| For many people, falling asleep can be a challenge. Both the New York Times* and CNN recently shared an interesting tactic that might help, called “Cognitive Shuffling.” To signal your brain that it’s time to fall asleep, the strategy is to distract yourself from the thoughts that might be keeping you awake without activating your brain. For this exercise, start by taking a random word – let’s try “Olive.” Think of as many words as you can that begin with the same first letter, and visualize each word. For example, “open, otter, onto, over, optimal, owl, orbit, octagon.” When you run out of “O” words, you move on to the next letter of the original word, “L,” and do the same thing: “love, light, laugh, limit, lemur.” Research has shown that when people naturally drift off to sleep, their minds are often full of vivid images or distant thoughts. The goal of this technique is to mimic that process. By not telling yourself a clear story, your brain may disengage from worry loops or problem solving, relax, and let you get some rest. Dr. Pauli Adds: Does this sound familiar? I used to have no problem getting great sleep! I didn’t have to think about how to fall asleep, stay asleep, or get enough sleep. As I’ve gotten a little older, I’ve found that I have to be more aware of the variety of factors that contribute to getting restorative sleep. And, getting good sleep has become more important to having a good, productive next-day. Perhaps, also like me, you’ve also noticed that having a single glass of wine or an afternoon coffee can throw things off. The bedroom temperature has to be cold, and all lights have to be completely off. If I stay up too late, it’s hard to sleep well. I’ve started monitoring my afternoon and evening activities and watching how much/what I drink in the afternoon and evening. Something simple that’s helped me has been developing an evening routine that helps pave the way to a good night’s sleep: I stop doing new tasks an hour before I want to fall asleep. I spend thirty minutes before lights-out doing relaxing things that do not involve technology or any screens. *Olive Tree Medical Members can read the New York Times article by logging into the Members Only site and clicking into the “Handouts” section. |
