In my last post, I revealed that I often suffer from insomnia and described various well-researched methods that contribute to better sleep—including new research on strength training and sleep. But I neglected to reveal the main reason why I have insomnia.
My greatest sleeping challenge is my chattering brain. During the day, I can easily recognize irrational thoughts, negative thinking, or catastrophic fantasies as they occur. At these times, the mantra, “Don’t believe everything you think,” serves me well. I can dismiss those ideas or challenge them with relative ease.
But deep in the middle of the night, I can get lost in destructive thinking before I even realize it. Hurtful scenarios, “what-ifs,” self-criticism—all play their villainous roles in my insomniac drama.
That’s when I know it’s time for my various insomniac tricks, especially mental word games. These games are calming and engaging, and they replace my negative thoughts with neutral and enjoyable ones.
Since I had thought my insomniac word games were a personal quirk, I was surprised to read recently in The New York Times that other people use a similar technique to get back to sleep. There’s even a name for it—“cognitive shuffling.”
“Cognitive shuffling” can be defined as “a mental exercise that involves focusing your mind on words that have no association with one another, as a way of signaling to your brain that it’s time to fall asleep.” As the theory goes, “The task is meant to be engaging enough to distract you from the thought that may be impeding sleep, but not so interesting that your brain perks up.”
The cognitive scientist who developed the technique, Luc P. Beaudoin, conducted a small study in 2016 that found it was as effective as “constructive worry”—writing down one’s worries and possible solutions before bedtime. Engaging in constructive worry and cognitive shuffling together was also effective.
A Cognitive Shuffling Exercise
An example of a cognitive shuffling exercise consists of these steps:
- Pick a random word, like “random.”
- Think of as many words as you can that start with the first letter, R: reason, ramble, right, rabble, rubble.
- When you run out of R words, or get tired of them, go on to the next letter, A: apple, always, active, absolve, and any additional ones that come to mind.
- Keep going as long as you need to.
The fact that the words don’t create or stimulate any kind of story, “may help your brain to disengage with problem solving or worry loops,” according to Beaudoin.
Sleep experts are cautious about recommending the “cognitive shuffling” method since it hasn’t been studied extensively. The current gold standard for sleep therapy is cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I; I’ve listed key recommendations from CBT-I here). However, there’s no harm in trying cognitive shuffling either. One psychologist has even suggested to her clients that they come up with their own variations.
And to help you do just that, here are some of my favorite insomniac word games. Whether my word games fall into the category of “words that have no association with one another,” I’m not sure, but they do calm my feverish insomniac brain most of the time.
Insomniac Word Games
Remember, “winning” these games means lulling yourself to sleep. Don’t worry about getting to the end of the task or about the best word choices. Let yourself get tired.
Game 1: X-Letter Words
Many years ago, my friend Beth introduced me to my first insomniac word game, “X-Letter Words.” Go through the alphabet, one letter at a time, starting with three-letter words—examples: art, bat, cat, dot. Next, it’s four-letter words: arch, bark, cart, deal. If you are still awake, go on to five-letter words.
These days, I usually start with five-letter words. Thanks to my obsession with the game Wordle, I might add a little challenge by looking for words that end in a vowel or that have at least two vowels—adobe, beard, cameo.
As the words get longer, say six or more letters, I find that I start to feel sleepy around “L.” If I remember where I left off, I might do the second part of the alphabet the next night. Or not. And frankly, I skip “X.” Why torture myself?
Game 2: Double-Letter Words
Go through the alphabet, finding words with double letters—examples: apply, barrier, calling, dribble.
Game 3: Same First and Last Letter
I think I got this one from Jeopardy, a great source of ideas for word games. Examples include anemia, barb, critic, and dad.
Game 4: Compound Words
This is my favorite game, possibly due to a pleasant memory of when my elementary school teacher introduced the topic of combining two or more smaller words to create a new word with a different meaning. For example, “sun” and “flower” combine to form the compound word “sunflower.”
Examples of compound words in alpha order: afterglow, baseball, crowdsourcing, deadline.
You have no doubt figured out that the possibilities for word games are endless. There are first names: Abe, Barbara, Carol. There are colors: amber, blue, coral. Just make sure your word games are calming rather than stimulating.
Summary
If you think these word games could be too stimulating for your brain, then they are probably not for you. But if you are a word nerd like me, you may find that insomniac word games are a pleasurable way to distract yourself from your troubles and quiet your babbling brain.
And remember— “winning” is falling asleep.
(c) Meg Selig, 2025. All rights reserved.
Thanks to my colleague and friend Beth Powell for introducing me to insomniac word games.