One of the greatest challenges facing the modern individual is figuring out how to balance our professional, social, and physical wellbeing. For many of us, keeping fit and managing our weight in the face of ever-present processed, sugary, salty, and fatty foods is a daily battle.
Aside from invasive surgeries, extreme diets, questionable pills, and other dubious measures, what can we do to safely and effectively keep our waistlines trim? One method that’s becoming more popular than ever is the use of weighted blankets.
If you’re not familiar with them, you’re in luck because in this post, we’ll explore what these blankets are, how they work, and what role they might play in your weight loss journey.
Let’s dive right in.
What Are Weighted Blankets?
Weighted blankets, also known as gravity blankets, are a type of therapeutic blanket that typically weigh between 5 and 30 pounds. They are designed to mimic the effects of pressure therapy or deep tissue stimulation (DPS), which was traditionally applied using the hands.
The chief goal of DPS is stress relief, although it achieves various positive outcomes, and it is with this connection that the impact of weighted blankets on weight loss manifests itself.
How Weighted Blankets Help Weight Loss?
Countless peer-reviewed studies over the years have drawn a conclusive line between anxiety/stress and weight gain. The chief outcome of using a weighted blanket is that it stimulates the production of dopamine, which is the ‘feel good’ chemical we enjoy whenever we encounter positive emotions or experiences.
Dopamine is the chief defense we have against its opposite, which is cortisol. Cortisol, which is known as the stress hormone, is responsible for feelings of anxiety, anger, apprehension, and stress in general. To understand the connection between weighted blankets and weight loss, let’s explore the various ways these blankets help us manage or ameliorate these negative outcomes.
Better Sleep
One of the symptoms of stress and anxiety is insomnia, which is the inability to fall asleep or experience quality sleep at night. Insomniacs are prone to weight gain because lack of sleep causes a dysregulation of their metabolic systems, leading to the accumulation of abdominal fat and gradual weight gain.
By helping you get a good night’s sleep, a weighted blanket can help you battle against weight gain.
Improved Social Interactions
Increased dopamine production comes along with a boost in oxytocin, which is essential in helping us get along with others. When you get a good night’s sleep, you will be calmer and friendlier the next day. By putting our emotions in a sound equilibrium, negative habits such as stress eating, gorging and snacking can be more effectively managed.
In this way, weighted blankets can help us stick to healthy eating habits and thus keep off the extra pounds.
Reduced Night Movements
One of the biggest behavioral culprits we can point to when exploring the cause of weight gain in many people is the habit of nighttime snacking. If you ask most people, few will claim that the foods they eat in the dead of night are healthy.
Weighted blankets can help you fall into a deeper, uninterrupted sleep every night, thus eliminating the opportunity or temptation to get up at night and indulge in unhealthy eating habits. Thus, these blankets will again help you maintain a healthy weight level.
Managing the Symptoms and Effects of PTSD
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder refers to a set of symptoms experienced by patients in the aftermath of a stressful event or experience. It is characterized by heightened levels of anxiety, stress, insomnia, anger, and emotional instability.
These symptoms are heavily linked to behaviors that contribute to weight gain such as overeating, alcoholism, poor impulse control, and so on.
Using weighted blankets as a therapeutic measure can help mitigate these symptoms, thereby helping PTSD patients better manage their dietary habits and so keep excess weight off their bodies.
Final Thoughts
The weight loss industry is a massive global machine, with countless tools, methods, techniques, philosophies and products available to people in need. The trouble is picking out an approach that will work for you without causing negative side effects.
Weighted blankets have proven themselves to be an effective, accessible, pocket friendly, and safe alternative to consider, but you need to choose wisely. YNM has a proven track record of supplying high quality weighted blankets and blanket solutions to customers worldwide and is ready to help you achieve your weight loss goals. For all your blanket needs, make YNM your first choice. You won’t regret it.
