Anxiety is like an incredibly annoying little brother. It is antagonistic, frustrating, and overwhelming 90% of the time. The other 10%, you forget it exists until you’re reminded of it with a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when you walk through your front door.
Like a lot of people right now, anxiety is a daily ritual I go through, because apparently, if you’re not anxious, you’re not doing it right. Until my boyfriend brought home this weighted blanket, I thought I’d spend the end of every day attempting to get a grip on my anxiety.
From the moment I was under the blanket, I felt my heartbeat slow and my brain ease on the gas pedal. Imagine this: it’s a cold morning and you’re awake before your alarm. Your bed is freezing cold, except for the part where you slept, an invisible boundary of heat. You feel heavy and warm and contained. That’s what this blanket feels like, except no matter how many times you change positions, that feeling stays with you. It’s like laying under a pile of freshly dried laundry, like a hug that never gets awkward now matter how long you hold on.
Weighted blankets have been around for a while and the idea is the same across the board: sewn-in compartments are filled with a weighted material (usually sand or silicone pellets). It’s as simple as approximating 10% of your body weight to find the correct size blanket. My only gripe would be that if you’re someone who moves around a lot at night, don’t sleep with it. You don’t want to attempt to move 15 pounds of sand pellets while half asleep.
There are studies that back up why this works, but all I really know is that it worked, immediately, for me. To anyone that just needs an extra dose of calm when they’re winding down (or are having a really shitty time dealing with basically everything that’s happening in the world right now), invest in one of these.