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Tom's Guide
6 days ago
- Health
- Tom's Guide
I tested over 9 methods to fall asleep quickly at night — these are the 3 that work every time for me
As the Sleep Features Editor for Tom's Guide, my job is to research, test and learn about new ways to improve our sleep. And as you can imagine, I'm not complaining. In fact, my sleep has never been better because I've found what works for me. But everyone is different. What sends some people snoozing keeps me awake and alert and vice versa. So the only way to figure out how to fall asleep fast is trial and error. (Obviously good sleep hygiene helps, too, as does choosing the best mattress for your sleep needs.) To help you on your way, I've compiled a list of nine fall asleep fast methods I've tried and picked out the three that work best for me. I'll also be choosing three that I warn against even trying, to save you some time on your quest for better sleep. Let's dive in. Sealy Posturepedic® Elite Hybrid: What's the point of getting a new mattress if it's going to almost immediately lose its shape and stop being as effective? All of the technology in Sealy Posturepedic® is rigorously tested to exceed industry standards. The DuraFlex coil edge helps your mattress keep its shape and deliver years of quality sleep. Nine methods might sound excessive, but trust me, if I'm lying awake for over 30 minutes, I need a solution. Normal sleep latency (the time it takes to fall asleep) sits between 10 and 20 minutes depending on the person. If you're way above that or way below it, it might be cause for concern, but a little deviation is normal night-to-night. These are the methods I've used to try to cut my sleep latency down to just 10 minutes: As you probably figured out while reading about those methods, some did not work for me. But these are the three I swear by and use most nights... Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. I was a little skeptical when I tried cognitive shuffling for the first time. How effective could imagining random objects be? Turns out, very. And that's because the method was developed by scientist, Dr. Luc P. Beaudoin, based on the way our brain works as we naturally fall asleep. We all know the feeling right before we drop off where our thoughts stop making sense, and cognitive shuffling aims to replicate that feeling. By thinking of random objects and visualizing them, then quickly moving on to another that's unrelated, you'll scramble your thoughts. Eventually, the area of your brain that tries to determine meaning and rationality from your thoughts will 'switch off', which is a signifier that it's safe and appropriate to fall asleep. When I gave this method a go, I was asleep within 10 minutes. Initially, I found it a little difficult to think of completely unrelated objects so quickly, so I decided to work through the alphabet, thinking of as many objects beginning with 'A' as possible, before moving on to 'B' and so forth. It's easy, simple and requires no advanced tech. Why not try it tonight? I'm well-versed in earplugs for sleep. Living in a city center and sleeping next to a snoring husband means without them, I can say goodbye to uninterrupted sleep. However, I hadn't tried the combination of a blackout sleep mask and earplugs. When I first tried both, I initially felt a little vulnerable. With my husband next to me, I was fine. But I'd be hesitant to try this method if was home alone, simply because of how unaware you are of your surroundings. The sleep mask I used was a padded, silk mask that wrapped all around my head, covering my ears too. Not one bit of light seeped through and I was extremely comfortable. The complete sensory deprivation was a bizarre sensation that I had to become used to, but I quickly relaxed into it and fell asleep fast. Now, whenever I'm struggling to sleep, my sleep mask and earplugs are the first thing I reach for. Not only do they help me drift off quickly, they also help me stay asleep throughout the night. A nighttime routine might not sound like fun, but it can actually be very beneficial for your sleep. Maintaining positive habits before bed and indicating to your mind and body that it's time to wind down can make falling asleep fast, easier. I love my wind-down routine, and a key element of it is a warm, relaxing bath almost every night. The warm water relaxes my body and releases any tension from my muscles, and after adding a few drops of lavender essential oil, the scented steam helps my mind relax, too. But there's also a more scientific reason why this method is so effective. In the evening, our core body temperature drops which help us fall asleep fast and stay asleep throughout the night. And while a warm bath might sound like the opposite thing you should be doing to drop your body temperature, it's actually very effective. The process of moving from a warm bathroom to a cooler bedroom leads to the drop in temperature. This, combined with my relaxed state of mind, means I drop off to sleep almost instantly after crawling under the covers. I mentioned earlier that some of the hacks I tried didn't work. These are three I'd suggest you avoid if you're serious about getting good sleep. What I first thought was just a silly trend, I now think mouth taping is a dangerous one worth avoiding altogether. Mouth tape companies are advertising this 'method' as an easy way to improve both your sleep and your health. The adhesive tape simply sticks over your mouth making it impossible to open and breathe through your mouth. When I tried it, I immediately felt my panic and stress levels increase. If you have any kind of congestion you'll quite quickly realize you can't breathe properly. That's just one of the dangers. Another major danger is the risk of vomiting. As you can imagine, this was not conducive to relaxing and falling asleep quickly. My advice? Don't bother trying it. During a recent heatwave, I was desperate for a method that would help me cool down at night and fall asleep. That's when I stumbled across the Egyptian sleep method. It seemed simple enough, requiring only a damp towel. After soaking my towel in cold water, I wrung it out and left it to dry a little until it was just damp. I then removed my usual lightweight blanket and used the damp towel instead. It felt cold and slimy against my skin, making me squirm. I eventually got used to the feeling but every time I moved I felt this slimy, wet texture that woke me up again. Aside from this, introducing anything wet to your bed is generally not a good idea. Materials like memory foam and latex can absorb water, damaging it and occasionally leading to mattress mold growth. While I did cool down, it wasn't worth the hassle and I certainly didn't fall asleep fast! If you're struggling in the heat, take a look at our tips on how to sleep better in summer. Now there's nothing inherently harmful or dangerous about this sleep method, but I'd advise you to give it a miss anyway. Most of us rub our feet together or wriggle around in bed before we fall asleep, it's a natural response to getting comfortable. And this 'method' adds nothing more. If anything, actively thinking about rubbing my feet together was too stimulating for me to fall asleep quickly. There's also very little science backing up this method. I'd generally advise to skip it and try a hack that's more likely to work.
The Advertiser
18-06-2025
- Health
- The Advertiser
What is 'cognitive shuffling' and does it really help you get to sleep?
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.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Skip Counting Sheep: Say Goodbye To Your Nighttime Anxiety With This Sleep Hack
Getting quality sleep each night is not as easy as it sounds. It's believed that between 50 and 70 million Americans struggle to sleep well. That might not seem like a big deal, but not getting enough restorative sleep over time can make you more susceptible to a plethora of health issues such as elevated blood pressure or Type 2 diabetes. It also can make managing your emotions more difficult. You might have tried some of the most popular sleep hacks, from drinking the Sleepy Girl Mocktail to using sleep tech and breathing techniques. But you may not have heard of the "cognitive shuffle" method until now. Let's dig into what it is, if it works and what people are saying about it. For more sleep hacks, see which foods you should eat before bed, how to stop getting up to go pee when you should be sleeping and why you might want to try the Scandinavian sleep method. It used to be that counting sheep was all the rage. Thanks to social media platforms like TikTok, you can access newer sleep techniques. One that's been growing in popularity is cognitive shuffling for sleep. Read more: Fall Asleep Fast With This Tried-and-True 5-Minute Hack Cognitive shuffling is a cognitive behavioral therapy developed by Luc P. Beaudoin, who holds a PhD in cognitive science. The goal is to disrupt your thought patterns by focusing on words, phrases or images to help your mind relax. Focusing on random things distracts your mind from items that could cause anxiety or stress, which can disrupt your ability to fall asleep. After getting into bed, turn off the lights, relax and focus on a word that's at least five letters long and doesn't carry any emotional value to you. To demonstrate, you could think of a bobber. Next, you'll find words that begin with each letter of the word. Starting with "B," you could do bottle, basin or bobcat. When thinking of these words, you want to spell each one out slowly while visualizing it. This is an ideal way to reset your mind, channeling all of its focus away from the things that make you anxious while giving you peaceful reflection. Another way to try this is to channel random thoughts. Instead of focusing on a word or phrase, allow your mind to drift, creating imagery with random words like cows, sandwiches, lights and more. Lastly, you can think of a word while focusing on your heartbeat. On your eighth heartbeat, for example, think of another word beginning with the same letter. So, if the word you chose was bread, concentrate on another word that starts with "B," such as Bronco. The key here is to keep things random. Read more: Use This Meditation Method to Fall Asleep in 10 Minutes or Less People who experience sleep problems and tried cognitive shuffles found successful outcomes. One Reddit user remarked it was the only thing that worked for them; the practice was enough to distract their brain, allowing them to sleep. Dr. Scott Walker, a Denver-based dermatologist, posted on TikTok revealing the cognitive shuffle was a light-switch moment for him. He equates the practice to rearranging the thoughts in your head, similar to shuffling a deck of cards. The doctor notes in addition to distracting your mind, it creates micro dreams, which occur when you transition into sleep. This practice gives your brain the green light to go to sleep. Struggling to fall asleep might be more common than you think. One of the best ways to relax your mind for sleep is to try the cognitive shuffle. It allows your mind to focus on random objects and letters, triggering a process similar to micro dreams, which helps your mind transition to sleep. It's been working great for doctors and others alike, so try it and see if it helps you fall asleep quicker.
