Cognitive Shuffling Can Help You Fall Asleep Fast. Here's How To Do It

There are few things more infuriating in life than getting into bed feeling sleepy and tired, only for your brain to kick into gear and start whirring. Lying awake at night, unable to drift off, is incredibly frustrating, but it’s not uncommon. About one in three adults worldwide have insomnia symptoms, and 62% say their sleep isn't restful. While counting sheep likely won’t work for you (it doesn’t tend to work for adults), the good news is that there are techniques that might. 

One of the buzziest sleep-inducing mind games of the moment is cognitive shuffling, which has gained traction on social media in recent years. Developed by Dr. Luc P Beaudoin in the early 2010s, cognitive shuffling is a relatively new concept that hasn't been widely studied, but the existing research is promising.

We're delving into the science to find out what cognitive shuffling is, how it works, and how to harness it for your own bedtime routine.

What is cognitive shuffling and how do you do it?

Cognitive shuffling — which is also known by the less catchy name, “serial diverse imagining” — is a relatively simple concept, but it can take a bit of practice to get the hang of. 

Start by thinking of a random word, such as “table.” This means your first letter is T. From there, you think of as many words as you can that begin with T, for example, “toaster,” “tattoo” and “television.” Aim to come up with common objects or things that you can visualise as you go, and avoid thinking of anything that might stir up emotions or strong feelings. 

When you’ve exhausted the letter T, you move on to the A, then the B and so on. With any luck, you’ll have fallen asleep before completing the word, but if you don’t, choose another word and keep going. If your mind wanders, don’t worry, that’s normal. Just go back to cognitive shuffling once you’ve noticed your attention elsewhere.

This also works quite well if you wake in the night and struggle to fall back to sleep.

The science behind cognitive shuffling

Dr. Beaudoin’s research into cognitive shuffling and sleep explains that cognitive shuffling is so effective because it is both somnolent (helping you fall asleep) and counter-insomnolent (working against the mechanisms that keep you awake). Its magic is in the way it keeps your mind occupied just enough to stop you dwelling on your worries, without stimulating your brain so much that you feel more awake. Worrying is one of the main reasons people struggle to fall asleep, Dr. Beaudoin found. 

“Cognitive shuffling can help you divert your attention away from thoughts that might interfere with you getting to sleep (e.g., calming a racing mind, distracting you from thoughts likely to keep you awake like worries, problems, or noises in the environment, and reducing the stress associated with not sleeping),” says Dr. Eleni Kavaliotis, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Clinical Psychology Registrar at the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, Monash University.

The visualisation part of cognitive shuffling is key too, as it mirrors the natural process of “micro-dreams” — fleeting images that pass through our brains — that occurs as we fall asleep. Moving from word to word relatively quickly tends to keep the brain engaged with the task in hand too.

“Cognitive shuffling is really tapping into our pre-sleep state and the kinds of thoughts we have before bed,” says Dr. Kavaliotis. “As we drift off to sleep, our brain activity naturally slows down, and we have more fragmented, visual, and loosely connected thought patterns. Cognitive shuffling attempts to mimic these patterns: The process of ‘shuffling’ between different thoughts is similar to the way your brain starts to generate disconnected images and fleeting scenes, known as hypnagogic hallucinations, without a conscious effort to make sense of them. By mimicking these scattered thought patterns, cognitive shuffling supports the transition between wakefulness and sleep by signalling to the brain that it is time for sleep.”

What it can — and can't — do for you

Although some people swear by cognitive shuffling, not everyone gets on well with the concept. Some people find it too confusing or prefer numbers-based mind games to help them fall asleep.

If that sounds like you, there are some other great techniques you can try, like:

• Counting down from 1,000 in sevens (straight counting up or down isn’t generally difficult enough to stop the mind wandering)
• Writing all your worries down on paper before bed (it can help you feel like you’ve offloaded or parked them for the night)
• Progressive muscle relaxation (tensing and relaxing different muscles in the body)
• Cognitive refocusing (intentionally replacing unwanted thoughts with more pleasant, non-stimulating ones)

“Setting yourself up for a good night can be just as important as controlling your thoughts, so consider having a consistent bedtime and wake time, using the bed only for sleep and intimacy, only going to bed when you feel sleepy, reducing technology use in the evening, and engaging in regular daytime exercise,” says Dr. Kavaliotis.

If you’re struggling with sleep so much that it’s affecting your day-to-day functioning (and you’re not, say, looking after a newborn baby), cognitive shuffling or other sleep games probably won’t be enough either. Clinical insomnia is different to taking a long time to fall asleep and more serious sleep issues may warrant seeing a doctor. The next step might be cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), which is one of the most effective treatment approaches.

But if you occasionally struggle to fall asleep, it's not something to stress too much about. In fact, if you’re out like a light the second your head hits the pillow, you might be overtired. So, taking some time to drift off is normal, healthy and nothing to lose sleep over.