Assessment
Can’t Sleep? Try Cognitive Shuffling
This low-effort mental exercise may quiet racing thoughts and help you drift off
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Quick Win
Thinking of words and related images is a simple, calming get-to-sleep tool.
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Try This Today
- Think of a random object and how it’s spelled. Let’s say it’s bench.
- Think of other items with the same first letter — such as beach, bee and butter — and briefly visualize each item.
- Move to the next letter of your original word. After b comes e: elephant, ear, eel. When you’ve finished with your first item, move on to another, visualizing it and associating its letters with words and images. Keep going until you conk out.
Why
This simple process is called “cognitive shuffling,” per Luc Beaudoin, the cognitive scientist and adjunct professor at Simon Fraser University in Canada who developed it. Per a research review from Beaudoin and others published in Sleep Medicine Reviews in 2019, people’s minds are often full of distant images or thoughts when they successfully drift off. Worrying, planning or problem solving, on the other hand, are a recipe for insomnia. Though more research is needed on how it works — and how well — cognitive shuffling aims to shift your brain into the more relaxed, detached mode.
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