I'm a doctor who works night shifts - this is my go-to sleep hack which ALWAYS works within minutes
According to Dr Arthur Joustra, an paediatrics trainee, taking control of your thoughts by visualising random objects and words can help calm and soothe your anxious mind.
It does this by triggering the parasympathetic nervous system, letting it take over from a stressful state of fight or flight.
In a TikTok video that has so far been viewed more than 176,500 times, he urged people to try the sleep hack, officially known as 'cognitive shuffling'.
Dr Joustra said: 'This is how I've learned to get to sleep in a matter of minutes as a doctor who does loads of night shifts and is chronically sleep deprived.
'Essentially the way it works is it distracts your brain. It is letting your brain know that it is safe to go to sleep.
'It is getting it away from that anxious state of fight or flight that makes your thoughts race around your head and keeps you up literally all night worrying about things.
'To do cognitive shuffling, all you have to do is think of a completely random word and then visualise a thing that that word represents.
'From there, think of a second word and then a third word and a fourth that are all completely unrelated.
'The aim here is to give random thoughts to your brain to stop it from being anxious and allowing it to get off to sleep.
'An easier way that I find is to try and visualise a word that starts with the letter of the last word.
'So if we start with elephant that ends in 't', so we go to tree and that ends in 'e' so we go to engine and so on.
'Keep going until you fall asleep. It will take you a matter of minutes and I promise you it will surprise you just how easy this technique is to do and just how well it works.'
This technique has been touted on social media for years, but the method was first developed by Professor Luc P. Beaudoin, a cognitive scientists from Canada.
According to the expert, research suggests that when we fall asleep, our minds are often busied with images and distinct thoughts or worries.
The goal of this technique is to help the mind mimic this process, but steer clear of thoughts that could induce anxiety.
'These images don't create a clear story line and help your brain disengage from problem solving or worry loops,' Prof Beaudoin told The New York Times.
More than five million people in the UK are thought to suffer from chronic insomnia, which is defined as struggling to fall or stay asleep at least three nights a week for more than three months.
Poor sleep has been linked to a number of health problems including cancer, stroke and infertility.
Experts have long advised that waking up during the night does not necessarily mean you have insomnia.
But, sleep deprivation can still take its toll from irritability and trouble focusing in the short term, to an increased risk of obesity, heart disease and diabetes over time.
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