Although it has been a huge challenge not to gain weight during this virus quarantine I have found a trick to feeling more at peace and less stressed over the possibility that we can all die . . . and the answer is NOT to eat more. It actually has nothing to do with food. Rather it has to do with sleep and the blanket you use on your bed.
A couple of weeks ago before the world became a Petri dish for Coronavirus I was at my daughters home with the grand kids. For what ever reason my grand daughter KK brought out her new blanket to show me. As she handed it to me I was not expecting it to weight a TON ! I almost fell over! The blanket is super soft and comfy but it has weights in it so that when you put it over yourself in bed it makes you feel secure and calm.
My grand daughter is a mini me of her mom who is a mini me of myself. Anxiety runs rampant in the females of our family . . . something that I didn't know about when I was a stressed out kid/adult. I knew I had trouble dealing with new situations and people but had no idea why or what to do about it. I spent most of my childhood fighting it and compensating by being aggressive and angry. Fast forward to my daughter's childhood and her anxiety issues that ran from when she was about four years old to the present day. When Keri entered third grade I had reached my limit and FINALLY got my husband to agree to getting some outside counseling for both Keri and myself. That was the BEST move ever !!! My daughter is amazing thanks to her experiences with her anxieties and learning how to live with them. So it wasn't any surprise to Keri or myself that KK should start exhibiting the exact same issues as her mom and grand ma. Being so much smarter than me my daughter was able to get KK help and has been so proactive in helping her daughter.
Now here comes the interesting part about the blanket. . . Apparently years ago someone discovered that Autistic children and adults benefitted from being "wrapped" tightly in a "cocoon". This feeling of weight and confinement soothed them. I had seen a movie about this some where along the last couple of years where the individual with Autism actually built themselves a box sort of contraption that they could crawl into when feeling over stressed. From this discovery someone has come up with a weighted blanket that the child can cover themselves with and it calms their anxiety. KK says it does exactly that for her and she uses it every night she she is anxious about going to school the next day.
Fast forward to last night . . . Yesterday I washed the heavy comforter on my bed and I just couldn't get my washer to spin it dry enough to put it into the dryer. I feared that it would burn out the dryer motor since it was so heavy so I took it outside and spread it across two lawn chairs where it sat over night to dry. Not having the comforter on the bed I had to find something to keep us snug last night and I dug out an old thermal blanket that was in the closet. It's very light weight but warm and I figured it would work fine. I woke up at 1 AM feeling restless and agitated. Something was wrong and I just was not comfortable. I flopped around a while and then realized I was missing the weight of my comforter. The blanket was warm but just not HEAVY enough to calm me. I got up and got a heavy throw blanket and put that over myself which was better but I still had a lousy night's sleep. I NEEDED the heavy weight on me to calm myself enough to go into a deep sleep ! I surprised myself at this realization and now understand the weighted blanket that KK has. There is really something to this.
Next time you're feeling stressed you really have to give this a try.
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