Can Weighted Blankets Help Insomnia?
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- Опубліковано 27 лип 2022
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Insomnia is terrible, and it can be more prevalent among individuals with other psychiatric disorders. Treatment is available, but there can be a lot of barriers,. Medication is generally only a short term solution. There are proponents of weighted blankets as a more accessible treatment option, but is that supported by the data?
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Weighted blankets are amazing. It's like being hugged and cuddled by a big fluffy sky mommy.
I agree with weighted blankets being in the "might as well" category. I certainly like mine, I knew I would before getting one since as a child I liked sleeping under a heavy feather blanket.
Listening to this under my weighted blanket, such a bliss. So safe.
I can completely attest to this. I was in my 40s and had dealt with insomnia, seizures and migraines. My wife kept saying I needed to get one and I was like meh no way it helps. She bought me one anyway and 3 years later I don’t go anywhere without it.
I've been considering getting a weighted blanket. I'm autistic and I have trouble sleeping. I've found that I sleep better if I have my blankets layered over me so I can feel the weight - it's very soothing.
I HIGHLY suggest getting one then. Mine has changed my life for the better. I don’t sleep with it every night, but when I need it, nothing else fills that need. When I sleep with it, I wake up feeling rested and not even remembering falling asleep. It’s magical.
@@peacechickification I ordered one last night. Thank you for your input! 🙂
I'm also autistic, and my weighed blanket helped me get through lockdown. You won't regret your purchase.
@@sneakerbabeful Thank you for sharing your experience! 🙂
@@RaasAlHayya oooh, enjoy!
I have a weighted blanket and enjoy snuggling with it -- I find that it definitely helps me when I'm feeling anxious. That said, I don't like sleeping with it. I sleep with a sheet under the blanket, and I find that it's very hard to make the bed in the morning. (It's hard to adjust the sheet under the blanket.) But I do enjoy having it around in case I need snuggling. It was very useful when I was completely isolated during the pandemic.
I have ADHD, depression, and anxiety. Coming home from a very sensory overloaded day at work and getting under my weighted blanket makes a HUGE difference for me in coming back to a neutral place mentally. It may be placebo, but like you said there is no harm from it. I love my weighted blanket.
I don’t think it’s placebo! I think the deep pressure therapy really works in calming the nervous system. I can’t imagine life without mine.
It's possible it helps 100% of people who happen to enjoy it 😊
I like the "why not" conclusion here. I often say similar things where there is limited evidence it works but it's not harmful so go for it.
Anecdotally, every time I tend to sleep well at hotels that have comforters which are essentially semi-weighted blankets. They probably decrease my tossing & turning. In general, I also sleep best when it's cold out but I'm snuggled under a good warm blanket.
Problem is I sleep very warm. If I were to sleep with a comforter or weighted blanket any time other than occasional cold nights I would need to turn my AC down to at least 70 degrees to not sweat myself awake. The improvement in my sleep isn't worth the increase in my electricity bill.
As someone w/ cerebral palsy w/ spastic diplegia, I find a weighted blanket useful in countering spastic tossing and turning that oftentimes prior caused unwanted awakening (though I have to overweight it in relation to my body mass - 15% of bodyweight when purchased, though it's down to 11% after a few years of pandemic exacerbated weight gain)
I am so grateful for this channel, going to try this with my kid!
If you roll a weighted blanket up and put it next to you it makes the squishing of the bed feel like when someone is laying there so you don't feel alone
Anecdotally, I absolutely recommend everyone try a weighted blanket for a few weeks. I have seen great personal benefit in sleep quality, especially "to-sleep-time" after I lie down.
I LOVE my weighted blanket, it absolutely has improved my sleep. I sleep hot, though, so I only use it in the summer. But in the wintertime I sleep sooooo good now.
I love mine. Too warm to use it in the summer but very excited to bring it back for winter
I have no idea whether my weighted blanket helps me to sleep better or not; but I just really love the FEELING of being under extra weight like that. I honestly want another or a heavier one.
I’ve found I sleep best when I have my 15lb one folded in half so it’s just on my torso and not my legs. I have a connective tissues disorder so it helps to not have the pressure on my hips, feet, ankles and knees, but it’s also amazing to have the double weight on my chest. And that’s already with a heavier blanket than is recommended for my weight. If I’m having a real bad day I fold it into four to put on my chest (while awake, although I’m sure I’ve fallen asleep with it like that before)
I think the combo of weighted blankets and cool room air (e.g. open window -- when not unbearable due to climate), REALLY helps me.
Swaddling infants help them sleep and feel "coddled".
The well know Dr. Temple Grandin built a "hug" machine which give her comfort and calms her down when she's over-stimulated.
I have weighted blankets and they're amazing BUT if you have (or think you have) obstructive sleep apnea PLEASE consult your doctor first
Caution if you have feet issues. I kept making my hip bursitis worse and started having a sore ankles without realizing that my blankets were too heavy once I switched to winter mode last year. It was putting pressure all the way down to the feet. After I switched to lighter ones thanks to a heated blanket that kept me as warm without the weight, the bursitis and ankle finally got better. Even spent a week with huge inflation in both front legs and unable to walk due to that phenomena (which triggered my experimentation for solutions). So if you start having issues (especially people who also have fibromyalgia like me who might be oversensitive), at least rule that out. ;)
Pretty hard to use when it's hot out though. Unless you want to spend a fortune blasting the A/C all night.
I tried one about 5 years ago and it's a nice idea, right up until you wake up stuck under a blanket and have the first full blown panic attack of your life because no matter what way you move, you're trapped under something that weighs too much to get out of its own way.
No thanks. They can keep that noise and I'll keep my dayvigo. It works and doesn't cause me to need other humans help to get out of bed.
Sounds like you started out using a blanket waaaay too heavy for you. I’m sorry you had such a bad experience with it. I personally wish my blanket could be double the weight 🙈
Are you guys ever going to return to the series that explores national health care systems?
Nice!
I realize nutrition science is...yeah. Lol. But if there are any sound advisements on dietary modifications for managing anxiety, please do share them! Thank you for your informative content. 🙂
I use my weighted blanket for anxiety but never tried it for insomnia. Hm. I'll give it a try.
Humans spent all of our evolutionary period and most of history sleeping together in groups. It wasn’t until very recently that most people began sleeping in their own bed alone. So it’s very unsurprising to me that something to simulate the weight of another person would be helpful
Watching this while I get ready for bed, where I will sleep under my weighted blanket
I got a weighted blanket because it feels nice. If it helps my sleep also, great.
All Stores Please Lower the price of all Military and Local for all Brands of Weighted Blanket Products and Accessories and Production Cost Now That's too much $$ The Whole World Now 🙏🙏🙏
Would a study in general population be helpful too?
It's currently the height of Australian summer and 31C (88F) in my bedroom. I can't use ANY blanket for sleeping, let alone a weighted one😳
Would try one. But I have arthritis in my SI joints, so the weight would likely add pain (bad) on top of the overall pressure (good). I might be wrong. But don't want to spend the $ to find out. 😐
Is there any good research on the *physical* effects of weighted blankets? I tried several, and kept waking up with aching muscles or a pain in my gut, even after over a month of getting used to the blanket. Tried multiple weights too, most of which were well under the recommended for my size, and still had trouble...
As a result, I'm now quite worried that all that weight pressing down on my gut for 8 hours a night was maybe not the best; or the weight on my lungs may have made it more difficult to breathe, which is already a bit of an issue for me.
Good question. Maybe weight training can help a bit? Or maybe this is a sign something is going on in your body that needs to be checked. I don't know you so obviously I have no idea if this is correct. But from my experience it shouldn't give you pain in the gut ( and mine is very sensitive, like my entire body).
I have a connective tissue disorder so I find it’s best if I don’t sleep with it any lower than my hips. I’ve been folding it in half to put on my chest and usually that keeps me on my back while I sleep, but when I’ve woken up on my side it has definitely squished my shoulders in a not so hot way.
I personally find that the pressure at night on my torso is good for my digestion, but every body is different! If it’s making you feel not good, it’s time to either switch it up or stop.
As much as I do like having one, I never personally found it to have any impact on my sleep.
It seems to me that they would be better off choosing test subjects with the same additional/underlying disorder. If the insomnia tends to be cured by alleviating the underlying condition, then the makeup of conditions in the intervention and placebo groups will determine the results, not the intervention itself. To elaborate with examples, if (hypothetically) ADHD is cured more consistently than depression and in doing so tends to resolve the insomnia, then having a larger % of ADHD patients in the intervention group than the control group would give the intervention group a better result. Given the small study size and the mix of disorders listed, it seems likely that the control and intervention groups had different % of each disorder.
So in summary, unless they accounted for this and you didn't describe it, it sounds like a badly designed study.
I like weighted blankets, but I overheat too easily. I can only use them while I'm awake snuggling in my chair in the winter. Too hot for sleep.
Are there any weighted blankets that don't insulate?
I have a bamboo one. It's just the cover that makes it breathe less but I didn't feel like getting a summer cover. Maybe I will though, it might be handy to be able to switch. I just like the softness of the winter cover a lot.
I really don't wanna throw shade bc I actually genuinely appreciate the source info you put in every episode, but I can't help but notice 20202 lolol
With all the money floating around it seems like this shouldn't be that hard to research. Why hasn't this been knocked out already?
In general why isn't there some kind of fund to research natural accessible treatments for insomnia, it's such a huge problem.
How do you guys wash your wb? It's too heavy for the machine and the launderette would charge 9 euro just for that 1 blanket
@80,000 Hours: Selected Episodes - Sam Bankman-Fired on talking a high-risk approach to crypto and "doing good"...
Probably the website and/or the sponsoring material would need to be updated.
the reference @2:00 in has the year 20202 listed
Even if it doesn't, more people using weighted blankets helps autistic people who *do* benefit from them, at least according to some post I saw on tumblr once lol
(It helps by both normalizing weighted blankets and, hopefully, eventually driving down costs and making them easier to find.)
I just started using a weighted blanked. Not to treat anything but because I thought they looked cool. My Apple watch says I'm sleeping for longer.
I use a lot of drugs, but I subjectively feel like I'm sleeping better too. Corroborated by the watch. I do a lot of drugs though. Did I already say that? A lot. Of drugs. Drugs.
Anyway, check out those weighted blankets though!
20202 is a confusing graphic 😂
I got a weighted blanket because I'm autistic and it worked brilliantly, helped my sleep no end.
I'm bipolar too, so obviously it only works because of that.
Wonder if they've told all the other autistics who swear by them; perhaps they're bipolar too.
It’s so rare to find people who are both autistic and bipolar!
They help me feel calm, but I am highly neurodivergent, so maybe results are not typical.
How much weight?
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I didn't feel any benefit, but it's warmer than other blankets so it wasn't a total waste.
Stupid question, is there also studies on the effect of teddy bears or real animals to see if this helps with insomnia?
Can we get a monkey pox episode thanks!
first
Uh, this is a serious problem for me. The worst part is that doctors REFUSE to do ANYTHING about it! Cool, weighted blankets might help. Same with wine/coffee/chocolate and cancer, big woop. The long term consequences of severe insomnia are worse than dependency on sleep medications. It took 6 years for me to get prescribed ambien. It also took two trips to the psych ward that were brought on by ~96 hours without any sleep at all. I burned through over a dozen psychiatrists to finally find one who'd do literally anything besides assuming it was a behavioral problem and tell me I needed to do this or that. I did literally every single one of these things simultaneously (which is incredibly hard) and still nothing. It got so bad that doctors stopped putting me on SSRIs and ADHD meds, and put me on mood stabilizers and anti-psychotics (as bad as lithium) which made it so much worse. But the side effects of insomnia and psychosis are almost impossible to tell the difference between, certainly impossible for a psychiatrist who talks to me for ten minutes once a month and then doesn't believe anything I say. Doctors job is drugs, leave the hokey crap to the gurus and psychics and do your job. It seems likely to me that the causes are not behavioral but sociological, and doctors can't treat our systems, just treat your patient. Leave the out-there theories to the researchers and prescribe something. These papers are dangerous because of the knock-on effects. I understand the harm that sleeping medications can cause, I consent to it, I don't care. Not sleeping like that for another 6 years would definitively kill me.