How Weighted Blankets Can Help Anxiety

Calm Anxiety Away

We live in anxious times.

Anxiety is simply worrying about the future. Everyone feels it at some point.

Did you know that weighted blankets can help reduce your anxiety and stress levels? And that there are clinical studies that support this?

How do weighted blankets help reduce stress and anxiety?

Weighted blankets work by using Deep Pressure Touch on your body.

Deep Pressure Touch is a consistent, gentle but firm pressure on the body. It feels a bit like a hug. This Deep Pressure works in three steps to make both your mind and body feel physically calmer.

All these reactions to Deep Pressure Touch occur in the central nervous system.

Phase 1:

In the first phase, Deep Pressure Touch shuts down your “fight or flight” instinct in the sympathetic nervous system.

(If you are suffering with anxiety, this can be almost permanently “switched on”.)

Phase 2:

Secondly, Deep Pressure Touch switches the parasympathetic nervous system on.

This causes your heart rate and breathing to slow. Your muscles relax and your blood pressure declines. In other words, it causes your body to de-stress biologically.

Phase 3

This de-stressing process is then boosted. The parasympathetic nervous system also releases endorphins (or “feel-good” hormones) and the “happy neuro-transmitter serotonin.

(Serotonin helps control sleep, mood, appetite, social behaviour, digestion and memory.

To summarise, weighted or calming blankets can help relieve anxiety by switching off your “fight or flight” instinct, calming your body physiologically and soothing your mind by the release of “feel good” chemical compounds.

Deep Pressure Touch reduces cortisol – the stress hormone

For people with anxiety though, the Deep Pressure Touch does something else that is helpful. At least one clinical study suggests that “grounding” your body while sleeping helps to reduce your body’s cortisol production while you sleep.

Why is this important?

Because cortisol is commonly called the “stress hormone”. It causes the body’s stress-induced reactions like a rapid heart beat and increased blood pressure. It is there to help you respond quickly to life-threatening situations by shutting down non-essential functions – like your sex drive.

High cortisol levels prevent you from going to sleep. It’s that simple.

So, in addition to shutting off your fight-or-flight instinct and triggering your calming parasympathetic nervous system, a weighted blanket seems to help reduce your cortisol levels. All of this can help you go to sleep.

Sustained high levels of cortisol are linked to things like increased risk of depression, anxiety, sleep disorders and diabetes.

Two things a weighted blanket should have to maximise its calming effect

Every weighted blanket should have two characteristics to maximise its Deep Pressure Touch benefits. These will help you destress, relax and feel calmer.

1. The weight should be spread evenly through it, without any “bunching” or “pooling” of the weight.
2. It should be the correct weight for the individual user.

1. The weight needs to be evenly distributed through the weighted blanket

Every weighted blanket should have the weight spread evenly through the blanket to deliver the best sleep-enhancing Deep Pressure Touch effect.

At Calming Moments we sew equal weights of micro glass beads into evenly spaced pockets throughout the blanket. Each pocket is triple-stitched, so that you can be sure that they will not break and have the beads slide into other pockets.

However, this is not enough to keep the micro glass beads evenly distributed through it.

So, we fill each blanket with two layers of cotton wadding. This spreads the beads evenly through each pocket. So, the blanket will feel heavy, but you don’t feel the individual beads. And they don’t bunch or pool.

2. Every weighted blanket should be custom-made for the individual user

We all have different body weights.

Yet, most mass-produced weighted blankets come in a limited number of weights.

At Calming Moments, we custom make each blanket to order. We offer 20 different weight options for our weighted bed blankets. These start at 1.5kg and increase in 0.5kg increments up to 12kg.

Occupational Therapists recommend that single bed weighted blankets should be 10% of the user’s body weight.

(We recommend adding weight for the larger blankets as the weight is spread over a larger area.)

This means that you can get the exact weight blanket that will deliver the correct Deep Pressure Touch that will help your unique body sleep better for longer.