Cognitive Shuffling: The Word Game That Helps You Fall Asleep (Printable Word List)

On this page

1. Printable word list
2. A worked example
3. Why it might work
4. What the evidence says
5. Tips if it isn’t working
6. Cognitive shuffling vs other bedtime techniques
7. Common questions

The technique comes from Luc Beaudoin, a cognitive scientist at Simon Fraser University in Canada, who calls the formal version “serial diverse imagining.” Here’s how to do it.

1. Get comfortable in bed with the lights off. Close your eyes.
2. Choose a neutral word of five letters or more, ideally one with no repeated letters. Pick from the list below if nothing comes to mind. Avoid words tied to anything that’s bothering you.
3. Take the first letter. Think of a word that starts with it, then picture that thing for about five to eight seconds. For “planet,” P could be a pear: see its shape, its color, the light on its skin.
4. Move to another P word that has nothing to do with the last one. Pear, then parachute, then a penguin, then a pillow. Random is the point. Don’t build a story.
5. When P runs dry, go to the next letter. L: lemon, ladder, lighthouse, llama.
6. When you finish the word, pick a new one and keep going. Most people don’t get far.
7. If your mind slides back to a worry, return to the letter without scolding yourself. That’s normal.
8. Still wide awake after what feels like 20 minutes? Get up, sit somewhere dim and quiet, and come back when you’re sleepy.

Printable word list

All of these have no repeated letters and nothing emotional attached. Print the page, or pick tonight’s word before you turn off the light so you’re not deciding in the dark.

Why no repeated letters? It keeps you moving to fresh starting sounds instead of returning to a letter you’ve already mined. It’s a convenience, not a rule. If “banana” is the word that comes to you, use it.

A worked example

Say tonight’s word is “garden.”

G: a goat standing on a rock. A green umbrella. A glove left on a fence post. A glacier. A gumball machine.

A: an anchor on a sandy seabed. An apricot. An accordion folding in and out. An ant carrying a crumb.

R: a rowboat. A red front door. A radish with dirt still on it.

Notice what’s missing: no plot, no connections, nothing that matters. Each picture gets a few seconds, then it’s gone. If you catch yourself thinking “accordion, my uncle played one, I should call him,” you’ve drifted into a story. Drop it and pick the next A word.

Why it might work

When you can’t sleep because your mind won’t stop, the usual advice is to “clear your head.” That rarely works. Trying to push thoughts away tends to bring them back.

What seems to help is replacing the worry with a task that’s absorbing enough to fill your attention but too boring to wake you up. In a 2002 Oxford study, 41 people with insomnia got one of three sets of instructions for a night: distract yourself with a specific, engaging imagery task, distract yourself in general, or nothing. The imagery group fell asleep faster and had fewer unwanted thoughts than the no-instruction group. General “distract yourself” advice didn’t help. The researchers credited the imagery task with taking up enough mental space to keep people from re-engaging with their worries.

Cognitive shuffling is built on that idea, with randomness added. Beaudoin’s reasoning, as he has described it in interviews, is that a stream of unrelated images interferes with the worrying and planning that keep you up. Because the images don’t connect, there’s no thread for your mind to follow back to tomorrow’s problems.

What the evidence says

Limited evidence

The direct research on cognitive shuffling is thin and comes mostly from its creator’s group. The study cited most often was presented as a poster at the SLEEP 2016 meeting in Denver: 154 university students, most of them women, who said racing thoughts kept them up, were randomly assigned to serial diverse imagining, to a problem-solving exercise done before bed, or to both. The authors reported that the imagery technique was about as effective as the problem-solving exercise at reducing pre-sleep arousal and poor sleep quality, with the advantage of being done in bed.

Three caveats. It was a conference poster, not a full peer-reviewed paper. The version tested played recorded words through an app every few seconds, which isn’t quite the do-it-yourself letter game above. And Beaudoin is a co-founder of a company that sells a shuffling app, which is worth knowing when you weigh his results.

So we grade it limited: plausible, supported by related imagery research, free and harmless, but not proven. In our evidence ranking of ways to fall asleep fast, it sits with imagery distraction, below habits like stimulus control and cutting caffeine.

Tips if it isn’t working

• Slow down. If you’re racing through words like a quiz, you’re working too hard. Picture each one properly before moving on.
• Use a shorter or simpler word. Some letters dry up fast. Choose words built from common letters.
• Picture, don’t just list. The imagery is the part with research behind it. Saying words without seeing them is closer to the “general distraction” that didn’t help in the Oxford study.
• Give it several nights. Like any relaxation skill, it gets easier with practice.
• Check the basics. No mental trick beats a late coffee. If caffeine is part of your evening, see how long caffeine stays in your system.
• Don’t fight it for hours. The AASM advises that if you don’t fall asleep after 20 minutes, get out of bed and do something quiet in low light without electronics.

Cognitive shuffling vs other bedtime techniques

Shuffling suits people whose problem is a busy mind: replaying conversations, planning, worrying. If your body feels tense rather than your thoughts racing, progressive muscle relaxation is a better fit, and it has more formal backing, since the AASM’s insomnia guideline suggests relaxation therapy as a treatment. NIH’s complementary health center is more cautious, noting a small amount of low-quality evidence for relaxation techniques alone. The NHS guide to progressive muscle relaxation is a simple way to learn it. The military sleep method combines muscle relaxation, breathing and a calm image, and you can swap a round of shuffling in for its calming-image step.

It works in the middle of the night too. If you wake at 3 am and your brain switches on, start a word. Our guide to falling back asleep has the rest of the routine.

For the daily habits that make bedtime easier in the first place, work through our sleep hygiene checklist, or browse more guides in Fall Asleep.

Common questions

What is cognitive shuffling?

A bedtime technique developed by cognitive scientist Luc Beaudoin. You pick a word and, letter by letter, picture a series of unrelated objects for a few seconds each, which keeps your mind occupied with something dull instead of worries.

Does cognitive shuffling actually work?

The evidence is limited. A related Oxford study found that an engaging imagery task helped people with insomnia fall asleep faster, and a small 2016 conference study from Beaudoin's group reported benefits, but there are no large independent trials.

How long should I do cognitive shuffling?

There's no set time. Keep going until you drift off, but if you're still wide awake after what feels like 20 minutes, get up, do something quiet in dim light and return when sleepy.

What word should I use for cognitive shuffling?

A neutral word of five letters or more, ideally with no repeated letters, such as blanket, garden or meadow. Avoid words connected to anything that's worrying you.