Racing Thoughts At Bedtime: A Cognitive Shuffle

Can't sleep? Your body is tired. Your mind is not. You've been in bed twenty minutes and your head is running through tomorrow, yesterday, and a song you don't like.

This is a 15-minute guided sleep meditation using cognitive shuffling, a technique for racing thoughts and overthinking at bedtime. Instead of asking a busy mind to be quiet — which it can't do — I'll give it a slow stream of unrelated, ordinary words to picture, one at a time. The words don't connect. There's no story to follow and nothing to remember. Within a few minutes, many people find their mind lets go and drifts toward sleep.

Best listened to lying down, already in bed, lights off, with headphones or a low speaker. The track fades out rather than ending, so you don't need to come back at the end.

If you've been sleeping badly for more than a few months, ask your doctor about CBT-I, the most effective treatment for chronic insomnia. This practice is here for rest, not as a replacement for it.

Transcript

If you are listening to this. Your body is probably already tired. It's your mind. That's overthinking. You have been in a bed for a while. The light is off. And your head has started up like a machine that only knows how to run. Not anything urgent. Just on everything. If you have tried that usual advice, Clear your mind. Let the thoughts go away. And it did not work. There is a reason for that. You can't ask a talking mind to stop talking. You can only give it something else to talk about. So that's what we are going to do. This is called Cognatic Shuffling. It's about 15 minutes long and it works by giving your wobble mind a small boring job. You don't have to believe in it. You don't have to try. You just have to listen. And let it be as done as it is. Let we settle the body. Drop a bow. A third in volume here. Before we start. As I said, Let we settle our body. Let we settle as softly as possible. Find the position you can actually sleep in. Now the meditation posture. The one you would be anyways. He be lying down. Let your weight go down into the mattress. All of it. The bed is holding you. You don't have to help it. One long breath out. Longer death. Feels natural. And then take Breath in. And empty out one more time. Let the jaws beat a lot. Let the tea come apart just slightly. So they are not touching each other. And the tongue. Let it drop away from the roof of your mouth. Heavy and wide. Along the floor of the mouth. Not pressed against the back of the teeth. That's where the talking lies. Let it go quite down there first. I'm going to say a word. An ordinary world for an ordinary thing. Picture it for a moment. However it comes to you. Towns for sure lives. Half formed is fine. No effort. Then I'll say another word unrelated to first. Then picture that one. And so on. Or the rest of the track. The words won't connect. That's the point. If your mind tries to make them into a story, That's fine. By then, A new word comes. And the new story falls apart. And it starts again. And again. And then it gives up. There's nothing to remember. Nothing to work out. Nothing to do well. If you drift off in the middle of it. It won't be offended. That's the whole idea. One thing If we would. Plans wrong for you tonight. If it brings something up. Skip it. Let it go past and wait for the next one. There's always another one coming. All right, Here we go. Doorknob. A mountain. Bicycle teaspoon. Sugar. Mel? Seashell, An apple. Madder. Sunflower. Temple. Fun. Basket. Chestnut, Wardensbourne? Sauce. A reminder, Nothing to hold on to. Just the next one after the next one. Bucket. Pinecone? Button? Teapot. Stool. Walnut. Doing nothing to do. Sponged. Green apple. Strawberry. Sweet potato. Mitten. Pinched. Pen. Maybe. Green tea. The tin book. Podcast. In bull. I'm going to stop talking now. If you are still awake, That's fine. You have given your mind a real break from itself. It does not have to do anything else tonight.