Weighted blankets are an increasingly popular option to help children and adults alike get more sleep. They are often advertised for children with autism or sensory processing issues, and for adults with insomnia.

If you haven’t tried one, I recommend you jump under one - it feels like bliss! Weighted blanket companies have different blanket weights depending on your body weight so it’s easy to know which blanket is right for you. Though I admit I do enjoy the weight heavier than recommended for me - however I would not suggest you ever give your child one heavier than the recommended weight.

How do weighted blankets work?

Weighted blankets work by activating the parasympathetic nervous system. This system is the counterpart to the sympathetic nervous system, which is the stress activation part of your nervous system. The parasympathetics are a calming system, associated with automatic activities such as heart rate, blood pressure and digestion.

Calming the body into a deep sleep sounds like a great thing, right? But is using a weighted blanket getting to the root of your insomnia issue, or masking an underlying imbalance?

The vestibular system and weighted blankets

Your vestibular system is the part of your nervous system that detects where your body is moving in space. It is stimulated by sensory receptors throughout your body, that send messages to your brain to tell you where your body is relative to gravity.

If your vestibular system is imbalanced, or part of your brain is getting less stimulation than the rest, it can trigger an increase in sympathetic nervous system. In fact, the vestibular system has the biggest input into your stress systems.

By putting a weighted blanket over your body, what you are doing is putting a deep sensory pressure on your body. It stimulates the sensory receptors, and gives your brain some information as to where your body is in space. Every time you move a limb, or roll over in bed, the blanket is there to provide feedback to your brain about where abouts your body is.

In reducing your vestibular stress, and increasing your sensory input, the weighted blanket acts to decrease the stimulation into your sympathetic stress systems thereby allowing your parasympathetics to increase and take over.

Other symptoms of vestibular imbalances

Many of the people who are drawn to weighted blankets are really looking for vestibular and sensory input. If you consider what the vestibular system does, by telling the rest of the brain what the body is doing in space, it makes sense that a weighted blanket would help give a sense of body.

Children who have sensory processing issues often have vestibular imbalances too, which are part of the trigger of sensory issues. Children and adults who have insomnia can be woken in the night with body movement because the vestibular system can’t tell the brain where the body is in space, so it wakes up in a stressed response.

The more well known symptoms of vestibular stress are vestibular imbalances, dizziness and motion sickness.

Treatments for vestibular imbalances

The vestibular system is one of the first things I personally address in practice, which can lead to improvements in sensation, spatial awareness, energy and sleep. Of course, there are many factors in insomnia, sensory processing disorders, and most chronic issues, and having a more balanced vestibular system does not always mean these issues will disappear. However it is my personal opinion that from a neurological point of view it is a large driver of many brain-based presentations.