In general the vast majority of people aren’t getting enough sleep. 7-10 hours of sleep is the general recommendation and even the idea of 7 hours seems ‘crazy’ to many people. This is the first problem. As a result there is a massive amount of people looking for help to sleep better. Weighted blanket sales have jumped trying to provide some help. Falling asleep with the feeling of a nice hug from a blanket sounds nice! What we need to know is if it actually produces results.
Importance of sleep & melatonin impact
Don’t sleep on the importance of sleep! The best recovery that our body does, is done while asleep. Sacrificing sleep significantly hurts recovery, meaning increased soreness and actually negatively impacts body composition. On top of the physical recovery, sleep is also important from the brain and cognitive side of things too. While asleep our brain is able to hit the refresh button. Important things get stored into longterm memory and some ‘less important’ items get cleared out to leave room for new things the next day.
Melatonin is a very popular supplement to help maximize one’s sleep to achieve these things. The body already produces it naturally but supplement companies market it to provide a bit of a boost. Melatonin is key at regulating the body’s circadian rhythm by sending the signal it’s time to go to bed. When the sun starts to set, melatonin levels increase to help fall asleep quicker. Modern technology and screen lights impact this and so in some situations a melatonin supplement may be warranted. Now though, weight blankets are targeted as an alternative way to increase melatonin.
Weighted blanket impact on melatonin
Many claims have been tossed around touting how a weighted blanket can increase melatonin levels. Now there’s finally a study to test that! Volunteers in the study had to lay under the blanket for an hour before going to sleep with the blanket. During that hour their melatonin levels were tested every 20 minutes leading up to going to sleep. Impressively melatonin levels actually increased by just over 30% with the blanket! Sadly though, the OURA rings used with the volunteers were wearing didn’t work properly preventing the ability to see sleep quality. Upon waking up though, restfulness wasn’t different between those with and those without the blanket.
Toss on the bed or leave in the closet?
It doesn’t look like it would hurt anything! Having that OURA ring would help a lot and showing the potential of a weight blanket though. Hopefully the future study will be able to fix the problem and see the impact on deep sleep, REM sleep and overall time asleep. Seeing that noticeable of an increase in melatonin certainly gives promise though. With the knowledge we have so far, feel free to try out a weighted blanket if interested! Just keep an open mind and don’t go in expecting a world of difference.
Study referenced: click here