Achieving a “brain orgasm”: the controversial and beneficial sides of ASMR
Being the Netflix guru that I am, I tend to be prone to watching any and all of the shows and movies they suggest to me. One that struck my attention recently was the new show, “Follow This,” a show which follows journalists who work for Buzzfeed as they delve into some strange and intriguing facets of our world. It was as if someone had taken my three biggest passions (Netflix, journalism, and Buzzfeed) and combined them into one. Nothing intrigued me more than the first episode of this show which focuses on a new and popular rising trend.
Picture this: a slim white woman with long blonde hair leans in close to the microphone and whispers “Hey” in a hushed, breathy voice. “It’s me,” she says. She then spends the next twenty or so minutes tapping, scratching, whispering, and even rubbing makeup brushes against the microphone. This is ASMR.
ASMR is an abbreviation for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. This strange and fascinating phenomenon produces, in some individuals, a strong sensation of pleasure, nicknamed “tingle-heads.” It is described as a tingling sensation that usually starts in the scalp and travels down an individual’s neck and spine and gives the individual the subjective experience of low-grade euphoria.
This sensation is nicknamed, the “brain orgasm.” This response is usually a reaction to stimuli, oftentimes referred to as a “trigger.” These triggers can include listening to whispering voices or quiet, repetitive sounds from someone engaging in a mundane task. These triggers can even include the sounds of someone loudly chewing, crunching, slurping, or chewing gum. For those of you who are currently thinking how strange this phenomenon is, consider this: do you like when someone brushes or plays with your hair? Have you ever felt calmer when watching a Bob Ross video? These are both types of ASMR. The physical contact of having one’s hair played with and the relaxing sounds of the paint brush and Bob Ross’s voice both result in the calming experience of ASMR.
An article written by Libby Copeland for Smithsonian describes the phenomenon at its start. When this trend first began, Copeland writes, “It was so strange and hard to describe that many people felt creepy trying. It resided at the outer edge of respectability: a growing collection of YouTube videos featuring people doing quiet, methodical activities like whispering, turning magazine pages and tapping their fingers.” Strange as it seems, ASMR is becoming a tactic many people use to calm their mind, help their anxiety and in some cases, it is claimed to have helped treat depression.
This YouTube trend gained popularity and a larger audience with the introduction of Maria, YouTube name “Gentle Whisperer.” Maria is referred to as an “ASMRtist.” Julie Beck at The Atlantic interviewed Maria in an attempt to understand what ASMR is and why it is so popular in the media.
In her interview with Beck, Maria explains: “‘In 2009, I was going through a depression and I had a lot of problems with anxiety, I needed something to relax. On YouTube I was watching hypnosis videos, some massage videos as well […] then I saw a link that said, ‘whisper video.’’’ Maria explains that these videos cured her depression and she loved them so much she wanted to start making them herself. She goes on to explain ASMR itself and that it manifests itself differently in people, and furthermore, not everyone experiences it. For those that do, “there are two types, Type A and Type B. Those with Type A are said to be able to cause ASMR through meditation, or just thinking about a trigger, while Type Bs need to actually experience the trigger. Maria also says that the tingles vary in strength.”
For those of us who do not experience this sensation, Maria explains why this could be in more detail in her interview with Beck: “‘The strongest type of tingle…feels like sparkles or little fireworks going off. […] The strongest one would give you the feeling of being exhausted, pleasantly tired, satisfied almost you want to say. Then there are much less strong tingles, and they feel just pleasant. Almost like sand is being poured down your spine. [Or] like when you get the funny elbow, when you hit it and it feels like it just goes off everywhere.’”
Interestingly, there is no scientific research published about ASMR yet. It is purely nomenclature at this point. The closest to a publication I have found is a post on Neurologica Blog written by Steven Novella, an American clinical neurologist and assistant professor at Yale School of Medicine. He explains that despite the diversity of the triggers, “they all seem to engage the same networks of the brain–that part of us that interacts carefully and thoughtfully with our environment or with other people. There is something calmly satisfying about such things.” He later adds the comical side note, “this reminds me of an episode of Spongebob in which he confessed he loves the sound that two pickles make when you rub them together.”
The information we are lacking, and that so many people are trying to understand, is why this happens. What response in the brain do these noises spark that makes certain individuals feel a sensation of euphoria? Novella explains that nobody actually knows right now. He suggests there is a possibility they are small seizures caused by a reaction to the noise, as some seizures can be pleasurable. He also suggests that more simply, these sounds may just be a way of activating the pleasure response in some individual’s brains. Which begs the question: is ASMR a type of porn?
According to watchers and curators the answer is no; however, it is not surprising that many people assume this when stumbling upon videos of beautiful women talking in hushed tones telling you they want you to relax.
The way I see it though, is ASMR is equally as sexual as if you were to go get a massage. Someone you do not know, who does not know you, is simply trying to make your life better by making you feel more relaxed and more at peace. Similar to a massage, ASMR can also be used sexually, but the majority are not. Conversely, ASMR is much more accessible and completely affordable: all one needs is internet to access these relaxation techniques.
When broken down, ASMR is the innate desire to feel at peace; it is not as controversial and strange as people make it out to be. In a world that is filled with chaos and over-stimulation, someone’s desire to remove themselves from the outside world’s influence to find relaxation and pleasure is no mystery.
