best weighted blanket
Lifestyle

The best weighted blankets for better sleep and less stress

High-quality weighted blankets work using a technique called ‘deep touch pressure therapy’, also known as DTP. Here’s GQ’s top picks

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Best cosy weighted blanket
Oodie Weighted Blanket
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Best temperature-regulating weighted blanket
Emma Sleep Weighted Blanket
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Best overall weighted blanket
Aeyla Mela Weighted Blanket
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BrandWeights availableFillingCover
Oodie4.5kg, 6.8kg, 9kgGlass beadsPlush outer cover
Emma7kgGlass beads, microfiber polyester padBamboo
Aeyla4kg, 5.5kg, 7kg, 9kgRounded quartz glass micropelletswith a cotton shellOne side 100% cotton, one side recycled polyester
Simba6.8kg, 9kgWeighted glass nano-beads100% cotton
Kudd.Ly4.7kg, 7kgGlass beadsMicroCool Fleece cover

What is a weighted blanket used for?

Weighted blankets have a surprising range of uses that go beyond regular blankets and throw blankets or toppers. Sure, you can just use them for their snuggly and comforting extra weight to keep you warm, but the main reason you’d buy a weighted blanket — as opposed to just a normal throw — is for the extra benefits that the weight provides. Simulating the feeling of a hug, weighted blankets can be really useful for helping manage stress, reducing anxiety, and encouraging you to fall asleep faster by helping your nervous system relax. It’s all about how the pressure encourages your body to relax, which can be great for a whole range of different people.

How heavy of a weighted blanket is best?

As much as it's important to think about size, material and filling when you're shopping for a weighted blanket, nothing is as crucial as what weight you pick. And while some brands only offer one lightweight option, there's a lot to be said for personalising it to your body. According to the Sleep Foundation, ‘as a rule of thumb, the weight of a weighted blanket should be around 10 per cent of your body weight’ with preferred weights being between 5 and 12 per cent. It also depends on what kind of weight you find the most comfortable, but do bear in mind that if you're shopping for a child, it's even more important to pay close attention to the guidelines of the brand you're buying from before making a purchase.

How does a weighted blanket work?

Weighted blankets work using a technique called 'deep touch therapy', also known as DTP. By placing pressure on the body through the additional weight (normally in the form of plastic pellets or glass beads), this can lead to the happy hormone serotonin being released in the brain, in a similar way to a warm hug or cuddle. Through applying even pressure and the right weight to your body, weighted blankets have been shown to reduce anxiety and stress levels and help you feel more relaxed, all of which can contribute to a restful eight hours of snuggling.

According to Dr. Cristina Cusin, assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, “weighted blankets have been around for a long time, especially for children with autism or behavioural disturbances.” Dr. Cusin does say that “while some people swear by these blankets, concrete evidence is unfortunately lacking,” but she also adds that “blankets may be of help for anxiety or insomnia.”

Scientific support for using weighted blankets may be inconclusive, but there are studies that find deep pressure therapy to be helpful and beneficial in improving sleep and anxiety levels. According to a study conducted by Remy, out of 300 participants, 83 per cent found the company’s blankets helped them sleep and 90 per cent felt less stressed.

How we test weighted blankets

We've tried and tested some of the best weighted blankets around in order to help inform this guide, looking at how they all performed against a range of criteria. This includes the materials, how they felt, what the fillings and covers were made from, how easy to wash they were, the number of different weight options available, and ultimately how they felt to lie under. We got a team of contributing testers and experts on board to help with the process meaning these recommendations come from different GQ editors. Of course, weighted blankets are pretty challenging to move around, meaning there were a few instances below where we haven't managed to lie under the blankets ourselves. In these cases, we informed our decisions on the specifications available to us and only included brands where we know and love the products they produce.

All of GQ’s interiors guides are written by our in-house team of contributing testers and experts, and are edited by Daphne Bugler, British GQ’s Senior Commerce Writer, who has been working at GQ for the past four years, and has written extensively about interiors since 2020. The team regularly talks to experts in a variety of interiors categories to better understand the products we write about and what we should be looking for.

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