A frequent leaflet guide on ASMR

Two hours after a Red -eyed flight from Singapore to Sydney, I am about to lose it. My 3-inch 6-inch frame is piled up in a barely large seat for a toddler. On my right, a retiree snores like a buzz saw, releasing spicy plumes from a half digested fish sandwich. He reminds of the famous quote from French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre: Hell is other people. Only, I am sure that Sartre never had to bear the central seat of the economy.

Deeply exhausted and slightly nauseating, I reach a YouTube video that I watched countless times and I pass from adjustment to adjustment.

“Hi there,” starts. “I am Doctor Webber, and I will take your eyes test today.”

During the next 10 minutes – then longer, while I play it in rehearsal – a soothing female voice brings me through an ophthalmology exam, speaking just above a whisper. Waves of goosebumps move on my body as it inquires about my family history of glaucoma and commands me to “follow the light with your eye” – although its precise words are next to the point. Again, my mental health had been saved by ASMR.

I am not the only one to turn to the soothing and repetitive madness of the ASMR to endure the misery of modern flight. About one in five travelers say they rely on audiovisual content designed to generate an autonomous sensory meridian response – a kind of low grade euphoria known as “tingling” – to cope with over -sided flights, unruly travelers, lost luggage and closely close seats. My own video of choice has half a million views and YouTube offers that mix ASMR with the friendly sounds of plane travel – slowly swirling engines, the soothing voice of the cockpit – registering in millions.

In recent years, airlines have started to participate in the action. JetBlue has released Airsmr, a nine -minute audio experience that captures what the narrator introduces like “the soothing sounds of the airport”, like the rolling suitcases and a drink that is competing through a straw. Delta, noting the popularity of the ASMR trend among its Passengers of Generation Y and Gen Z, published a 13-hour video on Tiktok, to commemorate the beginnings of its direct flight from Los Angeles to Auckland, New Zealand. Your operator may not be able to take you to your destination in time, but it is happy to offer you ASMR peanuts while you are stuck on the track.

“I have driven out a ambient noise similar to that of being in the air,” a YouTube commentator spoke. “It’s paradise on earth for me.”

Some of the most elaborate videos are those offered on the ASMR channel of the whispered wings on YouTube. The videos, some of which last 11 hours, are designed to reflect the actual flight trajectories from the point of view of a passenger and have audio and hyperrealist visuals captured from online flight simulators. Whispering Wings even records his own pilot announcements and combines them with real air traffic control. The goal is to help travelers focus on the flight sounds that could be considered more soothing, without all the crying babies and angry passengers. “I never felt this at peace on a plane before,” a commentator wrote about a Whispering Wings video, who is following a trip from eight hours from Toronto to Frankfurt, Germany.

However, for all the popularity of the ASMR among frequent leaflets, the factor of oddity prevented it from becoming fully common. “I find that it is always well kept,” explains Sasha Mukerjea, an event marketing and a frequent traveler who uses Asmr to relax his nerves. “Some people find confusing phenomena.”

I have felt “picoles” asmr since I was a child. My family moved frequently before I finally settled in Singapore, and I was looking for white noise sources as a way to relax. Once ASMR videos have become available, I started consuming them like aspirin.

ASMR “triggers” specific to which we answer are as personal as our taste for food. By connecting to a certain sound – someone who has repercussions in a pickle, for example – can taste a person while causing waves of pleasant chills in others. But although the term ASMR is relatively new, the researchers say that the answer itself is as old as time. When we respond to soothing sounds, our brains are flooded with dopamine and oxytocin, the so-called love hormone, creating a feeling of euphoria which was called “Brainasms”.

“ASMR can be very useful for reducing travel stress,” said Craig Richard, professor of biopharmaceutical sciences at the University of Shenandoah who has teamed up with JetBlue on ASMR content of the airline. However, he says, more study is necessary to better understand what the content works best on flights, because the increased pressure of high altitudes on the inner ear can alleviate the body’s receptivity to the ASMR.

ASMR videos are not the only way to use the soundtrack sounds to make the experience of trips by plane less stressful. I found that listening even on the most ephemeral triggers, such as the ding of the “Finder set-seckts” panel, can help induce a state of relaxation, helping to lower my heart rate and give me a feeling of calm. As Richard explains, these short sounds, if they are linked to warm memories, can trigger a sort of Pavlovian response that can stimulate ASMR by “reminding someone of pleasant travel experiences”.

“Instead of getting lost in chaos, I looked at the rhythmic current,” said a devotee from the ASMR.

I remember trying this DIY version of ASMR during a flight to London. It was my first trip to Europe from the pandemic, and the indignity of modern trips seemed to be a small price to pay for a vacation that I wanted. During the early hours of the flight, everything was Hunky-Dory. Then, three rows in front of me, a baby started moaning. My iPhone was out of the juice, so I couldn’t reach my proven ASMR video. I tried to drown the noise by increasing the volume on “Casino Royale” ,, “ The film in flight I was watching. But even 007, with its license to kill, could silence the incessant cries.

Then, I noticed that the two passengers on my right spoke slowly and slowly in a language that I could not distinguish. By focusing on their voices, I was able to restore my calm.

Mukerjea, the event specialist based on ASMR for traveling, recalls a similar experience. When bad weather has extended its stopover in Delhi, in one of the most frequented airports in the world, it found itself overwhelmed by “the dazzling fluorescence and the implacable tide”. So she started focusing on sounds that seemed more soothing. “Instead of getting lost in chaos, I looked at the rhythmic current,” she recalls. As she listened to “the murmur of the voices, the soft rolling of the suitcases on the tiled floors”, the stress of another nightmare left her body.

Once in the air, Mukerjea promotes what the ASMR community calls “involuntary” videos – those that are not specifically marked as ASMR. “I avoid the too refined ASMR videos and I prefer something more real: visits on foot through calm villages, the crunchy gravel under the foot and the sounds of the wind taking place through a harvest field,” explains Mukerjea. “These natural sounds pull me beyond the cabin, making my trip less confined.”

Like each original subculture, ASMR Airheads revels in meeting a traveler colleague. “Whenever someone discovers ASMR and comments on one of my videos, there is a feeling of intense relief and happiness to finally find similar who” get it “”, explains Ilse Blanssert, whose YouTube channel has millions of views. “I really have the impression that it unites us and brings us closer, because we had this incredibly human experience in common.”

My own embrace of ASMR improved not only my flights but also the rest of my vacation. My ability to identify triggers in the wild, then compose them as a way to reduce my stress, is something on which I often look while I explore new places and experiences. It also made me a better travel companion for my wife, who is much easier to live than me.

In 2023, our honeymoon in Japan coincided with a fierce heat wave. Plerated by a hundred degrees temperatures, we courageously have – some said stupidly – decided to take a three -hour walk in the Bambou forest of Arashiyama de Kyoto. Without air and wet, the heat was even worse in the park than in the city. I found myself bathed in light green and heavy sweat while the sun was running through the leaves, wishing to be fresher.

I was hungry, grumpy and a few seconds from the click of my new bride – not an excellent start to the honeym. Then, out of despair, I turned to ASMR. I stopped listening to my heavy and annoyed breathing and I focused on the sound wall that I had known for hours: the regular refrain of the cicada. Almost like magic, I was struck by a wave of goosebumps – and gratitude for the music of the moment. I arrived at the stop and just listened to, appreciating for the first time the bamboo forest which was a tour of 65 feet above our heads.

“Why did you stop, Hon?” My wife asked. “Fatigue?”

“No,” I said. “Just tingling.”

Daniel Seifert is an independent writer. He lives in Singapore.