- Sleep and anxiety can cause racing thoughts, making it hard to fall asleep
- Psychologists Dr. Adolph Brown said ‘cognitive shuffling’ can help some people
- He explained that thought-stopping and thought-replacement also work
Only seven percent of Americans get enough sleep at night.
And if you’re one of the other 93 percent that’s struggling to fall asleep, it could be because of a plethora of different reasons.
The cause of your sleep issues could be your diet, your wind-down routine, or it could be that you just can’t turn your brain off at night.
Stress and anxiety can cause racing thoughts at night, which can make it almost impossible to fall asleep.
‘People who overthink struggle to quiet their minds,’ clinical psychologist and parenting expert on ABC’s The Parent Test Dr. Adolph Brown told the DailyMail.com
‘They constantly question and second-guess themselves.’
He explained that these types of people tend to evaluate everything around them, leading to something called ‘analysis paralysis.’
‘In this state, making decisions becomes nearly impossible,’ he said.
Only seven percent of Americans reported getting enough sleep at night (stock image)
As is falling asleep.
One way people are starting to combat this is by trying ‘cognitive shuffling,’ and idea created by Dr. Luc Beaudoin.
‘It involves imagining random, neutral objects or scenarios,’ Dr. Brown said.
‘This helps prevent the mind from dwelling on worries.
‘As a result, it promotes faster sleep onset.’
He explained that this can help with overthinking because it engages the brain with simple yet distracting tasks.
One method of this is known as Serial Diverse Imagining, which involves quickly switching (or shuffling) between different images, words, or scenes.
‘It disrupts anxious thoughts and signals the brain to relax,’ Dr. Brown said.
‘Cognitive shuffling’ works by quickly jumping from thought to thought to distract yourself from ruminating on one idea (stock image)
The idea is that you’re not dwelling on something long enough to ruminate, and even though you’re skipping from multiple different thoughts, you’re not giving any power to these thoughts.
While this has definitely been a helpful method for many, Dr. Brown recognized that it isn’t an end-all-be-all solution for everyone.
In fact, for some people, cognitive shuffling can potentially increase stress.
His solution? Thought-stopping and thought-replacement.
Dr. Brown explained that both methods help manage negative thoughts, just in different ways.
‘Thought-stopping aims to quickly interrupt or distract from an unwanted thought,’ he said.
‘In contrast, thought replacement involves replacing a negative thought with a positive or helpful one.’
And if this is something that doesn’t come naturally to you, it’s definitely going to take some work and focus.
Dr. Brown also suggests using something like his Balcony Band, where you can literally snap a bracelet to condition yourself to stop thinking about something.