The tingling ASMR sensations, which occur across the skull, down the spine, and sometimes limbs, have been known to relax people. When she stumbled upon what we now know as ASMR sounds (or sounds that trigger an Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response in our brains) on social media, she was hooked. Many a time, when she was too scared of the dark to fall asleep, listening to ambient noises targeting the problem “comforted her”. “I used to listen to tapes to help me sleep,” says Sanjana Doss, 23, an actor who has been working in Malayalam and Kannada films. In addition to an already long list of preoccupations, the many beeps from our gadgets and apps keep us from uninterrupted, focused engagement on anything-even sleep. The idea is that deliberate sensory stimulation can help us relax and/or focus. This ongoing investigation into “cognitive mechanisms associated with relaxation response…that…derive from over 800,000 years of human manipulation of fire” studies the hearth’s “possible effects on cognition”, too. This is in line with the findings in anthropologist Christopher Lynn’s Fireside Relaxation Study, started in 2010 at the University of Alabama, US. Gahlawat likens this to fire-gazing during the Stone Age-watching the flickering flames and listening to their popping static sound had likely helped the hunter-gatherers relax. Some mental health professionals also use ambient music along with guided imagery, in order to increase concentration and help with mindfulness and grounding.Īlso Read: Belkin SoundForm Mini review: One for the children This is useful in taking a client through intense emotions. “We live in a time when there is so much information overload, and so many things jumping to demand our attention, that even if you haven’t struggled with attention issues in the past, it is now so hard to focus on one specific thing,” says Shaurya Gahlawat, a psychologist, psychotherapist and mental health influencer (on Instagram as She frequently uses ambient sounds to treat patients, especially since such ambient tracks, essentially just “consistent, rhythmic noise, at a particularly frequency”, help in connecting to one thing without also having to focus on something else.įor psychotherapists across the world, these sounds, specifically those that can trigger nostalgia-sounds of a farmland, for example, helped one of Gahlawat’s clients-or evoke calm, help in creating a safe space. We also tried to escape pandemic dread by seeking calming ambient noise. Tracks that stimulated café sounds or office noises gained popularity, boosting hits on dedicated websites and playlists on streaming apps. Back in 2020, when the world was experiencing a series of covid-19 lockdowns, we sought out the mild din of those impersonal-yet-comforting sounds of the world going by. Copyright issues with such modified tracks means that they are routinely taken down but users have sprung up regardless, with playlists like “3 AM coding session” or “beats to relax or study to”.Īlso Read: ‘Indus - Battle Royale’ bets big on the Indian touchĭespite the fact that they are not entirely new, interest in ambient noise has only been rising. On YouTube a few years ago, we witnessed the birth of the Lo-Fi wave, with users like Lofi Girl producing muted, relaxed versions of popular songs. After the iOS 15 update in 2021, iPhones too have started coming with built-in ambient soundscapes that can be played from the Control Centre. There are many apps, including those offering guided meditations, with libraries of ambient sounds. This great need for audio that can help with focus or calming, however, is not limited to any one platform. Just last week, Bloomberg cited a January internal document at Spotify to report that “white noise and ambient noise podcasts accounted for 3 million daily consumption hours” on the audio streaming app. Maybe pink noise, with its lower sound waves, which resembles rustling winds to help us sleep, or brown noise, deeper with its rumbling, rainfall-like effect to help with thinking. Songs, sure, but often, we also go a step further in how much we tune out: We have birds chirping or waves crashing on a loop, or long hours of only static buzzing in our ears. On the metro or in a cab, we mostly see people with pods in their ears, tuned into a world of their choosing. Our biggest need seems to be to shut out what’s immediately around us.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |