Shutting: Know mental technique that promises to make sleep faster

When the The doctor Luc Beudoin She was a undergraduate student, almost 40 years ago, he had difficulty sleeping on Sunday nights often – and was looking forward to finding a solution.

He found inspiration in a class of cognitive psychology he was doing and in a teacher’s theory about detection of visual movement, said Beudoin to CNN now a cognitive scientist. Visual motion detection refers to the visual system’s ability to perceive and process movement based on light change patterns on the retina.

“I thought to myself: If I can understand the ‘Home Start Control System’ of the human brain, I may invent a technique to deceive the brain and make it fall asleep,” said the professional, who is also an Assistant Professor of Education at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, by email. This technique was consolidated as “Cognitive shuffling” In 2009, when he was 41 years old and was going through another outbreak of difficulty falling asleep or returning to sleep after waking up in the middle of the night.

“My insomnia left,” said Beudoin. “My girlfriend (now my wife) was surprised that I fell asleep so fast. I felt that I was in something important. So I read more extensively and thought deeply about the start control system.”

Cognitive shuffling usually involves Mentally cast random, impersonal, and no emotional words. For each letter of a word you choose randomly, you think of how many corresponding words you can for five to eight seconds each before you pass to the next letter.

For the word “piano”, for example, you can think of “Pear, parachute, Paul, pyrouette… item, intention, immature, iglu … ”And so on.

Although the technique may not seem soothing, it “takes your mind out of your problems and questions, and helps you get into a more relaxed mental state,” he said Fariha Abbasi-Feinberg Specialist in Sleep Medicine and Neurologist at Millennium Physician Group in Fort Myers, Florida.

“I always say to patients: ‘You can’t force yourself to sleep. You have to allow yourself to sleep.’ And this is just one of the methods we use to help with it, ”added Abbasi-Feinberg, who often suggests the technique for his patients with sleep problems.

Sometimes you can even visualize corresponding scenarios or movements, as you playing piano or someone falling from parachutes, said Beudoin.

See the science behind cognitive shuffling and what to know about practicing it.

Why the cognitive shuffling works

At this point, there is little research on cognitive shuffling. So what makes some doctors support a “do it yourself” sleep trick without substantial evidence?

It turns out that the fundamental theory behind cognitive, though conjectural shuffling, “aligns with principles established in cognitive neuroscience and sleep psychology,” said Dr. Leah Kaylor, a clinical psychologist and Louisiana -based author, CNN. It is based on a large number of studies that Beudoin and other researchers have reviewed in an article published in April 2020 in the journal Sleep Medicine Reviews.

In addition to taking the mind out of worries, the cognitive mixture “resembles critical aspects, the natural beginning of sleep,” said Beudoin.

In the natural transition to sleep, the people tend to have “microshos” And fragmented and nonlinear thinking patterns, they said Beudoin and Kaylor. Intently involving random and disconnected thoughts can replicate this pre-sanum cognitive state, helping people fall asleep.

“We believe there is a cycle of positive feedback in the brain: milkslings are not just a product of sleeping; they signal to the brain that it is safe and appropriate to fall asleep,” said Beudoin.

Because our brains tend to “shuffle” between random thoughts for calmer periods, giving them a soothing or neutral distraction can be more useful than allowing them to find something on their own, Dr. Kami McManus, Sleep Psychologist at the Penn Medicine Sleep Department, said by email.

Beudoin published his third study on cognitive shuffling in 2016. The sample size of the study was small, but their findings were encouraging: 154 college students, mostly women, were randomly designated for standard treatment before bed, to practice a more formally known cognitive shuffling exercise, or both.

In the SDIT group, one application randomly presented word recordings, one at a time, with intervals of eight seconds between them, during which participants created and maintained an image of the word until the next recording generated the next image and so on.

The SDIT group was more likely to experience improvements in sleep quality, difficulty falling asleep and pre-sanumn excitement-increased physical or mental activity when trying to fall asleep. These benefits lasted throughout the semester.

Beudoin and his team are planning additional research, this time comparing cognitive shuffling to other cognitive and mental visualization techniques.

Imagining yourself sleeping

To practice cognitive shuffling, there is no definite number of words or time required. The words you choose for each letter do not need to be logically related, Kaylor said – trying to control randomness will reduce the effectiveness of the technique.

People usually report falling asleep in about five to 15 minutes, while others can take longer, especially if they are too stressed or likely to think too much, Kaylor said.

If you are wrapped in the technique for more than 20 minutes or start to feel frustrated, it is better to give up and get out of bed, McManus said. Your body may not be ready, so doing a relaxing activity elsewhere for 20 to 30 minutes before returning to bed and trying again is better than trying a lot and activating negative emotions, making sleep harder.

Try this technique several nights in a row before deciding whether cognitive shuffling works for you, they recommended these experts. However, Remember that it is not a substitute for proper sleep hygiene or a cure for a sleep condition .

“If someone drinks a lot of coffee before bed, he shouldn’t expect cognitive techniques to help him fall asleep,” said Beudoin.

In addition, you should still guarantee regular sleep and waking hours; A bedtime routine involving other relaxation habits, such as writing a diary or taking a warm bath; a silent, dark and fresh room; Limited screen time before bed; And no alcohol within hours before bed.

If you have problems to sleep regularly, Beudoin has emphasized that cognitive techniques generally do not replace medical advice. They also do not replace cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, known as TCC-I, as many cases of insomnia have more than one element that needs treatment.

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This content was originally published in shuffling: know mental technique that promises to make sleep faster on CNN Brazil.

Source: CNN Brasil