B.C. professor's sleep trick gets attention from Oprah, Forbes, Guardian

A B.C.-based researcher has caughtOprah'seyewith atechnique he came up with to helppeoplefall asleep faster.

LucBeaudoin's"cognitive shuffle"helps redirecta person's focus away from stressfulthoughtsthat could otherwise keep them awake.

Earlier this month, the methodwas featured inO Magazine. It's also been mentioned byForbesandThe New York Times.

"I guess word gets around," saidBeaudoin, who's also an adjunct professor at SimonFraserUniversity.

How it works

To do the shuffle,people firstimaginea word that doesn't repeat any letters as they're lying in bed.

Thenthey think uplists of words thatstart with each letter of the root word they chose.

So, for example,if someone picked"bird," theywould come up with four lists of words starting with the letters B, I, R and D.

Beaudoin, who tested the method with over 150 students,saidpeople often start to feel tuckered before they're finished with the first letter.

"You shuffle your thoughts to sleep," the professor said.

"It's a bit more engaging than, say, counting backwards and it's also a bit more demanding ... it feels like it's easy, but the brain is quite busy when you're doing that."

Beaudoinalso created an app, dubbedmySleepButton, that suggests words for users to help get the ball rolling. (The researcher said coming up with your ownis the "do-it-yourself" way.)

"I think people find it interesting that there's a new kid on the block in terms of techniques that people can use in bed as they're trying to fall asleep that doesn't involve medication,"Beaudoinsaid."It's kind of original and it's fun."

With files from Deborah Goble