Waves breaking, the soft snip of scissors – these soothing sounds calm my brain | Hannah Jane Parkinson

Listening to ASMR recordings of soothing daily sounds is the perfect tranquilliser

ASMR. It sounds like an illness or a government department, I know. But it is, in fact, one of the few things that helps my brain stop whirring at night. Or, at the very least, whir more slowly. The abbreviation stands for autonomous sensory meridian response". I won't go into the science behind it (mostly because I don't understand it), but essentially, it's a pleasurable feeling one gets from certain noises or sensations.

I wouldn't have thought that listening to recorded quotidian noises would be something I'd find relaxing. I have written before about my love of silence. I would rather grab my coat and bag, fold my laptop and trudge across to the other side of a cafe than listen to someone absent-mindedly but repeatedly clicking a pen nearby. And yet, it turns out that I absolutely cannot get enough of listening to playlists of people rustling paper; sketching with pencils; using typewriters.