‘I’ve been watching an offensive amount of Bob Ross lately and I’m calmer than ever’

It’s day 10009 of lockdown. Or is it 75? Actually, you’ve lost count. You can’t leave your house unless it’s for the essentials, and the scenery in your house or apartment is getting a little…monotonous.

But there’s a channel on YouTube that might just serve as the escapism you’ve been looking for. Picture this: the snowy Alaskan wilderness, bright forest colours in the midst of a seasonal shift, or the crashing of the waves on a Californian beach.

Your tour guide is Bob Ross, an American artist who for around 28 minutes will construct whole worlds—happy little clouds included—with his palette of acrylic paints. As Covid anxiety kicks back into gear here in New York (thanks, delta and the unvaccinated), this icon from the 1980s and his dulcet voice have been the ultimate form of meditation. I have watched an offensive amount of Bob Ross videos since the beginning of the pandemic and today, I am calmer than ever.

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Oh, I don’t paint along, as is the original purpose of the show, which spanned 31 seasons from 1983 to 1994. I just like listening to it. Quite often, I fall asleep to it.

As it turns out, Ross knew most of the people who watched his show when it appeared on TV didn’t watch it to learn how to paint, but to relax. In a rare interview he gave the Sentinel in 1990, he said: “We’ve gotten letters from people who say they sleep better when the show is on.”

It’s a combination of his gentle disposition— “There are no mistakes, only happy accidents”—and the scrunching of the brushes and scraping of paint knives against the canvas that borderlines hypnotic.

Intoxicating, even. It’s why he’s become an accidental hero of ‘autonomous sensory meridian response’, or ASMR: that tingling or relaxing feeling you can get from listening to someone typing on a keyboard or the swirling of water.

While there isn’t a lot of research on ASMR, comments on Ross’s videos should be enough to convince you it’s helping people. It improves their mood, calms their anxiety, and relieves insomnia. There is some preliminary evidence to support these anecdotes.

Research from 2018 suggests people experiencing ASMR show significant reductions in heart rate while watching these videos, comparable to those during meditation and music therapy. They were also linked to an increased feeling of connectedness.

So, if you feel like you’ve exhausted all your wellness options, head on over to Bob Ross’s YouTube channel and maybe some “happy little clouds” might make you feel calmer, too.