Mirael Straught

My name is Mirael Straught. I am 40, born to a Belgian mother and an American father, raised mostly in suburban Pennsylvania with summers at my grandparents' apartment in Antwerp until my late teens. These days I work as a senior project coordinator for a regional logistics company, where I have spent the last eleven years helping companies move things from one warehouse to another in roughly the order their customers expect. It is steady work and I am moderately good at it.

I started using ASMR for sleep in late 2021, almost by accident, when YouTube autoplayed a tapping video over the documentary about Antarctic exploration I had actually been watching. I hated the tapping and I gave up for a week, but the second attempt with whispering rather than tapping worked, which was both a relief and a small embarrassment for someone who likes to think of himself as practical. I have not slept without it since.

Most of what I write here is the long-form version of advice I would give a friend at 1am if they were the sort of friend who texts you at 1am about not being able to sleep. The rest is whatever I happen to find interesting in the field, written from the position of someone who has been a daily user for several years rather than the position of someone with credentials about it.

What I write about

• How to use ASMR for sleep, anxiety, focus, and the in-between hours.
• Triggers, what works for whom, and why nobody's answer is universal.
• The quieter habits around audio: timers, headphones, audio-only mode, the small things that wake you up without your knowing.

What I do not write about

ASMR as performance, ASMR as community drama, the parasocial conversations about creators that fill the larger forums. Those are valid subjects, just not mine. I write about sleep, attention, and the quieter side of what happens when you put on a pair of headphones at the end of a long day.

Where to reach me

If something I write turns out to be wrong, the email [email protected] reaches me directly. Corrections are read and appreciated, even when they are curt.