Weighted blankets can help release melatonin and promote sleep

The brain’s pineal gland produces the hormone melatonin.

The body naturally increases melatonin production when it gets dark outside, signaling the body that it’s time to rest. This also helps to ensure that of your body circadian rhythm – our 24-hour biological clock – is synchronized to help you sleep at night.

Although the body naturally produces melatonin, people who have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep may choose to take an extra melatonin supplement before bed.

Previous research shows that melatonin supplements may also help with certain medical conditions, including migrainetraumatic brain injury and tinnitus.

The US Food & Drug Administration Not currently regulate melatonin supplements.

While it’s unlikely that a person will overdose on melatonin, taking too much can lead to side effects, including:

A weighted blanket is a blanket that has a weighted material sewn into the fabric. The weighted material used in these blankets is usually glass or plastic pellets or beads.

Weighted blankets come in a variety of weights, typically ranging from 5 to 30 pounds. The weighted blanket a person chooses should be between 5% and 12% of their body weight.

“Weighted blankets have become very popular because they can help you fall asleep,” said Christian Benedict, associate professor of pharmacology in the Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences at Uppsala University in Sweden and senior author of this study Medical news today.

“Many companies that sell these blankets claim that weighted blankets improve sleep, for example by increasing feel-good hormones like oxytocin and sleep-promoting hormones like melatonin. However, there was no scientific evidence to support these claims. So we did this little study,” he said.

In their paper, the researchers disclosed that the blankets used in the study were provided by Cura of Sweden, a company that sells weighted blankets in Europe. Also, one of the study authors who was not interviewed by MNT, is an employee of this company. The authors state that the funders played no role in the study design or data analysis.

For this study, Benedict and his team measured the amount of melatonin, oxytocin, and cortisol in which saliva of 26 young men and women after sleeping with either a light blanket or a weighted blanket equal to 12% of each person’s body weight.

Upon analysis, the researchers found that using a weighted blanket increased the concentration of melatonin in one participant’s saliva by about 30%.

The research team reported no change in the amount of oxytocin or cortisol in the participants’ saliva. In addition, the scientists did not measure any change in the activity of the participants. sympathetic nervous systems.

Benedict said he wasn’t surprised to find evidence that a weighted blanket helped increase a person’s melatonin levels.

“In addition to light, meals and physical activity, it is conceivable that lying in bed covered with a blanket also promotes the release of melatonin. Because of their increased pressure on the body, weighted blankets can amplify this process,” he explained.

Medical news today also spoke to dr. Rafael J. Sepulveda, medical director of the Sleep Fit Medical Sleep & Weight Management Center in Sonoma, California, who was not involved with the study. He said he wasn’t surprised by the results either.

“Looking back at the available data, it suggests that deep pressure stimulation with weighted blankets results in a decrease in sympathetic neuron stimulation, which means the patient is less likely to wake up or wake up when attempting to induce or maintain sleep.” This could be a contributing factor causing the change in melatonin levels found in the study,” he explained.

“Although the mechanism by which weighted blankets affect sleep remains somewhat unclear, I can say that (this) deep pressure stimulation has some benefits on sleep quality in some patients. “I believe that the role of weighted blankets can be an adjunctive measure to improve certain symptoms of insomnia, particularly in patients with anxiety related to achieving sleep.”
— dr Rafael J Sepulveda

For the next steps in this research, Benedict said larger studies are needed, “including an investigation of whether the observed effects of a weighted blanket on melatonin persist over longer periods of time.”

dr Sepulveda said the same study would need to be done with a larger sample size to validate the results.

“[I would like to see] assessing changes in melatonin and cortisol levels in the same subjects over the lifespan, or the same measurement in subjects of different age groups, since sleep disorders usually appear clinically to be more common with normal aging,” he said.

“[I would also like to see the] Evaluation of the correlation between the concentration of melatonin in saliva before bedtime and the index of excitability Serial polysomnography in patients with and without use of weighted blankets, (and the) effects of different weights of weighted blankets in the same subjects,” he added.