According to a new study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania about 25% of American adults suffer from acute insomnia each year. Of those, over 20% of the acute insomnia sufferers continue getting poor sleep long term and some of them develop chronic insomnia. The inability to achieve quality sleep negatively impacts our lives in a multitude of ways. Our emotional and physical selves cannot function properly leading to problems in our personal and professional lives. As high numbers of us battle the beast of insomnia night after night, might a weighted blanket serve as a formidable ally?

Why can’t we sleep?

Insomnia is described as an inability to fall or stay asleep. Some insomnia sufferers fall asleep quickly but wake every hour on the hour throughout the night. Others simply cannot fall asleep, even when utterly exhausted. For some, initial sleep comes on fairly easily but an arousal at night is impossible to overcome and they lay there unable to regain unconsciousness. With such a high prevalence of insomnia in our society, one must wonder why so many of us can’t sleep.

Insomnia has many causes, which makes it a tricky condition to overcome. Sometimes a dramatic life change, such as the illness or death of a loved one can bring about periods of insomnia. This makes perfect sense. This kind of change, particularly if it is sudden, can knock a person sideways and every aspect of their life, including sleep, will be abnormal for a period.

There are medical factors at play when discussing the frequency of insomnia at this particular point in our history. The latest data from the CDC reports that nearly half of us have taken one prescription drug in the last 30 days. About 25% of us have taken up to three prescription drugs in the last 30 days. Obviously pharmaceuticals have their rightful place in society but our quickness to prescribe away every condition might be hindering our ability to get high quality sleep.

The National Sleep Foundation compiled a list of common medications that have sleep disturbing side effects, including insomnia. Certain asthma, blood pressure, ADD, and SSRIs for depression have known sleep side effects. The global market for antidepressants is predicted to grow to nearly $17 billion by 2020. That’s a hefty hunk of cash and a potential onslaught of people experiencing sleep side effects.

The modern American lifestyle is also a contributing factor to our restless nights. The 24 hour news cycle, holding the world in the palm of our hands in the form of a small screen we can scarcely pull away from, work demands that don’t know the boundaries of business hours, and overextended schedules that leave us rushing from one thing to the next all play their role in robbing us of a solid night’s sleep.

Traditional Treatments

Eager for an easy, immediate solution many people turn to sleep aids, which are available OTC or by prescription. Sleeping pills come with a host of potential side effects. Some are your standard-fare variety like dry mouth, digestive complaints, headache, or heartburn. Some pills give people terrible nightmares or make them have suicidal thoughts.

Others have the potential for complex side effects called parasomnias. Parasomnias are behaviors performed while fully asleep without any recollection or knowledge of the behavior happening. Sleep walking, eating, having sex, and even driving have been reported. For some, the sleep state derived on sleeping pills is not worth the potentially wild ride.

Side effects aside, there is another drawback to inducing sleep with medications. Sleeping pills that are sedative-hypnotic basically knock you out in much the same way anesthesia would. In this sleep state, you could never reach the most restorative levels of deep or REM sleep. For some, this leaves you feeling just as groggy and unrested as you would have felt without taking a sleeping pill at all.

Weighted Blankets for the Win

The most comprehensive and recent research available on using weighted blankets to help with insomnia was conducted in 2015 by Swedish researchers and published in the Journal of Sleep Medicines and Disorders. The study was conducted on 31 otherwise healthy adults that have chronic insomnia. They slept in their normal way for a period of one week which established a baseline for the severity of their insomnia. For a period of two weeks they slept under a weighted blanket followed by another one week period of sleeping in their usual way. Sleep was improved during the weeks under the weighted blanket both objectively and subjectively. Participants moved less and had less sleep disturbances and they felt more refreshed and rested upon waking when they used the weighted blanket.

Insomniac weighted blanket users may get better sleep because they feel safe, secure, and snuggled. It may be that the principal of deep pressure touch therapy is working, in that constant equally distributed pressure calms our nervous system, which helps bring about and maintain a relaxed sleep state. It may be that the anxiety that is often associated with insomnia is relieved and in that relief, sweet sleep is found. Whatever the reason, weighted blankets can help insomniacs sleep. And that is a win for any insomnia sufferer.