GP Dr Amir Khan has revealed an "easy" mental technique to employ when you "just can't get off to sleep", describing it as his "best advice" for switching your mind off at night. Securing adequate sleep is crucial for your health and wellbeing. Not only does a poor night's rest leave you exhausted, irritable, and unable to function correctly, but chronic insomnia has been proven to increase your risk of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.
According to the NHS, roughly one in three of us will suffer from sleep problems at least once in our lifetime. With this in mind, Dr Amir Khan, best known for his appearances on ITV, revealed a straightforward approach for drifting off, even when your thoughts are spiralling. In a clip shared on Instagram, he discussed cognitive shuffling, a technique that signals to your brain it's "safe to sleep".
What is cognitive shuffling?
In the video caption, Dr Amir said: "I get so many DMs about sleep and how it can be improved, alongside all the usual sleep hygiene stuff - this is honestly my best advice. Try it." In the clip, he explained: "Let's talk about a technique called cognitive shuffling. You know that I've talked at length about the health benefits of sleep. But what if you just can't get off to sleep because your brain won't let you? Imagine it - everyone else is asleep, the house is quiet, you're lying there in bed but your mind won't stop churning out stressful thoughts, work, money, kids, planning, scheduling, problem solving. Your brain is too active to let you sleep. In fact, the stress of all of these thoughts tells the brain that it's not safe to sleep, and you have to stay on high alert. So, how do we fix this?"
Dr Amir then put forward cognitive shuffling as an "alternative" to counting sheep. The concept is that this approach disrupts your "racing mind" and instead encourages the brain to "go into sleep mode".
How to do cognitive shuffling
Dr Amir detailed precisely how to carry out this technique. "First of all, get into bed, lie down," he said. "Now, think of a word that has no emotional connection to you. It's really important that the word is completely neutral and ideally has no repeating letters. Good examples are 'bed' or 'dream', but let's use the word bed as our example. Now, take each letter of the word bed and think of as many words as you can beginning with that letter, and as you do picture those objects in your mind's eye. So bed begins with the letter 'B'. Other words that begin with the letter 'B' include 'binoculars', 'baseball', 'banana'. As I'm thinking of them, I'm also picturing them in my head."
After you've run through the letter B, move on to the next letter, which is E. Dr Amir added: "Now, I'm thinking 'emus', 'elephants', 'eyes' and picturing them at the same time. Do the same with the letter 'D'." If you've not drifted off by the conclusion of this word, select another word and repeat the process. Dr Amir explained: "And once I finish with the word 'bed', if I'm not already asleep, I'll think of another word and do the same with that until I do fall asleep. If you're struggling with sleeping, give this technique a go, it's worth a try. But if you're really worried about sleep, speak to a healthcare professional."
How much sleep we need
According to the NHS, most adults require between seven and nine hours of sleep per night. Children typically need nine to 13 hours, while toddlers and babies require 12 to 17 hours on average. The health service recommends visiting your GP if: altering your sleep patterns hasn't improved your insomnia, you've experienced sleep difficulties for months, or your insomnia is impacting your everyday life to the point where you're finding it difficult to manage.
