BOOK REVIEW
Brain Tingles: The Secret to Triggering Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response for Improved Sleep, Stress Relief, and Head-to-Toe Euphoria, by Craig Richard PhD (Author), Melinda Lauw (Foreword), Adams Media, 4 September 2018, 240 Pages, $15.51 (Paperback), ISBN 9781507207628
There is a moment described early in Brain Tingles when a simple sound does something strange to the body. A voice slows down. Fingertips trace a surface. The mind, restless a second ago, begins to soften. Sleep is not yet there, but anxiety loosens its grip. Craig Richard writes about this moment with care, not as spectacle but as recognition. For many readers, it mirrors a private experience they have never quite known how to explain. The sensation arrives without warning, starting at the scalp, moving gently down the spine, leaving behind a sense of safety that feels almost borrowed from childhood. This is the tension that runs quietly through the book. How can something so intimate, so hard to name, be studied, explained, and even taught without losing its magic?
The author is Craig Richard, a physiologist by training and a teacher by vocation. At the time of writing, he was a faculty member associated with biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences, with a research background that spans inflammation, pregnancy, contraception, glycobiology, cell cycle regulation, pharmacogenomics, and the use of technology in education. His academic path runs from zoology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst through graduate and doctoral training in physiology and cell biology at Albany Medical College, followed by postdoctoral research at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. This long immersion in laboratory science matters because Brain Tingles is not written by a casual observer of online culture. It is written by someone who has helped build the first large scale empirical foundation for the study of Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR), including co-authoring the first published brain imaging study of ASMR and coordinating a database of more than twenty-five thousand participants.
Brain Tingles sets out with a modest promise. It does not claim to cure insomnia, anxiety, or stress. Instead, it asks what ASMR is, why some people feel it so strongly, and how it might be intentionally triggered in ethical and beneficial ways. The book is organized into three main sections, spread across ten chapters following an introduction. The first section grounds the reader in the phenomenon itself. Richard explains the sensory profile of ASMR, the tingling response, the calm that follows, and the surprising consistency with which certain sounds and gestures produce similar effects across cultures. He is careful with language, repeatedly noting that ASMR is not universal and not pathological. The second section shifts toward practice, showing how ASMR experiences can be structured, whether through videos, audio recordings, or in person interactions. The final section looks outward, considering wellbeing, relationships, and the social meaning of a phenomenon that began in private bedrooms and headphones but now circulates widely through digital platforms.
The summary of ASMR that Richard provides is one of the book’s central strengths. He draws on survey data, interviews, and laboratory findings to show patterns without forcing them into premature theory. ASMR, as he presents it, sits somewhere between sensory pleasure, emotional regulation, and attention. It shares features with musical chills, mindfulness, and affiliative touch, yet it remains distinct. Richard walks the reader through common triggers such as whispering, slow hand movements, personal attention scenarios, tapping, brushing, and careful speech. He also explains why context matters. The same sound that relaxes one listener can irritate another. By laying out these boundaries, the book resists the temptation to universalize what is clearly a selective experience.
The contribution of Brain Tingles to the field of ASMR research is substantial because it translates scattered academic findings into a coherent framework that non specialists can use. More importantly, it treats ASMR as socially meaningful rather than merely curious. In doing so, the book becomes relevant to social issues in management. Stress, burnout, digital overload, and loneliness are no longer fringe concerns in organizations. They shape productivity, engagement, and identity at work. By showing how carefully designed sensory environments can lower arousal and foster trust, Richard indirectly speaks to questions about how institutions manage attention and care. ASMR appears here not as escapism, but as a lens through which to examine how modern systems fail or succeed in meeting basic human needs.
Some of Richard’s positions invite debate. He is optimistic about the intentional use of ASMR, including structured role play scenarios and guided interpersonal experiences. For readers steeped in therapeutic ethics, this raises questions about boundaries, consent, and commodification. Can intimacy be designed without becoming manipulative? Richard addresses these concerns, but some will find his reassurance incomplete. He emphasizes voluntary participation and clear communication, yet the line between care and performance remains thin. This tension is not a flaw so much as an honest reflection of the field’s current uncertainty. ASMR research is young, and Brain Tingles documents that youth rather than hiding it.
The book also creates space for healthy disagreement. Richard acknowledges that ASMR overlaps with other relaxation techniques and that its mechanisms are not fully mapped. He does not insist on a single explanatory model. Instead, he presents competing hypotheses, from attentional absorption to social grooming analogies, and allows them to coexist. This openness invites readers, including researchers, to test rather than merely accept. The tone throughout is measured. Claims are carefully hedged. Where evidence is thin, the author says so. In an area often sensationalized by media coverage, this restraint feels deliberate and earned.
When placed alongside James Young and Irene Blansert’s ASMR (2015) from the Idiot’s Guides series, Brain Tingles reads as a second step rather than a replacement. The earlier guide excels at introduction. It tells newcomers what ASMR is and why people seek it. Richard’s book assumes that basic curiosity and pushes further, offering a vocabulary for constructing ASMR experiences rather than just recognizing them. Compared to Emma WhispersRed’s Unwind Your Mind (2023), which foregrounds personal routine and self-care, Brain Tingles is more systematic. WhispersRed writes from lived practice. Richard writes from analysis. Together, they form a conversation between experience and method. Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep (2018) provides a different kind of complement. Walker explains why sleep matters at a biological level. Richard offers a small, concrete intervention that some readers can use to reach sleep when abstract knowledge alone is not enough.
Beyond individual wellbeing, Brain Tingles speaks quietly to themes of nostalgia and community. Many ASMR triggers echo childhood experiences, gentle teaching, patient attention, safe authority. Richard notes how often viewers describe feeling looked after. This feeling is not only personal. Online ASMR communities form around shared vulnerability and mutual respect for difference. Not everyone feels tingles, and that fact is normalized rather than ranked. In a digital culture that often rewards volume and speed, ASMR spaces move slowly. They model an alternative rhythm of interaction that values patience over persuasion.
The structure of the book mirrors this gradual widening of focus. The first section begins with explanation, defining ASMR and situating it within existing science. The second section turns toward application, detailing how triggers can be combined, paced, and delivered to increase the likelihood of response. The third section steps back again, asking what it means to live in a world where millions seek calm through mediated sensory experiences. Across its ten chapters, the book moves from naming a feeling to designing it, and finally to reflecting on its consequences.
This widening lens makes Brain Tingles especially relevant for brand researchers, organizational scholars, social scientists, and policy makers. Brands increasingly seek emotional connection, not just awareness. Organizations struggle with employee stress and disengagement. Policy discussions around mental health emphasize access but often ignore experience. ASMR sits at the intersection of these concerns. It shows how subtle sensory cues can shape trust and affect without overt persuasion. For researchers of brand engagement, the book offers language to discuss intimacy without sentimentality. For organizational studies, it suggests that care can be operationalized in small, ethical ways. For policy makers, it hints at low cost, low risk tools that individuals can adopt outside clinical settings.
The book’s relevance to emerging research on ASMR in marketing is particularly striking. Recent studies by Cohen et al. (2024) and by Gotsch and Gasser (2024) show that ASMR elements in advertising produce mixed outcomes. They can improve brand attitudes among people who genuinely experience ASMR, while alienating others. Brain Tingles helps explain why. Richard repeatedly stresses individual differences in triggers and sensitivity. He offers a practical vocabulary for sound types, pacing, and intimacy cues that clarifies what researchers mean when they say an ad contains ASMR elements. In chapters that describe careful whispering, slow movements, and focused attention, one can see how a poorly matched brand context might feel intrusive, while a trusted voice might feel soothing. The book does not endorse manipulation. Instead, it implies that ethical use of ASMR requires respect for audience fit and consent.
What lingers after reading Brain Tingles is not a checklist of techniques, but a changed way of noticing. Richard invites readers to pay attention to how they are affected by small sensory details, and how those details are arranged by others. The book balances science with empathy, caution with curiosity. It does not argue that ASMR will save us from stress or isolation. It suggests something quieter. That listening closely, designing carefully, and respecting difference may matter more than we think. In that sense, Brain Tingles earns its place among serious works on wellbeing and social connection, offering not answers, but a method for asking better questions.
Disclosure of interest
The author(s) confirm that there are no financial or non-financial competing interests.
Statement of funding
No funding was received.
References
Cohen, J., Sands, S., Campbell, C., & Mavrommatis, A. (2024). Sonic sensations: Navigating the mixed outcomes of ASMR in retail advertising. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 80, 103900–103900. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2024.103900
Mauro Luis Gotsch, & Gasser, F. (2024). The effect of autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) messages on consumer brand perceptions and intentions. Journal of Consumer Behaviour. https://doi.org/10.1002/cb.2370
Walker, M. (2018). Why we sleep: Unlocking the power of sleep and dreams. Scribner.
WhispersRed, E. (2023). Unwind your mind: The life-changing power of ASMR. Ebury Publishing.
Young, J., & Blansert, I. (2015). ASMR (Idiot's Guides). Alpha Books.
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Reviewed by:
Mayukh Mukhopadhyay
Executive Doctoral Scholar
Indian Institute of Management Indore
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