It’s time for the most laid back blog I’ve ever done on my site. This relaxed attitude also includes you as well, so make sure to check out the many resources I’m going to be throwing your way on every topic I cover this month. Since so many of you are visitors from around the world, I encourage you all to look into VPNs just in case any of my links are blocked or unavailable in your country. Let the chilling out begin!

It is estimated the world over that 10 to 30 percent of the population suffers from some time of insomnia or sleep disorder. That means 1 to 3 out of every 10 people (on the planet) have a hard time getting a good night’s sleep. I’m unfortunately in that statistic, as all my life I’ve had a hard time getting more than 6 hours of sleep on any given night. Napping therefore has become my crutch for the last decade of my life, and I’ve done my best to make sure what little sleep I get is quality. Although ASMR has been a relatively “newer” concept to help people relax and feel better overall, it also has been influenced to the point of making it a stimulant rather than a depressant. In other words, it’s hard to relax if you’re also horny, the byproduct of overzealous social media fad chasers and content creators. Thankfully before the influx of such content, white noise was a long established recommendation for helping to calm you down and help you relax or go to sleep. Therefore I’m recommending you a few YouTube channels (pictured above) to help bring that peaceful ambient sound into your bedroom, living room, and life so that you can perhaps find some more relaxing things to listen to while you wind down for the day. Although I don’t personally use social media myself, I know how it can keep people up for hours on end going down rabbit holes they never intended to go down. I humbly suggest my alternatives of watching a still scene with some beautiful rain sounds, or a person wandering aimless in the quiet outdoors as your new night time phone habits. You’re probably going to want to get a good pair of wireless earbuds to help facilitate this, which leads me to my next topic.

You ever heard of that prolific company that shall not be named on a random YouTube channel talking about how great their new wireless earbuds sound? If so, you also probably know those particular buds are awful for the price you pay for them. There are much better alternatives, and luckily for you there is a hard working individual out there that reviews these things as they are. He goes by the handle Scarbir and he has a website dedicated to TWS (Truly Wireless Stereo) reviews, specifically earbuds that have become commonplace all over the world now. What’s nice about Scarbir is that he keeps his site up to date and talks about products that cover a variety of use cases and not just overall sound. More to the point, he isn’t endorsed or sponsored by any one particular brand, so his reviews can be a little bit more open on flaws or points of criticism. It also helps that his product reviews are on buds that are on sale mostly on Amazon, so those who are interested in them can potentially have them delivered in a few days should the need arise. I’ve been using him as a source for TWS reviews for quite some time now, and for the purposes of white noise or ASMR, I highly suggest you take a look at his “most recommended for sleep” buds since they’re fit for that very purpose.

Some people like to relax by watching… other people. Strange as it sounds, sometimes loneliness can be a stressor to some individuals, and I understand that the feeling can be especially tough for extroverts out there. If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that some people who are forced to be indoors for the vast majority of the day can get a little bit stir crazy, leading to all types of strange behavior that manifests itself in an unconstructive manner down the road. Thankfully as the world opens up a bit more and travel loosens up a bit, you can take solace that people half way across the globe are living their lives normally. The two live webcams I’ve linked you above are in real time, meaning what you see is actually what is happening at that very moment at their respective locations (if the video glitches out, just watch it on the YouTube channel instead for the latest feed). Why I linked you to these specific web cams is that they’re the only ones I found to be of high quality as well as intimate enough to see the expressions of people’s faces doing their day to day. I also found it occasionally humorous as you can sometimes find the random tourist, drunkard, prostitute, or wild animal in the shot. Humor in the absurd can sometimes being equally relaxing after all!

Last thing I want to mention about relaxing is creating a space in your house to unwind in. You can start off with a little corner of your bedroom, or you can do the entire room if you please. Personally I would recommend making a small “shrine” area to put things of interest you have as a focal point. You can always go back to this place whenever you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed or lacking focus to re-center yourself a bit. This probably sounds crazy to some of you I know (and I don’t blame you!) but you can totally make this a fun thing to do without going overboard into the superstitious realm. As a matter of fact, a lot of nerds for a long time now have “waifu” shrines in which they display their figurines as a sort of “trophy case” of their collections. I try to ground myself just a little bit to mainstream history stuff, so I recently updated my shrine area with a figure of Bastet. The point of all of this is to give yourself a visual (and tangible) new hobby unbound from the digital world that you can see and feel in the real one. I say this chiefly since I hear stories of folks dropping serious money into things they can’t even touch with their fingertips, and to me that might be a sign to take a step back and look elsewhere for “healthier” habits.

That’s a wrap for the “chill out” update! I’ll be back next month with some minor gaming stuff and hopefully more weird and interesting stuff around the web for you all. Take care and relax!