If you often have trouble getting to sleep because you can鈥檛 seem to shake the worries of the day, a Canadian researcher may have a solution.
Luc Beaudoin, an adjunct professor in cognitive science and education from Simon Fraser University, says the key to battling insomnia is something he calls the "cognitive shuffle."
The shuffle is a technique one does in bed, while trying to drift off. All it involves is picturing random mental images to distract your mind and set the stage for sleep.
鈥淭he idea is to imagine one thing after another,鈥� Beaudoin told 麻豆影视 Channel Monday from Vancouver.
Beaudoin says it鈥檚 surprisingly hard to simply think of random things, he likes to start with a main word, such as 鈥榖edtime.鈥� Then you begin picturing things that starts with the first letter of that word, such as a bed, a baby, a banana, a can of beans.
鈥淲hen you can鈥檛 think of anything else, you move on to the second letter in the word, 鈥榚,鈥� he said. 鈥溾�nd you go on like this until you get knocked out.鈥�
While picturing bananas and beans might sound an awful lot like picturing sheep jumping over a fence, Beaudoin says counting sheep isn鈥檛 really that effective because it鈥檚 too boring to imagine the same image over and over. And when our minds are bored, they tend to wander back to our worries, which are more interesting, thereby bringing us back to square one.
The technique of picturing images strung together in a random way, Beaudoin says, mimics the way our minds work as we drift into sleep.
Beaudoin recently presented research about his technique -- formally entitled 鈥淪erial Diverse Imagining鈥� -- to a joint meeting of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society. His study found SDI to be as effective as other known sleep techniques in reducing pre-sleep arousal and allowing for more restful sleep.
Beaudoin says the technique works because it both distracts the mind and mimics our brain鈥檚 own ways of falling asleep.
鈥淭he whole thing came out of a hunch about what happens when we naturally fall asleep. Our minds drift and wander. So one reason it might work is it imitates the kind of thinking you do when you are falling asleep,鈥� he said.
鈥淎nother reason this might work is that, while you鈥檙e doing this technique, you鈥檙e not thinking of the things that might keep you awake,鈥� he said. 鈥溾�ou can鈥檛 think about your mortgage, your kids or your marriage or whatever鈥檚 causing you problems or concern because you鈥檙e doing this technique.鈥�
Because it鈥檚 often difficult for people to conjure up random images, Beaudoin has also created an app called mySleepButton, in which a narrator offers suggested images or scenes for the user to imagine.
