Callum Jones
Struggling to nod off again after waking up in the early hours of the morning? This UK doctor might just have the remedy you need.
Waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to drift off again is hugely frustrating, especially when you have to be awake at 7am for work, and it happens to more of us than you might think.
According to a 2008 study, around one in three of us wake up in the middle of the night three nights a week or more.
Sleep is incredibly important, and if you don't get enough, you could be at risk of high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and potentially even Alzheimer's.
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Fortunately, TV doctor Amir Khan has now shared his tips for falling back asleep during 'sad hours'.
In a video posted to Instagram, Dr Khan, who's regularly seen on ITV breakfast and daytime telly, said: "Guys, I shared a reel about why people wake up at 3am in the morning, and hundreds of thousands of people have watched it, but lots of people have asked 'well, what do you do when you wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning? How do you get back off to sleep?'
"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?"
The doctor said that 'stressful thoughts' about 'work, money, kids, planning, scheduling, problem-solving' mean your brain is too 'active' for sleep - but there is a solution.
He continued: "It's called cognitive shuffling, and the idea is it interrupts your racing mind, and instead scrambles your thoughts, inviting your brain to go into sleep mode, and assuring it that it is safe to sleep."
Cognitive shuffling is a term coined in 2009 by Dr. Luc Beaudoin, who claims it cured his insomnia.
You start by thinking of a random word, and then focusing on the first letter of that word. Following that, you need to list a bunch of words starting with that letter.
So melon, martian, mushroom, monster, mop, milk, etc.
Going through the list, you're then going to want to visualize each word, before moving onto the second letter of your original chosen word and repeating the steps.
Continuing with each letter of the original word will hopefully have you back to sleep in no time.
Why does it work? Well, according to CNN, people tend to have 'microdreams' when they're starting to fall asleep, which involve fragmented thought patterns.
By visualising all these disconnected things starting with the same letter, we're essentially mimicking that, as well as taking our minds off the fact that we're struggling to fall asleep.
The publication reports on average, it can send people off to the land of nod within five to 15 minutes.