The One Sleep Hack We Can’t Stop Talking About
We are obsessed with good sleep. Since devouring Matthew Walker’s 2017 sleep gospel “Why We Sleep”, we are convinced that of the holy wellness trinity “sleep, diet, exercise” the most important of these is SLEEP. Lack of sleep is linked to (deep breath) increased risk of strokes, heart attacks, diabetes, obesity, cancer, Alzheimer’s, not to mention walking around all the next day with a nasty. little. attitude.
We don’t need to reiterate the myriad reasons why we are all having trouble getting enough sleep in 2025, so we’ll cut to the chase and share with you a trick that we’ve learned that’s an absolute game changer when it comes to sleeping through the night. If you’re anything like us, you may not have too much trouble dropping off at bedtime but some thought shakes you awake in the middle of the night and holds you hostage for hours before you manage to get back to sleep (it could be work/money/family related stress if not outright existential dread). Maybe it’s not an insidious thought but just a good old fashioned bathroom break that wakes you up. If only you could get right back to sleep afterwards so your sleep quality isn’t ruined and you can face the next day with a clear head.
Enter… The Cognitive Shuffle.
Pioneered by Canadian cognitive scientist Luc Beaudoin, this is a deceptively simple technique that we never pass up the opportunity to share with friends, family, and now YOU.
All you need to do is pick a non emotionally charged word at random. Let’s say it’s “PIANO”. You then picture a piano, think about what it looks like, maybe think about what the keys might feel like to touch. Linger on the word for a few seconds if you can. Follow this up by thinking of as many words that begin with “P” as you can. It helps if they are nouns so you can truly think about the word and imagine your way around it. Follow this up with as many “I” words as you can manage. Continue with “A” words and so on. We bet you drift off to sleep way before you manage to make it all the way through spelling the entire word “PIANO”. The trick here is that you are mimicking the nonlinear thought patterns that you would naturally have as you drift into sleep. You are also doing this by very consciously FOCUSING your attention on the activity which in turn pushes away any distracted or worried thoughts that would otherwise be rolling around your brain keeping you awake.
When you think about it, focusing your attention single mindedly on something is kind of like meditating 🤔. And like meditating, if you notice your mind wandering during the exercise, you can simply bring it back to the word.
Let us know if you try this technique! We love spreading the word on this one. We think it’s solid gold