Bre Avery Zacharski
Weighted blankets have been garnering a lot of buzz lately, and it’s certainly because they have a long list of interesting benefits.
Most notably, people with anxiety, autism, and insomnia say weighted blankets help them greatly, and there is research to prove it.
Weighted blankets can reportedly help you (and animals, too) feel calmer, improve your overall quality of sleep, alleviate chronic pain, and reduce depression.
One of the most interesting studies I’ve come across was conducted in 2019 in an inpatient mental health facility.
Researchers gauged the effects that weighted blankets had on patients at the psychiatric facility, and the 61 people who participated in the study and opted to use a weighted blanket had far lower rates of anxiety than the 61 other people who didn’t choose to use a weighted blanket.
“This study found that use of a 14-pound or 20-pound weighted blanket or a 5-pound lap pad for approximately 20 min significantly decreased anxiety and pulse rate in adults experiencing anxiety in an inpatient mental health unit,” researchers noted in the study, which was published in ScienceDirect.
“The comparison group, who did not use a weighted blanket or lap pad, did not exhibit a statistically significant reduction in pulse rates or anxiety scores.”
I finally got around to testing out the benefits of a weighted blanket myself when Eli & Elm sent me one of their weighted comforters to review.
I’ve been sleeping with it for the last week, and I can honestly say it has helped me out a lot, and I have trouble drifting off the sleep.
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