Hi there, it's Matt here and welcome back to the podcast. In today's episode, we're going to

dive deep into one of the most, perhaps intriguing developments in terms of products within sleep

science. That is weighted blankets or gravity blankets.

If you've been on social media or browsed any wellness websites in the last few years,

you've probably heard them mentioned. But what exactly are weighted blankets? And more importantly, what does the science say regarding the effectiveness for sleep?

So let's get started with the basics.

Weighted blankets are essentially heavy duvet covers, and they usually range from anywhere between about 10 to 15 pounds. I've seen

them all the way up to 40 pounds. And they're typically filled with materials like glass beads or

plastic pellets to produce that heaviness or that weighted feeling. Now weighted blankets aren't new to the hallways of

what we would call therapy because it turns out that occupational therapists have used

weighted tools of some kind, including blankets, for decades now to help children with sensory processing disorders and also

things like autism. What's new here in the mainstream popularity is the additional therapeutic

suggestion that they help improve sleep. Perhaps they help it by way of lots of different

mechanisms that will speak about. And those weighted blankets have really been fueled by word of mouth

success stories and expanded marketing campaigns. Let's go into a little bit of a historical lesson when it comes

to weighted blankets because, as I said, it's not new. It's not even new for sleep. The historical

roots, if you really want to know them, they date back to the 1960s when Dr. Temple Grandin, who was an occupational therapist,

noticed that cattle in squeeze shoots became calmer under pressure and not under pressure of,

you know, like we would think of pressure to work or a deadline. I'm talking here under sort of the physicality of pressure, sort of hugging their bodies. And this inspired what she

ended up producing was a hugging machine for autistic individuals, which later influenced

various pressure-based therapeutic tools, including weighted blankets.

In other words, there's something about the somatic, the sensory sensation of being held with just modest pressure,

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