Nemuri: Cognitive Shuffle

It's 3am. You're tired. You're wide awake. And your mind won't stop. Nemuri is a sleep app you don't look at. Open it, press one button, turn the screen off. Ten seconds from opening it to lying in the dark — and then a calm voice starts reading you things to picture, one at a time. A wooden spoon. A harbour. A folded map. A red bulb. You picture each one for a moment, then let it go. There's nothing to follow, nothing to solve, and nowhere for your thoughts to run. A worry needs a thread. Unrelated pictures give it none. BASED ON THE COGNITIVE SHUFFLE The cognitive shuffle is a technique developed by cognitive scientist Dr Luc Beaudoin at Simon Fraser University. The idea is that picturing a series of unrelated items interrupts the connected, purposeful thinking that keeps you lying awake. Done unaided, it means thinking up the items yourself — which is its own kind of effort at 3am.…