Scientifically Soothing Your Way To Zen

As a practising Change Facilitator, I adore exploring new tips and tricks for combating mental and physical stress. When you don’t address that unresolved stress, you store it in your body systems, which can disturb your sleep. And we all know that we need quality sleep to focus, concentrate, emotionally regulate, and function as socially acceptable adults.

Have you heard of cognitive shuffle?? 

I know it sounds somewhat invasive and perhaps a little painful, but I promise you it’s a ripper. I have trialled various formats of this simple strategy both personally and in the clinic with all age groups, and they all work well.

The cognitive shuffle was developed by Professor Luc P. Beaudoin of Simon Fraser University. It is based on Beaudoin’s theory of the human sleep onset control system, the somnolent information processing theory (SIP). Note somnolent is simply a fancy medical word for sleep.

Cognitive Shuffle is, therefore, a mental strategy to distract your busy mind, and can be utilized to quickly facilitate initial sleep onset, or subsequent sleep onset after early awakening from sleep. 

The technique works exceptionally well when your head is filled at night with thoughts from the day you create a type of mental stress. This overthinking causes you to toss and turn and remain alert rather than relax.

The technique invites you to think of something neutral or pleasant for just a short period, and then switch to think of an unrelated topic. This is essentially a cognitive behavioural technique (CBT) and it’s even used in neurolinguistic programming (NLP) and known as a scramble.

The shuffle actively distracts the conscious mind from the thoughts that disturb your capacity to unwind, let go of the day, and fall asleep.

How to perform a cognitive shuffle?

The shuffle actively distracts the conscious mind from the thoughts that disturb your capacity to unwind, let go of the day, and fall asleep.

Here’s an example: “MONTHLY” starts with a “M”. So, repeatedly think of a word that starts with M and then imagine it. For example,

M…

MEATBALL. Imagine a meatball.
MOWER. Imagine pushing a lawn mower and easily cutting grass.
MINDFUL. Image someone meditating on a cushion.
MERRY. Imagine sitting beneath a Christmas tree.
MACHINE. Imagine walking through a factory, watching a machine make components for a car.
MAGNITUDE. Imagine an earthquake. Or perhaps this isn’t relaxing so skip this word!
MAJESTIC. Imagine the King sitting on his throne. (It’s ok to imagine people)
MANIFEST. Imagine sitting in a vault full of gold and money, or on a tropical holiday.

Once you get bored of the letter (M, in this case) or you can’t find another word starting with that letter, just move on to the next letter.

The next letter in MONTHLY is O. So think of words beginning with O and then imagine them.
O…

OPEN. Imagine opening a treasure chest (you can see a positive theme here right?).

OVER. Imagine jumping over a fence.

OCTOPUS. Imagine walking in rock pools and finding a sea creature. 

OPULENT. Imagine wearing jewels around your neck.

If you have difficulty coming up with words that start with O, either skip this letter or use this trick: tack on an extra letter to O and see if that helps. For example, if you try OP… you might think of OPEN and then OPERA, OPIUM, and OPTICS.

Continue generating O_ words until you get bored of the letter O or you can’t find words starting with M anymore. Then proceed to the next letter in the seed word (MONTHLY, in this example).

If you happen to make it to the end of the seed word, MONTHLY without falling asleep that’s ok. Focus on how relaxed you now are. There’s no right or wrong, this is a relaxation technique for your busy everyday mind. 

Pick a new seed word, such as BEDTIME, and repeat the entire process. Return to step one and think of words for each of its letters, think of words that start with that letter, and imagine those words.

Here are some extra tips if the exercise causes you stress:

• It is ok if you produce a word that you can’t easily imagine. Cut yourself some slack, reject that word, and move on. This isn’t a test, it is a relaxation process.
• Remind yourself that you always have the choice of sitting silently with both the word and your arising emotions — you can measure your emotional reaction. Use one of the many mindfulness techniques I share to feel your emotions until they pass or you decide to release them.
• Remember that the activity requires you to think of another word, and this will replace the content of your ‘working memory’. Changing the word is likely to support you feeling calmer because human emotions are mainly the result of our thinking. 
• Psychological research suggests that acceptance of your emotions is healthy to restore calming neurological function which is beneficial for sleep. 
• If you can’t think of any more words for a given letter, keep moving to the next letter. This exercise allows you to create a rhythm that interrupts the overthinking and switches you from being stuck in thoughts to flowing. Imagine yourself on a paddle board, you can’t paddle backwards upstream, just keep going.
• Sometimes it can be helpful to allow your imagination to explore variations of a few contexts for the same object. For example, if the word is ‘mountain’, you could imagine, one at a time, several different mountains you know, or even an entire mountain range. I’ve had times when I’ve used this word and imagined flying in a helicopter from the south-face wall of the Grand Canyon to the north.
• You don’t have to stick to the seed word. If your imagination allows you to get into the flow and your everyday mind starts to relax — who cares? This isn’t an exercise with rules. The exercise was designed to support your everyday mind to relax.

Please Note Some Limitations of Cognitive Shuffling

Cognitive Shuffling is not always appropriate or suitable for everyone. Here are some conditions whereby you might give it the hard pass:

• If you are too tired to conjure up words. For example you wake up in the middle of the night, you’re tired but not drowsy enough to fall asleep. Try breathwork instead. We don’t want to stimulate your conscious mind into action.
• If you get stimulated or fixated on what you are thinking when you are trying to fall asleep.
• If you’re presently in a mental space where your confidence has taken a hit and it’s hard to find words and you get down on yourself.
• If you struggle to identify words that start with a given letter, despite practice. That’s ok. Ditch the word, and pick an animal. You could think of different parts of the animal or different breeds.
• You find spelling overwhelming or have a learning challenge. 

Let me reassure you, that it’s ok in these situations above, or anything you try to relax yourself, that if it doesn’t work or causes frustration just pause. The exercise intends to generate a sense of relaxation that induces a shift in your brain wave so that you naturally fall asleep.

Conclusion

If you experience overthinking before you go to sleep, give cognitive shuffle a go tonight. Consider pairing this activity with some breathwork to induce a deep-felt relaxation experience for your mind and body!!

Want to read more like this?

This is My Roar – signed copies of my first published book can be purchased from this website.

• Self Reflection – A little Look Within – click here
• 8 Hot Tips How To Journal – click here
• Can You Risk Not Stepping Up To Mother yourself? – Click here

Prefer to listen to a podcast?

Karen has a free public podcast channel entitled “I Am Changeing” that stores resources for clients.

Click here for this episode.