Brittany ASMR – thinking deeply about stuff
In this series of blogs, I’ll be talking to prominent members of the ASMR community and getting their opinions on what causes ASMR.
As we discussed in my previous blog entitled What is ASMR? – quick-fire lesson, there is currently little or no scientific research to explain why the human body reacts to certain stimuli with the ‘tingles’ that we refer to as ASMR.
So until the scientists start publishing some hard research data on the subject, the people best qualified to address the question are those who create the videos around which the ASMR community is built.
Our first theory comes from Brittany ASMR, who recently posted a truly epic 151 minute long ASMR video to her YouTube channel.
With immaculate grammar and punctuation – magazine editing is her other speciality – Brittany explained to me that she suspects a correlation between ASMR and psychological disorders:
“I personally think certain people, specifically those with mental ailments (anxiety, depression, insomnia, stress, etc.), are predisposed to the sensations of ASMR as a sort of coping mechanism.”
“Call it a silly theory of mine, but I believe it is a little perk from the universe for anyone dealing with mental and emotional stressors. It seems to me that it is, more often than not, people who have a chronic experience with disorders caused by the lack of serotonin in the brain are more apt to chasing that tingly feeling, which means they are able to feel ASMR in the first place.”
“What we do know is that not everyone experiences tingles, and most people that do have been able to feel it for a prolonged amount of time, usually starting in childhood. I think that in the future, science may find a direct linkage between ASMR and mental states, perhaps genetic ones.”
“Again, it is just my hunch, and it isn’t much of an educated guess, but a guess nonetheless.”
In my next two blogs on this subject, we’ll be hearing opinions from one of ASMR’s leading ladies ‘TheWaterwhispers’ Ilse and from Andrew ‘MaleSoothe’, who has an academic background in psychology that will prove useful. mpc