Patchwork Quilts for …. Anxiety?

04-01-24 00 / episode: 353

I’ll bet you think of quilts

• especially patchwork quilts -

as nice homey comfortable things,

that can keep you warm on a cold day.

But did you know that they can also alleviate stress?

There are new quilts on the markets these days

that are being used to get rid of stress,

help with autism,

and even as a therapy for depression!

And at the end of the video I’ll talk about

how you can use everyday ordinary quilts

to do these things with no need to buy anything at all.

Hi, and welcome to the Les Perras podcast episode 353, about quilts.

How can your quilt help you with anxiety?

A little more than twenty years ago

an occupational therapist started to experiment

with weighted quilts and wrote a paper about it.

She was working with subjects in a special needs community.

The results were impressive

considering this was non-medicinal, and non-invasive.

Then more and more people became interested in them

and finally in 2018 they became available on the market

for anyone in the form of the ‘Gravity Blanket’.

They work by stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system.

Activate the parasympathetic nervous system

This can regulate involuntary functions like heart rate,

blood pressure, and stimulate the digestive tract.

If you can influence this system,

you can affect things like heart rate and blood pressure

which in turn can indicate the presence of stress in our system.

When we feel stress our heart rate goes up and frequently so does our blood pressure.

Pressure therapy

Using the weighted quilt can activate

the parasympathetic nervous system.

It uses deep pressure therapy,

which is simply a gentle squeezing

pressure on parts of the body.

It has been reported to have a calming effect

in people with anxiety,

along with other problems including depression.

Now before you get too excited,

you have to remember that more testing is necessary

to conclusively say they have a positive effect,

and they can be dangerous, especially for children.

Before you run out and buy one you can try to simulate the feeling of gentle pressure over your body

with a regular quilt.

When I was a boy I got a similar feeling

just by wrapping myself up in a quilt.

I laid the quilt on the floor, and grabbed on edge and rolled myself up in it.

I can personally attest that this does give

a reassuring and calming effect that is quite pleasant.

It doesn’t cost anything and only takes a few minutes to try it out.

Go ahead and try it out for yourself

when you are feeling stress or anxiety next time.

You might end up feeling better!

Thanks for listening.