngster by caretakers.
It is yet unknown why some people have ASMR while others do not. And why do some people benefit more than others from it, such as stress relief? Poerio believes that developmental origins may be linked to how you were calmed as a youngster by caretakers.
While ASMR remains a mystery, one thing is certain: researchers have no shortage of topics to investigate in their quest to understand how it works in the human mind and body.
