What Is ASMR - ASMR Meaning?

It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon and you just want to stay at home and chill on the Internet. You start browsing YouTube’s recommended videos until one catches your eye. You open it and see a girl whispering and tapping on basically random objects. At first it’s quite unsettling, but the more you watch, the more you feel relaxed and peaceful.

What is it? Why does it make you feel so good?
What you have just experienced is called ASMR and it’s more common than you think.

First things first, what does ASMR mean? It stands for Autonomous sensory meridian response, a tingly feeling typically starting on the scalp and moving down to the upper spine. If you’ve ever had your back scratched, you know what I’m talking about. This sensation can differ from person to person, though, and not everybody can feel it. What is common to almost everybody is a mental and physical relaxation, a scattered peaceful sensation.

Before we go on, here are few words you need to know.
Triggers: the stimuli that induces ASMR. Triggers can be intentional or unintentional.
Tingles: colloquial term for ASMR, it refers to all the feelings generated by a trigger. Tingles can also include goosebumps.
ASMRtist: a person who posts videos (usually on YouTube) containing intentional triggers, with the explicit purpose to induce ASMR.

ASMR can be induced by three types of triggers: visual, acoustic, and digital.  Thanks to YouTube, visual and acoustic triggers are more common than digital ones. They consist in quiet sounds and slow movements, often a combination of both, made to relax and eventually trigger ASMR. But, again, everyone is different and what gives you tingles might be annoying for someone else. Anything can be a potential trigger.  We’ll talk about the most common triggers in the next article.