Asmr to Sleep: Does it work?

Do you often experience a prickling sensation that goes down your body whenever you hear or witness crunching sounds? Well, you are not alone, rather there are examples of many people getting the same feeling. This phenomenon is called the autonomous sensory meridian response or ASMR. The response comes with relaxation and a deep satisfactory feeling. The term is quite new and while some may find contempt in this phenomenon, some are irritated. However, few studies suggest that exposure to this phenomenon can help people reduce stress, encourages relaxation, and promotes quality sleep.

Let us explore more in this segment and see what ASMR is and how it might help with sleep.

What is ASMR?

For the majority, ASMR kicks off as a soothing, tickling sensation in the scalp and back to neck, then down the spine and limbs. The main cause of the ASMR is nothing but soothing audio-visual stimuli. The term came into existence back in 2010 and regardless of wide interest in the subject, extensive research wasn't conducted on it. Moreover, there isn't any report from the psychologists that states the psychological underpinnings that assist people in experiencing ASMR. While many things remain still unknown about the roots and causes, researchers state that a reduced heart rate is linked to relaxation that helps people with less sleep problems.

Since people can feel ASMR while some don't and hence the phenomenon is non-universal. People experiencing ASMR triggers, mostly report the following sensations:


•    Soft voices
•    Whispering
•    Getting close personal attention such as hair combing
•    Crinkling aluminum foil and any other crunchy sound
•    Slow and repetitive movements
•    Scratching sounds
•    Laughing
•    vacuum noise

There are examples of soundless stimuli too, like certain hand movements that are also noted as ASMR triggers.

Is ASMR Sounds Helpful for improving Sleep?

Now comes an important part. The question might arise on the capability of ASMR triggers on sleep improvement. To know, whether it can be helpful to encourage a better bedtime, you’ll need to scroll down further to read.

A lot of people claim that ASMR triggers before bed have been helpful with their problems with sleep and fastens the process. In a survey, 81% of the answerers confessed their choiceable time to listen or visualize ASMR triggers was in the evening before bedtime. While applying ASMR to encourage sleepiness is common among people who respond to the stimuli, the claims are mostly unscientific. Researchers need to conduct more research to state if ASMR triggers are helpful to promote consistent results for a better sleep time.

ASMR is claimed to encourage comfort and relaxation by supplicating a particular emotional response that is very exact to the way a person feels while with his loved ones. Through these affiliative behaviors, the body releases dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins that come with the feeling of sleepiness and relaxation. Hence, many people state ASMR triggers to be good sleep-improving techniques.  

According to some, ASMR could be the potential cause of increased depression levels and chronic pain. These factors are the ultimate barriers to major sleep concerns like insomnia, however extensive research is to be done to suggest this claim is true.

How to use ASMR for Sleep?

Now that you know ASMR triggers could play a good part to encourage better sleep, questions will come on the right application of the same. Proper usage of the ASMR sounds helpful, as time and situation have a lot to do with the entire process. Let’s explore this segment.

More research is required to ensure ASMR sound capabilities to ensure a night of quality sleep and how helpful the bedtime listening of ASMR triggers for relaxation. If the stimuli work for you, a fine blend of ASMR triggers and healthy sleep hygiene habits can work wonders for you. As the phenomenon has turned out to be increasingly famous among many people, ASMR videos are gaining good popularity too. The videos are available online on websites, YouTube, and Instagram, where self-remarked ASMRists perform the ASMR triggering activities and upload it. There could be various forms of such videos, mainly:

•    Soap Cuttings
•    Crushing Baking soda blocks or chalks
•    Hair cuts
•    Massages

Through the clips, people responding to ASMR stimuli get relaxation and contempt.

Watching the videos on smartphones, tablets, or computers during the evening or just before bedtime might promote quality sleep and help people bury the stress to a great extent. The blue light emitted through these screens is helpful to limit melatonin production and enhance the feeling of alertness. For people who use ASMR triggers through audio-only might have a better sleep time than compared to an audio-visual one. According to one study, blending ASMR triggers with binaural beats is a typical sound wave therapy that includes playing two sounds simultaneously one in each ear. It helps to optimize the brain waves. However, these beats could be unpleasant to listen to at times. In some cases, while blending these two, the makers have found the mixture to be less interesting and more relaxing than the beats on their own.

Wrapping Up

While some people might even be addicted to ASMR sounds and triggers, to some it can appear to be annoying, irritating, and distracting. Not everyone comes with the same taste and responds the same to every stimulus. Listening to ASMR triggers before bedtime could be denoted as a good sleep therapy for people having stressful hours and who find it difficult to catch sleep early at night. Based on individual interests and responses, one can choose to listen or visualize the triggers. While some might find the sounds of ocean waves or wind to be satisfying, others find relaxation in crunching and crackling sounds. Researchers are to conduct better research and further studies, to bring scientific proof and reasons for the human behavior towards ASMR trigger psychology.

I hope with this article, I have sorted most of your queries linked with ASMR and if it's helpful to assist you with better sleep. You could apply both the audio-based and audio-visual-based techniques and see which one works better for you.

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