My power wheelchair is dying. More accurately, it’s been dying for over a year now with the motors slowly leaking grease and my repair folk tut-tutting as they make dire predictions about how much longer they’ll last.
In more recent weeks, I’ve been starting to feel it when I’m driving the chair. I notice it as this very slight drag or lack of responsiveness that’s a bit akin to having a bit of sand in one’s shoe.
Now, the thing is, everything that can be done has been done. My new wheelchair is finally on order and on its way right now. I am also being extra careful to not over-extend the motors by limiting the time and distance travelled in my chair.
Still… I worry. I can’t help it.
My mind just starts churning out all the worse case scenarios. What if the motors die before my new chair arrives? What if I can’t leave the apartment for weeks? What if they konk out right now? Once my mind gets a full head of steam behind it, it just doesn’t want to stop!
I was ruminating on some of these scenarios with Stefan while we were headed somewhere on an errand and, sensing that I needed to get out of my catastrophizing headspace, he suggested brightly, “Okay, I think it’s time for the Cognitive Shuffle!”
How to Play the Cognitive Shuffle
This two-person, word association game is a deceptively simple, but surprisingly effective way to pull one’s thinking out of an anxious spiral and fully occupy it with an engrossing mental task.
Start at either the beginning or the end of the alphabet. We tend to prefer working backwards for the extra mental task of trying to remember the alphabet in reverse.
One partner picks a word associated with that letter of the alphabet. For instance, I could say “zucchini” for Z.
The other partner needs to pick a word for the next letter of the alphabet that begins with that letter but also has an association with the last word. For instance, “yam” for Y since they are both edible.
Taking turns, work your way through the entire alphabet.
Now, important to note, this is not a game of winners or losers but simply creative collaboration.
For this reason, Google is absolutely permitted if both players are completely stuck for an answer—X and Q are usually where we get mired. Also, it’s fun to do word themes for the entire game such as all animals or all colours. I was particularly proud of myself for suggesting quinacridone magenta—it’s one of my favourite colours when painting—as coming up with truly ridiculous word associations is part of the fun.
Why does the Cognitive Shuffle work?
The Cognitive Shuffle uses the principle of focused attention to tame the swirling maelstrom of a busy mind. Rather than allowing the mind to chase its tail endlessly like an excited puppy around the same loops of anxiety and worry, the Cognitive Shuffle gives it a very specific job to do and a goal to accomplish. This job is just difficult enough to be fully absorbing, but not so difficult that the task feels so impossible as to be discouraging.
This principle is also the foundation of hypnosis, which might seem surprising to folks who associate hypnosis with the pendulum swinging, “you’re getting sleeeeeeepy” entertainers. Hypnosis is a way of describing a state of absorbed, focused attention that we’ve all likely experienced at one time or another. Whether it’s being so absorbed in a good book that all other thoughts or distractions seem to vanish or so focused on a creative task such as writing or painting that time seems to slip away entirely, this fully, absorbed trance-like state is built into how our minds naturally work.
Stefan, in fact, recently finished over 100 hours of training in clinical hypnosis with world expert in hypnosis and depression, Michael Yapko and he’s been fascinated to discover all the varied and useful applications of hypnosis. When he and I were chatting about this article and why the Cognitive Shuffle is so effective, he felt it also has to do with building a container of safety and creativity as the game is played. When we’re in a heightened state of anxiety—such as if a lion is chasing us or a manager is yelling at us—we understandably don’t feel particularly safe or creative. By meaningfully engaging in our creativity through coming up with the word associations, we can subconsciously tell our brains that we are safe and this can promote a state of relaxation that can seem almost magical—or, at the very least, somewhat comical in my case.
The other night, when I was wide awake and couldn’t fall asleep because I was excitedly talking about a workshop I wanted to create for Tilted Windmills and a half-dozen other tasks on my week’s to-do list, Stefan suggested we play the Cognitive Shuffle to help me wind down. After barely two rounds, I went from being 110% go-go-go to barely able to keep my eyes open.
Whether it’s dealing with all the inevitable worries that come with navigating life with a disability or cooling off my excited brain when I need to get some sleep, I’m glad to have this versatile tool in my toolbox.
Are you eager to give the Cognitive Shuffle a try? If so, let us know in the comments!
(You can also learn more about all the ways that Stefan is using clinical hypnosis to create lasting transformation for his counselling clients.)
I have been doing a similar thing, for some time now, when I wake up in the middle of the night.
I use the alphabet thing with names. I will pick a theme— female names, for example.
I usually start with A and fall asleep by about E or F. Sometimes I refine the category—old-fashioned female names, for example.
I find that it’s engaging enough to get my mind off what I’m thinking about, but boring enough that I fall asleep.
If I get all the way to Z, I just get up and go read or something because I figure, at that point, I must not be tired enough to sleep!!
(I’ve also done it with fruits and vegetables, as a category, or city names, etc. It usually works to put me back to sleep!
I like that exercise. Its easy to remember, and effective. Thank you