One of the things that bent my mind when studying ASMR was a phrase I read on ‘Oxford academic’ called ‘More relaxing than nature? The impact of ASMR content on psychological and physiological measures of parasympathetic activity’
It was a 2025 Japanese study on whether or not ASMR would be more effective at reducing psychological stress than the well documented effects viewing nature has on reducing psychological stress.
More than half of Japanese workers suffer from psychological stress and thus any study on the reduction of psychological stress is a high interest area.
What really struck me in this article was just a two word phrase. ‘Attentional resources’
The study cited another study by Steven Kaplan called ‘The restorative benefits of nature: toward an interrogative framework’
Here is a direct quote.
‘Directed attention plays an important role in human information processing: its fatigue, in turn, has far reaching consequences.’
This was a sentence that went down several layers of understanding for me. I could feel it. Hear it. Remember it.
Basically, when I read that sentence, a little movie played in my mind where I could fully recall in vivid detail the precise consequences of fatigued attention being referred to.
The Japanese study concluded that ASMR was more effective at lowering heart rate and therefore more relaxing than nature.
Why is that?
Why does viewing nature have a calming effect?
According to a lot of well documented research including the study I read by Kaplan and another study I read called ‘views to nature effects on attention’ a study on how university students with windows in their rooms that had views of nature performed better, it is because it restores attentional resources.
How does it restore attentional resources? I got only a bit into why nature restores attentional resources. I read some studies on the feelings of awe nature can inspire are what leads to restoring resources.
And on how perhaps the wide view and the feeling of something being far away is way eases up on our resources and therefore gives us a rest.
But this post isn’t about all that.
It’s about ASMR and the specific thing it mimics that restores our resources and makes us feel relaxed.
ASMR is the sound of social bonding.
The tingling sensation experienced from ASMR content is also called ‘a social tingle’
School was a terrible experience for me.
I remember feeling like every step I took I might miss the ground and experience that feeling of falling into negative g force.
That same sort of feeling one gets from being dropped in a rollercoaster (I hate roller coasters)
I felt ostracized at school.
Whether or not I was actually being ostracized is not what matters. I felt ostracized.
Which means I developed a hyper vigilance and a tendency to isolate. So you could say my attentional resources were being horrendously depleted because all of my focus was on trying not to get in trouble.
Probably, now that I think about it, was a large part of the reason I did so terrible at school work and got a bit better when I was homeschooled.
Homeschooling freed up some of my attention. Because I felt less of the social pressures and could put more focus to just understanding the school work.
A work environment (as the Japanese can attest to) is also a very good example of the consequences and true costs of having fatigued attentional resources.
Let’s say my boss hates me. Because my boss hates me he is watching me more. He is looking for me doing the wrong things.
Which for me means I have to develop the hyper vigilance to detect and discover what my boss considers the right things to and do those things.
What my boss considers the right things and what things actually benefit me are often not the same thing.
This happens a lot in serving for example. To get my tip by pleasing the customer will often completely contradict what behavior will please my boss.
Or even because my boss is upset with me I will have to keep up the appearance of looking busy. It won’t matter if I’m actually being productive it will just matter that I seem productive.
Which to a lot of bosses means not looking relaxed. So I have to appear stressed and hurried,
I will then have to drive myself into a deficit to please my boss. Doing all the things that exhaust me and don’t benefit me only to please my boss. Because my status at the job is not secure.
Even if it is actually secure but I simply believe it is not I’m still experiencing that depletion of my attentional resources.
I have to be hyper vigilant on my social standing with my higher ups or I could get cast out.
This is something I would argue into the ground.
People are actually pretty smart.
A human being usually needs to be damaged to be delusional.
We don’t convince ourselves of something from nothing.
We react to real signals. Maybe it’s true that we misinterpret signals. But they are still real.
If my body notices certain tones or facial expressions it will feel them on a pretty deep level and it will react to them.
ASMR proves this.
Because ASMR is the sounds of social bonding.
Just the sounds of social bonding can trigger us to relax.
Why is that? Because social bonding removes a huge source of stress. It removes a huge load on our attentional resources.
When I’ve bonded with someone I will help them. I will support them. I will accept them.
I won’t monitor their mistakes I’ll monitor their strengths and their needs and how I can be of service to them to continually strengthen the bond. I’ll even look past their flaws. Beyond that, I can even come to treasure their flaws and work to help compensate for those flaws.
Having a bond with a person is of incredible value because of how drastically it frees up attentional resources.
When emotionally bonded with a person I can use my resources to my benefit instead of using them all on survival.
If my boss likes me I can focus on getting tips.
If my teacher likes me I can focus on learning.
If I have a good friend I can ask for their help.
If I have a romantic relationship I can actually depend on that person to share resources and I can give them tasks that even further free up my attentional resources.
Of course ASMR the sounds of social bonding and social attention will be even more relaxing than nature.
Jess lanai 