Weighted Blankets helping hot flashes? (Something of use)

Although other medical conditions can cause them, hot flashes most commonly are due to menopause — the time when menstrual periods become irregular and eventually stop. In fact, hot flashes are the most common symptom of the menopausal transition.

During a hot flash, you might have:

• A sudden feeling of warmth spreading through your chest, neck and face
• A flushed appearance with red, blotchy skin
• Rapid heartbeat
• Perspiration, mostly on your upper body
• A chilled feeling as the hot flash lets up
• Feelings of anxiety

The frequency and intensity of hot flashes vary among women. Hot flashes may be mild or so intense that they disrupt daily activities. They can happen at any time of day or night. Nighttime hot flashes (night sweats) may wake you from sleep and can cause long-term sleep disruptions.

Weighted blankets are therapeutic blankets that weigh between 5 to 30 pounds. The pressure from the extra weight mimics a therapeutic technique called deep pressure stimulation.

Deep pressure stimulation uses hands-on pressure to relax the nervous system. Doing so may help:

• relieve pain
• lessen anxiety
• improve mood

Deep pressure stimulation doesn’t have to be completely hands on. With weighted blankets, the same pressure comes from having the blanket wrapped around the body.

dievca learned about weighted blankets from a friend in Europe who is a Therapist – they issue the blankets to their patients. dievca bought one because the color made her happy, it matched her bedding and she thought she would try it while napping~

she didn’t realize that it would became important a part of her strategy to get deep sleep during perimenopause~

Numbers – as a trend, don’t lie. 

Though dievca sleeps 7-8 hours a night — according to her watch, she wasn’t going into the “deep sleep” phase  for very long.  she could feel that she needed something more for healing and weight loss. dievca modified her eating/drinking patterns, bed time consistency, showering pattern, etc.  Not working.  The “hot flashes” got her at the end of a sleep cycle throughout the night, every time – and minimal deep sleep (5-10 min a night) occurred only at the beginning of the night.  

Enter the weighted blanket….

Add 15 min – 1 hour of deep sleep.  

“Hot Flashes” still occur towards morning – but there are less blocks of wake-up time between sleep cycles.

You may be asking – “Doesn’t the weighted blanket make you hotter?”

dievca’s Bearaby Velvet Napper has a large weave with “holes” for air flow and she pushes it off as much as any other blanket during a “hot flash”.  You do have to be careful because the blanket is heavy and one can strain a muscle if you don’t pay attention. (Yes, it happened.) But, the time underneath that weighted blanket yields longer and consistent “deep sleep” which is where a body can heal.

Something of use.