Wellness is trending in 2024: Discover the soothing side of social media with Alexis Fedorowych of Wood Soup Girl ASMR

If you’re the type of person who is frequently scrolling, you may have heard people use the phrase “cortisol-lowering” when referencing videos, songs, movies, or shows with a calming, pleasant feeling. In the past, many forms of media have been known to amplify our senses and often increase stress, especially in the advent of social media, so it only makes sense that now, people are craving outlets that have the opposite effect on their emotional well-being.

Few creators understand this desire for soft, tickling sounds and flowing visuals that soothe the senses better than Alexis Fedorowych, also known as @woodsoupgirlasmr. Alexis had very casually enjoyed ASMR for years, but really immersed herself into it quite regularly and therapeutically while coping with a challenging medical diagnosis about four years ago. ASMR, or Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, is a phenomenon that refers to the tingling, pleasant feeling you get from certain audio or visual stimuli.

Because Alexis also has misophonia, a condition that causes a negative emotional reaction to certain sounds, she found that many of the most popular ASMR trends were very triggering to her. She decided to start experimenting with making her own ASMR videos, even though she had very little experience, simply as a creative outlet during a difficult time.

“I really fell into it by accident,” Alexis remembers. At the time, she worked in tech and was affected by a large round of mass layoffs. Instead of immediately trying to figure out what to do next, she decided to pursue her creative passion. “I thought, I'm just going to focus on something else to help me cope with all the stress that's going on. And next thing you know, it turned into making videos, getting a good response from them, my accounts started to grow, and I kept going.”

Can social media and wellness coexist?

Social media is traditionally used with the mindset of growth-at-all-costs, or to simply attempt to grab the audience’s attention by whatever means necessary and social media usage often comes with feelings of increased loneliness and fear of missing out. But Alexis feels that there’s a way to use these mediums to actually have a positive effect on her audience’s well-being.

“I hope that what I'm doing is adding some positivity, some wellness, some calm, helping people with insomnia, helping people with anxiety,” she says. “You can be doom scrolling, but if you come across my account, hopefully for those few seconds, it stops you.”

She credits her own authentic interest in ASMR as a reason why her account resonates with so many people. “The beauty of it is that it was never about growing my account, or anything like that,” she remembers. “It was about how much it helped me, how much joy it was bringing me, how much peace it was bringing me. And then because I kept doing that, the same exact thing was happening for other people.”

Like the name implies, Wood Soup Girl ASMR videos typically all follow a similar formula. Alexis fills a large bowl with water, then slowly, methodically pours in wooden beads in different colors, shapes, and sizes. The sound of the pouring water and gently stirring the wooden beads, hearing each bead clack together, creates a soft, organic sound that many find soothing. Across her channels, Fedorowych even creates themed videos for holidays and seasons, keeping her followers engaged as they look for calm throughout the year.

“I'm not saying it's brain surgery, but there's a lot of care that's involved.” She credits her past as a yoga instructor as a big part of her creative process. “Yoga is about mindfulness and self-awareness, being peaceful and calm in situations where that might not be the case. It’s about learning how to breathe, how to be still, how to be present, and these are definitely reflected in what I do as I'm creating my posts. Even as I'm recording them, I find that part of my brain turns off and I feel very calm. I feel like I'm getting a meditation out of it myself.”

Creating a community for calm

Alexis’ followers seem to share a similar understanding of what she’s putting out through her videos. “It fulfills something,” she says. “It fulfills my soul. We get depleted in everyday life, and then again on social media, and [creating these videos] is putting something back in that nourishes you.”

While she couldn’t have predicted how many people would love and appreciate her videos, now, Alexis’ followers frequently reach out to her directly to share their gratitude. “I love them all, but [I especially love] when parents of autistic children have written to me saying My child is severely autistic. Nothing gets them to calm down, but as soon as I put one of your videos on, they calm down, they go to sleep. It's helping them. I also have military service members reaching out to me saying, I have PTSD. Your videos help me sleep at night. Those are the things that drive this entire account. That's why it's become popular. That's why it's not just pretty colors and pleasant sounds — It's so much bigger than that. I never even knew that was going to happen, but it did, and I'm so glad.”

Explore the Calming Rhythms collection on Adobe Stock

At Adobe, our Stock team works year-round to research emerging creative styles, consumer patterns, technology advancements, and stock buyer data, and are committed to identifying the key creative trends that customers need to know so they can produce campaigns and communications that really connect with their audiences.

The Calming Rhythms creative trend and collection highlights the growing desire to find emotional balance through soothing and relaxing visuals — a visual version of ASMR like Alexis’ own projects. Visuals can vary from simple abstract and repetitive backgrounds to gently shifting forms that are often set to soothing sounds and music. Particularly popular are video clips and design assets that create graphic silhouettes, or that catch the light in interesting ways.

Explore the Calming Rhythms gallery

Keep up with Alexis Fedorowych on Instagram at @woodsoupgirlasmr, on YouTube, or on TikTok at @woodsoupgirlasmr. You can also access her audio releases on Spotify.