Can't Sleep?
Try Cognitive Shuffling
Use this trick to "sedate your synapses".
The human brain is a remarkable lump of electrified glob – the most complex object in the known Universe, or so we’re told.
Racing thoughts are one of the most common symptoms when we can’t sleep. The lights go out, our heads hit the pillow, but our frontal cortex isn’t done for the day.
Egged on by caffeine, anxiety or everyday stress, our brains start acting like a pinball machine as thoughts ricochet from one place to another.
Rumination or Mental Perturbance.
It’s a repetitive pattern of negative thinking, and some of it is not even conscious. We dwell on mistakes, over-analyse the day, worry about tomorrow.
One solution called ‘the cognitive shuffle’, a trick that exploits what happens in the brain during sleep onset, that dream-like in-between land where you’re not quite conscious, but not quite asleep.
“Sleep onset isn’t instantaneous. It proceeds gradually. It’s a unique time in the day when your thinking isn’t really connected.”
The cognitive shuffle aims to bring some light structure to your thoughts, just when it feels like they’re spiralling out of control. It mimics what the brain does naturally, producing something like a picture show of unrelated imagery that lulls you unconscious.
HOW TO:
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Pick a word, any word, (example - "piano")
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Imagine a piano for 5-6 seconds (maybe touching it or playing it, even if you don’t know how).
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Next, spell the word piano and for each letter come up with as many associations with each letter as you can. (Example for "piano’" - you’d start with P: peach, Pluto, pupil, pumpkin etc.)
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Keep each object you think of that represents that letter in your mind for 5-6 seconds.
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When you run out of Ps, move on to the next letter (i, then the A, then the N etc.)
The result (and hope) is to fall asleep long before you get to the end.
Part of why it seems to work is that each image you bring to mind is only loosely connected with the next. This mimics the natural process of what your brain does as you naturally fall asleep.
Cognitive shuffling hits a sweet spot between conscious and unconscious thought – enough of a task to keep unwelcome thoughts at bay, but not complicated enough to warrant much in the way of executive function.
However no cognitive treatment, including the cognitive shuffle, is expected to be used in isolation. Good sleep hygiene, a cool room and other science-backed recommendations are also important. And if you drink a double espresso just before bed, no amount of cognitive shuffling will send you to sleep. .
Try it!
About the creator of the Cognitive Shuffle:
Dr Luc Beaudoin is a Psychologist, an adjunct professor at Simon Fraser University in Canada and the founder of CogZest. He has a book published: Cognitive Productivity: Using Knowledge to Become Profoundly Effective. He has been published in journals including Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, Prospects for Artificial Intelligence and Sleep Medicine Reviews.
Beaudoin's brain processing theory behind the hack:
The technique is one part of a broader theory of sleep onset that Beaudoin has developed, called ‘somnolent information processing’.
The idea describes a kind of control system for sleep onset and lists factors that help smooth this process as well as some that hinder it.
Mental perturbance – those racing thoughts we all experience from time to time – are one of the things that hinder it.