Dr. Zorba Paster: Weighted blankets help cure sleep issues

I don’t know about you, but the older I get, the more fragmented my sleep is. As a kid, that was not the case.

I remember sleeping over at my cousin Mark’s house. We’d stay up late watching television while my aunt and uncle were out to dinner and a movie. We always fell asleep in front of the television, black-and-white, of course, probably watching “The Three Stooges.”

When Uncle Al came home, he just picked us up and carried us into the bedroom. Sound asleep, we never even woke up until the morning.

So let’s fast forward to today. As an adult, it seems I wake up if our dog is just walking around the room. And as for someone picking me up and moving me – right. Unless I was in a coma or inebriated out of my mind, that would never happen.

My point here is as we age, we sleep differently. If we’re anxious, have stressors or other psychological issues, our sleep suffers. Insomnia enters. And for many of us, fragmented sleep, having trouble sleeping, waking up on and off in the night and not being able to get back to sleep is common.

There are meds that can help – just Google insomnia, and you’ll get plenty of drug ads. But what interested me was research published in the Journal of Sleep Medicine about weighted blankets.

Swedish researchers looked at this as a safe, effective and nondrug way to help people with psychiatric disorders – to help them sleep, sleep deeper at night with less nighttime sleepiness during the day.

Let me go on a bit about the study, explain how this might help you and where to get a weighted blanket. I found it all fascinating.

The study looked at 120 adults ages 40 and older who had been diagnosed with depression, bipolar disorder, attention deficit disorder or generalized anxiety disorder – all of whom were having trouble sleeping.

Participants in the study were randomly assigned either to get a weighted “chain” blanket or a normal blanket. The weighted blanket was initially heavy, clocking in at 17.5 pounds. If that was too heavy for someone, it was reduced to 13 pounds. The control blanket was light, at only 3.3 pounds.

Six of 10 people who used the weighted blanket had significant improvement in their sleep, 50% better based on standardized sleep scores, compared with the control group.

After that initial 12-week study, every person in both groups was offered the weighted blanket to use for the next year. During that phase, they tested other weight blankets – from 13 to 18 pounds – using both weighted chain blankets and weighted “ball” blankets.

By the way, if you have never heard of these blankets, we’re in the same ballpark – I never knew they existed.

After one year, 92% of those who used weighted blankets of either kind had significant improvement in their insomnia. That’s a wow in my mind.

What might be happening here? There is a theory that cuddling, even from just a blanket, reminds us of what it was like when our mom or dad tucked us in and how good we felt when we were cuddled as children.

Now, it might be that the weight just interferes with movement so we feel warm and safe. Perhaps that’s it.

Others think the pressure on different points of the body is similar to acupressure and massage. That deep pressure stimulation increases the parasympathetic arousal of the autonomic nervous system.

The sympathetic arousal manifests in fight or flight. The parasympathetic response does just the opposite – it’s the calming mechanism our body needs to rest and sleep well.

When I looked into research similar to this, I found that these blankets were much more available than I thought. I found them new on the web from Amazon and independent providers to eBay. They were more common than I realized.

My spin: Yes, the study was for folks who had insomnia and psychological problems, but I think we can really generalize here. This might be worthwhile for anyone with insomnia, a nondrug way that might just help you sleep.

And with cold weather here, there’s no better time to shed that summer and fall blanket for something more cuddly. It might be worth a try. Stay well.