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What is 'cognitive shuffling' and does it really help you get to sleep?

What is 'cognitive shuffling' and does it really help you get to sleep?

The Advertiser5 days ago

If you've been on social media lately - perhaps scrolling in the middle of the night, when you know you shouldn't but you just can't sleep - you might have seen those videos promoting a get-to-sleep technique called "cognitive shuffling".
The idea, proponents say, is to engage your mind with random ideas and images via a special formula:
It's popular on Instagram and TikTok, but does "cognitive shuffling" have any basis in science?
The cognitive shuffling technique was made famous by Canada-based researcher Luc P. Beaudoin more than a decade ago, when he published a paper about how what he called "serial diverse imagining" could help with sleep.
One of Beaudoin's hypothetical examples involved a woman thinking of the word "blanket", then thinking bicycle (and imagining a bicycle), buying (imagining buying shoes), banana (visualising a banana tree) and so on.
Soon, Beaudoin writes, she moves onto the letter L, thinking about her friend Larry, the word "like" (imagining her son hugging his dog). She soon transitions to the letter A, thinking of the word "Amsterdam":
"and she might very vaguely imagine the large hand of a sailor gesturing for another order of fries in an Amsterdam pub while a rancid accordion plays in the background."
Sleep soon ensues. The goal, according to Beaudoin, is to think briefly about:
"a neutral or pleasant target and frequently [switch] to unrelated targets (normally every 5-15 seconds)."
Don't try to relate one word with another or find a link between the words; resist the mind's natural tendency toward sense-making.
While the research into this technique is still in its infancy, the idea is grounded in science. That's because we know from other research good sleepers tend to have different kinds of thoughts in bed to bad sleepers.
People with insomnia are more focused on worries, problems, or noises in the environment, and are often preoccupied with not sleeping.
Good sleepers, on the other hand, typically have dream-like, hallucinatory, less ordered thoughts before nodding off.
Cognitive shuffling attempts to mimic the thinking patterns of good sleepers by simulating the dream-like and random thought patterns they generally have before drifting off to sleep.
In particular, Beaudoin's research describes two types of sleep-related thoughts: insomnolent (or anti-sleep) and pro-somnolent (sleep-promoting) thoughts.
Insomnolent thoughts include things such as worrying, planning, rehearsing, and ruminating on perceived problems or failings.
Pro-somnolent thoughts on the other hand involve thoughts that can help you fall asleep, such as dream-like imagery or having a calm, relaxed state of mind.
Cognitive shuffling aims to distract from or interfere with insomnolent thought. It offers a calm, neutral path for your racing mind, and can reduce the stress associated with not sleeping.
Cognitive shuffling also helps tell your brain you are ready for sleep.
In fact, the process of "shuffling" between different thoughts is similar to the way your brain naturally drifts off to sleep. During the transition to sleep, brain activity slows. 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, disconnected, and random thought patterns, cognitive shuffling may help you transition from wakefulness to sleep.
And the preliminary research into this is promising. Beaudoin and his team have found serial diverse imagining helps to lower arousal before sleep, improve sleep quality and reduce the effort involved in falling asleep.
However, with only a small number of research studies, more work is needed here.
As with every new strategy, however, practise makes perfect. Don't be disheartened if you don't see an improvement straight away; these things take time.
Stay consistent and be kind to yourself.
And what works for some won't work for others. Different people benefit from different types of strategies depending on how they relate to and experience stress or stressful thoughts.
Other strategies to help create the right conditions for sleep include:
If, despite all your best efforts, night time thoughts continue to impact your sleep or overall wellbeing, consider seeking professional help from your doctor or a trained sleep specialist.
Melinda Jackson, Associate Professor at Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University and Eleni Kavaliotis, Research Fellow in the Sleep, Cognition, and Mood Laboratory at Monash University, Monash University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
If you've been on social media lately - perhaps scrolling in the middle of the night, when you know you shouldn't but you just can't sleep - you might have seen those videos promoting a get-to-sleep technique called "cognitive shuffling".
The idea, proponents say, is to engage your mind with random ideas and images via a special formula:
It's popular on Instagram and TikTok, but does "cognitive shuffling" have any basis in science?
The cognitive shuffling technique was made famous by Canada-based researcher Luc P. Beaudoin more than a decade ago, when he published a paper about how what he called "serial diverse imagining" could help with sleep.
One of Beaudoin's hypothetical examples involved a woman thinking of the word "blanket", then thinking bicycle (and imagining a bicycle), buying (imagining buying shoes), banana (visualising a banana tree) and so on.
Soon, Beaudoin writes, she moves onto the letter L, thinking about her friend Larry, the word "like" (imagining her son hugging his dog). She soon transitions to the letter A, thinking of the word "Amsterdam":
"and she might very vaguely imagine the large hand of a sailor gesturing for another order of fries in an Amsterdam pub while a rancid accordion plays in the background."
Sleep soon ensues. The goal, according to Beaudoin, is to think briefly about:
"a neutral or pleasant target and frequently [switch] to unrelated targets (normally every 5-15 seconds)."
Don't try to relate one word with another or find a link between the words; resist the mind's natural tendency toward sense-making.
While the research into this technique is still in its infancy, the idea is grounded in science. That's because we know from other research good sleepers tend to have different kinds of thoughts in bed to bad sleepers.
People with insomnia are more focused on worries, problems, or noises in the environment, and are often preoccupied with not sleeping.
Good sleepers, on the other hand, typically have dream-like, hallucinatory, less ordered thoughts before nodding off.
Cognitive shuffling attempts to mimic the thinking patterns of good sleepers by simulating the dream-like and random thought patterns they generally have before drifting off to sleep.
In particular, Beaudoin's research describes two types of sleep-related thoughts: insomnolent (or anti-sleep) and pro-somnolent (sleep-promoting) thoughts.
Insomnolent thoughts include things such as worrying, planning, rehearsing, and ruminating on perceived problems or failings.
Pro-somnolent thoughts on the other hand involve thoughts that can help you fall asleep, such as dream-like imagery or having a calm, relaxed state of mind.
Cognitive shuffling aims to distract from or interfere with insomnolent thought. It offers a calm, neutral path for your racing mind, and can reduce the stress associated with not sleeping.
Cognitive shuffling also helps tell your brain you are ready for sleep.
In fact, the process of "shuffling" between different thoughts is similar to the way your brain naturally drifts off to sleep. During the transition to sleep, brain activity slows. 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, disconnected, and random thought patterns, cognitive shuffling may help you transition from wakefulness to sleep.
And the preliminary research into this is promising. Beaudoin and his team have found serial diverse imagining helps to lower arousal before sleep, improve sleep quality and reduce the effort involved in falling asleep.
However, with only a small number of research studies, more work is needed here.
As with every new strategy, however, practise makes perfect. Don't be disheartened if you don't see an improvement straight away; these things take time.
Stay consistent and be kind to yourself.
And what works for some won't work for others. Different people benefit from different types of strategies depending on how they relate to and experience stress or stressful thoughts.
Other strategies to help create the right conditions for sleep include:
If, despite all your best efforts, night time thoughts continue to impact your sleep or overall wellbeing, consider seeking professional help from your doctor or a trained sleep specialist.
Melinda Jackson, Associate Professor at Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University and Eleni Kavaliotis, Research Fellow in the Sleep, Cognition, and Mood Laboratory at Monash University, Monash University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
If you've been on social media lately - perhaps scrolling in the middle of the night, when you know you shouldn't but you just can't sleep - you might have seen those videos promoting a get-to-sleep technique called "cognitive shuffling".
The idea, proponents say, is to engage your mind with random ideas and images via a special formula:
It's popular on Instagram and TikTok, but does "cognitive shuffling" have any basis in science?
The cognitive shuffling technique was made famous by Canada-based researcher Luc P. Beaudoin more than a decade ago, when he published a paper about how what he called "serial diverse imagining" could help with sleep.
One of Beaudoin's hypothetical examples involved a woman thinking of the word "blanket", then thinking bicycle (and imagining a bicycle), buying (imagining buying shoes), banana (visualising a banana tree) and so on.
Soon, Beaudoin writes, she moves onto the letter L, thinking about her friend Larry, the word "like" (imagining her son hugging his dog). She soon transitions to the letter A, thinking of the word "Amsterdam":
"and she might very vaguely imagine the large hand of a sailor gesturing for another order of fries in an Amsterdam pub while a rancid accordion plays in the background."
Sleep soon ensues. The goal, according to Beaudoin, is to think briefly about:
"a neutral or pleasant target and frequently [switch] to unrelated targets (normally every 5-15 seconds)."
Don't try to relate one word with another or find a link between the words; resist the mind's natural tendency toward sense-making.
While the research into this technique is still in its infancy, the idea is grounded in science. That's because we know from other research good sleepers tend to have different kinds of thoughts in bed to bad sleepers.
People with insomnia are more focused on worries, problems, or noises in the environment, and are often preoccupied with not sleeping.
Good sleepers, on the other hand, typically have dream-like, hallucinatory, less ordered thoughts before nodding off.
Cognitive shuffling attempts to mimic the thinking patterns of good sleepers by simulating the dream-like and random thought patterns they generally have before drifting off to sleep.
In particular, Beaudoin's research describes two types of sleep-related thoughts: insomnolent (or anti-sleep) and pro-somnolent (sleep-promoting) thoughts.
Insomnolent thoughts include things such as worrying, planning, rehearsing, and ruminating on perceived problems or failings.
Pro-somnolent thoughts on the other hand involve thoughts that can help you fall asleep, such as dream-like imagery or having a calm, relaxed state of mind.
Cognitive shuffling aims to distract from or interfere with insomnolent thought. It offers a calm, neutral path for your racing mind, and can reduce the stress associated with not sleeping.
Cognitive shuffling also helps tell your brain you are ready for sleep.
In fact, the process of "shuffling" between different thoughts is similar to the way your brain naturally drifts off to sleep. During the transition to sleep, brain activity slows. 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, disconnected, and random thought patterns, cognitive shuffling may help you transition from wakefulness to sleep.
And the preliminary research into this is promising. Beaudoin and his team have found serial diverse imagining helps to lower arousal before sleep, improve sleep quality and reduce the effort involved in falling asleep.
However, with only a small number of research studies, more work is needed here.
As with every new strategy, however, practise makes perfect. Don't be disheartened if you don't see an improvement straight away; these things take time.
Stay consistent and be kind to yourself.
And what works for some won't work for others. Different people benefit from different types of strategies depending on how they relate to and experience stress or stressful thoughts.
Other strategies to help create the right conditions for sleep include:
If, despite all your best efforts, night time thoughts continue to impact your sleep or overall wellbeing, consider seeking professional help from your doctor or a trained sleep specialist.
Melinda Jackson, Associate Professor at Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University and Eleni Kavaliotis, Research Fellow in the Sleep, Cognition, and Mood Laboratory at Monash University, Monash University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
If you've been on social media lately - perhaps scrolling in the middle of the night, when you know you shouldn't but you just can't sleep - you might have seen those videos promoting a get-to-sleep technique called "cognitive shuffling".
The idea, proponents say, is to engage your mind with random ideas and images via a special formula:
It's popular on Instagram and TikTok, but does "cognitive shuffling" have any basis in science?
The cognitive shuffling technique was made famous by Canada-based researcher Luc P. Beaudoin more than a decade ago, when he published a paper about how what he called "serial diverse imagining" could help with sleep.
One of Beaudoin's hypothetical examples involved a woman thinking of the word "blanket", then thinking bicycle (and imagining a bicycle), buying (imagining buying shoes), banana (visualising a banana tree) and so on.
Soon, Beaudoin writes, she moves onto the letter L, thinking about her friend Larry, the word "like" (imagining her son hugging his dog). She soon transitions to the letter A, thinking of the word "Amsterdam":
"and she might very vaguely imagine the large hand of a sailor gesturing for another order of fries in an Amsterdam pub while a rancid accordion plays in the background."
Sleep soon ensues. The goal, according to Beaudoin, is to think briefly about:
"a neutral or pleasant target and frequently [switch] to unrelated targets (normally every 5-15 seconds)."
Don't try to relate one word with another or find a link between the words; resist the mind's natural tendency toward sense-making.
While the research into this technique is still in its infancy, the idea is grounded in science. That's because we know from other research good sleepers tend to have different kinds of thoughts in bed to bad sleepers.
People with insomnia are more focused on worries, problems, or noises in the environment, and are often preoccupied with not sleeping.
Good sleepers, on the other hand, typically have dream-like, hallucinatory, less ordered thoughts before nodding off.
Cognitive shuffling attempts to mimic the thinking patterns of good sleepers by simulating the dream-like and random thought patterns they generally have before drifting off to sleep.
In particular, Beaudoin's research describes two types of sleep-related thoughts: insomnolent (or anti-sleep) and pro-somnolent (sleep-promoting) thoughts.
Insomnolent thoughts include things such as worrying, planning, rehearsing, and ruminating on perceived problems or failings.
Pro-somnolent thoughts on the other hand involve thoughts that can help you fall asleep, such as dream-like imagery or having a calm, relaxed state of mind.
Cognitive shuffling aims to distract from or interfere with insomnolent thought. It offers a calm, neutral path for your racing mind, and can reduce the stress associated with not sleeping.
Cognitive shuffling also helps tell your brain you are ready for sleep.
In fact, the process of "shuffling" between different thoughts is similar to the way your brain naturally drifts off to sleep. During the transition to sleep, brain activity slows. 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, disconnected, and random thought patterns, cognitive shuffling may help you transition from wakefulness to sleep.
And the preliminary research into this is promising. Beaudoin and his team have found serial diverse imagining helps to lower arousal before sleep, improve sleep quality and reduce the effort involved in falling asleep.
However, with only a small number of research studies, more work is needed here.
As with every new strategy, however, practise makes perfect. Don't be disheartened if you don't see an improvement straight away; these things take time.
Stay consistent and be kind to yourself.
And what works for some won't work for others. Different people benefit from different types of strategies depending on how they relate to and experience stress or stressful thoughts.
Other strategies to help create the right conditions for sleep include:
If, despite all your best efforts, night time thoughts continue to impact your sleep or overall wellbeing, consider seeking professional help from your doctor or a trained sleep specialist.
Melinda Jackson, Associate Professor at Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University and Eleni Kavaliotis, Research Fellow in the Sleep, Cognition, and Mood Laboratory at Monash University, Monash University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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A medicine shortage is heaping undue stress on schoolkids like Alon
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'The school has been very supportive, and we haven't had any phone calls going 'this is ridiculous', but in terms of his marks, even just he gets a little disappointed in himself because he wants to do better and he wants to finish the math test, and he just couldn't concentrate,' she says. 'It's not because he's aiming to be annoying and waste time in class.' While many schools are understanding and work with students with ADHD, the medication shortage is creating an extra layer of stress for families with children with additional needs, according to development pediatrician Dr Suzi Riess. Riess, who treats children with behavioural issues, says the scarcity of Concerta is increasing demand for other medications and causing further shortages. She says more doctors are having to find alternatives but they must be cautious when switching medications. 'You have to be able to start low [with dosage] and go up slowly, and for families it's very stressful to navigate that,' Riess explains. 'I've had families who have finally found a good combination of medication, and it's been really hard for them because they've experienced the benefit.' For those living regionally or in outer suburbs, that can mean driving to multiple pharmacies to find the medication they need. It's also important for schools to be able to respond to changes in the behaviour of children, according to University of Melbourne associate professor of education Matthew Harrison. Harrison, who specialises in inclusive education, helps train teachers on how to work with neurodivergent kids and also has ADHD himself. 'For teachers who are trying to plan supports for young people, if someone's needs are changing based on whether they're medicated or not, it can be really stressful,' Harrison says. 'It's difficult for teachers, it's difficult for the parents, and of course, it's most difficult for the young people themselves.' He says for many neurodivergent students, medication also helps them socially – not just in the classroom. It can also allow them to be more engaged and present. Harrison says it is important that schools foster calm, predictable environments. 'It's having routines and systems in place, even things about what happens when we arrive at school, what happens when we enter the classroom,' he suggests. Loading Fostering positive relationships between teachers and their students is key, so when young people are struggling they can be open about it, he says. '[Neurodivergent] kids have to feel safe and happy first before they're learning.' Sydney-based mum and accredited ADHD coach Sharon Collon agrees, and says she has seen a surge in parents raising concerns about limited medication supply. 'We're having increase of more challenging behaviours at home and school environment,' she says. 'We are seeing increased levels of distress.' Collon says her husband and three sons all have ADHD, and finding the 'holy grail' of medication meant going through a lot of trial and error. 'Everyone is unique, and some medications can make their behaviour worse or have negative side effects, so when you finally find the one that works for your child … to then have to stop it or swap it for another because of a shortage, it causes so much stress for families.' One of her sons, whose ADHD had been well managed, had to switch from a medicine that was scarce. 'He got suspended twice in one week.' She says it was also a blow to his self-esteem: he wanted to do well and had never faced disciplinary action at school. 'And it was all because he hadn't had the right medication at that time.' Collon says teachers supporting students with neurodiversity were struggling with medication disruptions but she urged them to opt for 'connection'. 'You can't discipline ADHD out of a child, and anytime someone tries to do that all it does is cause shame,' she says. Kids may need to move more or go for 'brain breaks' where they go for a short walk. They may also need additional supports like visual cues. Many schools and teachers are already doing what they can, she explains, but it's important for them to communicate with parents about what's going on. Mum Nadine Barkay is already concerned about what happens next for Alon. 'My community chemist has run out of Ritalin ... and they don't have a due date for it,' she says. They eventually found it at another pharmacy, but the shortage is prompting the family to consider what to do next. The Department of Education was asked if it was aware of the shortages. 'Schools ensure that every student is able to attend and learn in a safe environment, regardless of a student's medical condition,' a spokesperson said in a statement.

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