Are you constantly spending your nights rolling, tossing, and staring at the ceiling unable to quiet your mind? Are your studies, career, and personal life weighing you a lot and keeping you wide awake? If so, it’s time for a mental reset. Here is a revolutionary mental bedtime trick that could transform your sleepless nights into peaceful and restorative rest.

Ever heard of Cognitive shuffling that shifts your focus from the deep, coherent thoughts (primary thoughts) to the random ones? This simple yet, powerful technique is a Serial Diverse Imaging (SDI) developed by Dr. Luc P Beaudoin Cognitive Scientist and Adjunct Professor at Simon Fraser University.

Why Cognitive Shuffling Works

There are several cognitive strategies to tackle insomnia, including deliberate mental activities like visualization and meditation, while they are helpful but may not completely redirect (maybe because they are insufficiently counter-insomnolent) the brain from the stressors. Cognitive shuffling differs because it causes counter-insomnolence (resist insomnia) or somnolence (induce drowsiness or sleep).

Science Behind it

The human brain is coherent and makes sense. When you give your brain random targets it disrupts the structured focus and stress-inducing thoughts. This cognitive shuffle introduces deliberate incoherence and puts your mind into a relaxed and somnolent state.

Dr. Karan Rajan, NHS Surgeon, Imperial College, London, shared and explained this trick through his Instagram handle.

He says, if you are struggling to fall asleep then this 5-minute trick is the biological version of holding down the power button. When you are in bed, it is easy to get repetitive disturbing thought patterns and this triggers a stress response that keeps you wide awake, the more you are awake more unwanted thought patterns, meaning less sleep.

He continues and says cognitive shuffling can break this cycle of overthinking and calm your mind.

Do-It-Yourself

How to practice

1. Get yourself into bed, ready to fall asleep

2. Choose a word: Pick an emotionally neutral random word, and try not to use words with repetitive letters Ex: BANANA has repetitive letters instead try BEDTIME. Here BEDTIME is the seed word.

3. Spell the word: Gradually spell the word and for each letter of the word think of another word that starts with that letter. Then imagine and visualize the target represented by the word. Imagine targets with the same letter until you run out of things and get bored and then move on to the next letter E and this cycle continues.

e.g.: For the word BEDTIME, the first letter B think and visualize random things that start with the letter B,

e.g.: B –Baby, imagine a baby

            Ball, imagine a ball

            Bike, imagine a bike

            Banana, imagine a banana, and so on

Once you are bored of the letter B and run out of targets/ items then move on to the next letter E and the cycle continues.

Few points

• You can reject the word if you can’t visualize

• If the word creates a bit of stress, it is okay you have the choice to stay with it, keep in mind the next word might make you calm.

• It is okay to create multiple images of the same object (e.g. flower, one at a time you can imagine different flowers)

• If you have a good word that doesn’t start with the same letter, you can still imagine it, if it calms you.

Limitations

• You are too tired to come up with words, but not drowsy enough to sleep.

• You don’t like deliberate thinking while you sleep

• You find it difficult to come up with words, despite the practice

• You find this practice tedious

If you find it tiring to practice on your own, you can go for a few handy apps that direct you to maintain the routine.  

mySleepButton^TM App

For easy practice who forgets the routine, you can use mySleepButton^TM an app developed by CogSci Apps Corp. and designed by Dr. Beaudoin to practice cognitive shuffling. The app guides you through the shuffling process, you can visualize the random words it speaks to you.

So, stop counting sheep’s, rather try this cognitive shuffle that creates micro dreams that create fleeting images that drift you into pleasant and calm night sleep.

References:

1. Beaudoin LP. A design-based approach to sleep-onset and insomnia: super-somnolent mentation, the cognitive shuffle and serial diverse imagining. Computational Modeling of Cognition-Emotion Interactions: Relevance to Mechanisms of Affective Disorders and Therapeutic Action. 2014 Jul 24.

2. Beaudoin LP, Digdon N, O’Neill K, Racour G. Serial diverse imagining task: A new remedy for bedtime complaints of worrying and other sleep-disruptive mental activity. the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society. 2016 Mar 17.

3. “Main Navigation Menu Support/FAQ Blog The Cognitive Science Press 💚.” mySleepButton. Accessed October 10, 2024. https://mysleepbutton.com/home/.

By Josna Lewis