Pillow Talk: How a Quiet Mind’s Weighted Pillow Might Revolutionize Your Mental Health

The Short Version: Though pillows will never fully replace human touch, weighted pillows can provide a feeling similar enough to help soothe the worst lows of being lonely. Anyone struggling with social anxiety or fear from past traumatic relationships can start to heal with tools like a weighted pillow. Quiet Mind’s pillows were designed using Deep Pressure Stimulation technology. These unique pillows are on the forefront of what might just be a revolution of weighted comfort items.

Loneliness is a killer – literally. One study from the online scientific journal Nature Human Behavior estimates that long-term social isolation increases a person’s risk of early death by 32%. Deep Pressure Stimulation (DPS) has risen to prominence in the last decade as a way to combat the crippling anxiety and depression triggered by loneliness. 

Quiet Mind Founder Mikey Goldman took that concept and ran with it, coming out with a huggable weighted pillow version with the same Deep Pressure Stimulation that’s sold in hefty weighted blankets. 

Unlike those blankets, though, these pillows are portable and can be taken anywhere you go. 

By design, these pillows are great for anybody struggling with the rough dating scene of the modern era. They provide a source of emotional and physical support that is often lacking in today’s world. Goldman came up with the idea during the height of the COVID pandemic, when he was struggling with the overwhelming isolation of being single during a fraught time. When he realized his loneliness was stemming in large part from the lack of human interaction, he grew curious about the role human touch plays in our lives. 

As he read more research regarding touch and human interaction, he saw how crucial it is for people to experience positive touch. As social animals, humans have the capacity for an extraordinarily wide array of emotions and psychological needs. 

If you’ve ever given a name to your car, or chosen to purchase imperfect goods out of concern they won’t be chosen by others, congratulations: You’ve experienced the phenomenon known as pack bonding. Human beings are designed by nature to be social, and isolation is not only painful, it can be deadly as well. 

Practicing soothing techniques such as deep breathing or meditation — in conjunction with tools like weighted pillows — will give you faith in your abilities to connect with other people.

Deep Pressure Stimulation, also known as DPS, is a method of stimulating your body’s joints, muscles, and tendons to boost feel-good chemicals that reduce cortisol levels. Goldman says that when pressure is applied to these points, “It sends neurotransmitters to the brain and says ‘do something.’ That reaction is increased production of serotonin, dopamine, and melatonin.” 

As those increase, he adds, “You’re going to get mood-boosting, focus, alertness, motivation, and increased production of sleep hormones. They’re going to push down your cortisol levels. That’s why DPS is so effective at giving people this relaxed state in a natural way to calm them down.”

Deep Pressure Stimulation is especially good for people diagnosed with ADHD, a chronic condition that often indicates lowered dopaminergic levels. People diagnosed with ADHD are up to 50% more likely than people without the condition to be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. 

Panic, a common but often debilitating side effect of anxiety, is caused by cortisol levels skyrocketing. High cortisol levels set off the natural fight-or-flight instinct, an evolutionary response that is useful in an emergency but not so much in the middle of a coffee shop when the music gets too loud. Deep Pressure Stimulation helps depress stress hormones and stimulates the ones that help your heart rate slow. 

This idea isn’t new; in the 1980s, a study found deep pressure therapy can provide calming effects to both children and adults with severe anxiety (American Journal of Occupational Therapy, Krauss, K.E.). With growing awareness of mental health and increased access to online shopping, weighted blankets have become a poster child for the therapy. 

For many, weighted blankets have been their only access to DPS, but blankets are an application of this technique that could be improved. That’s where Quiet Minds comes in.

The weighted pillow aims to solve the problem of a sleepless night. “I had a weighted blanket I was wrestling with, and I was going, ‘This is a pain in the butt. They’re heavy, they’re claustrophobic, and you can’t move around,'” said Goldman. 

When he searched for a weighted pillow online, he was surprised to find that they didn’t exist. What followed was a series of rigorous testing periods, during which he discovered which prototypes would trigger fight-or-flight responses and which would induce a state of relaxation. Unlike weighted blankets, which have their weight unevenly distributed and often press down in the wrong places, weighted pillows can target specific areas in the body with their total weight. A bonus to pillows: they’re huggably soft. 

Reported rates of loneliness surged during the COVID pandemic as people practiced social distancing that restricted them from regular life events and human touch. Humans are biologically hardwired for touch, and touch starvation, or “skin hunger,” is a real condition resulting from a chronic lack of positive touch from others. 

Human skin is so sensitive to touch that people can sense a difference between one and two molecular levels. Human beings have an entire system of nerve fibers, called C-tactile afferents, wrapping around the body that exist to recognize touch. Gentle, slow pressure lights up these nerves and relaxes the body. DPS articles like pillows and blankets trigger the same calming response. 

After much experimentation, many prototypes, and plenty of hard work, Goldman developed a pillow design that would simulate touch without being overwhelming. Even a brief hug, 20 seconds or so, stimulates the production of oxytocin, also known as the love hormone.”An increase in oxytocin will alleviate loneliness by making you feel more safe and give you a sense of grounding and companionship,” he said. 

The pillow is made of high-density memory foam (the same material used in high-end mattresses) that maintains its resilience. When suffering from panic attacks as a result of a painful separation, Goldman said that Quiet Mind’s large pillow helped him find peace, offering a companion that could be taken anywhere he needed support. Reviewers struggling with divorces have left similar testimonials, saying the pillows provided the gentle comfort they needed to ground them during a difficult time in life. 

Looking to get a hold of this hugging pillow? Goldman has a few recommendations on best usage. One is the Diamond Position, which he calls “the perfect hug.” Pulling the corners around yourself makes wrapping your arms around the pillow easy and positions the pillow to ‘hug’ you back.

“I call this a perfect hug where, if you put it in a diamond shape, you can wrap your arms around it. You have no resistance, and your arms rest on the sides. Then, you can pull the sides of the corners around you. It gives you this perfect hug. It’s really comfortable. You can’t hug a weighted blanket, but [the Quiet Mind] can hug you back.” 

These plush pillows come in a range of sizes, offering an individually tailored experience. Some are small, only about 1.5 pounds (approximately 0.68 kilos), perfect both for kids and office workers needing something to ground them during a long Zoom meeting. 

Goldman fondly refers to these as “Fidget-Free Focus.” They are squishier than the rest to emulate the classic stress ball given out by doctor’s offices and to provide more targeted pressure to the hands. When he saw the success of these more micro-pillows, Goldman saw an opportunity to expand the products into the children’s market.

The Original Weighted Pillows come in three sizes: small (6 pounds), medium (9 pounds), and large (12 pounds), each suited for different environments and needs. Quiet Mind customers particularly like the larger ones for holding as they sleep. The pillows give the sensation of touch without pinning their bodies down like traditional weighted blankets. 

With ultra-plush, super-soft fabric chosen for its luxuriousness and sensory relieving properties, the Personal Hug pillow has been designed to take into account the diverse needs of its owners. The cover is machine washable and easy to slip on and off. Quiet Mind’s design team went to great lengths to ensure that the fabric is comforting and won’t shed all over your home. 

If you’ve ever found yourself hugging a pillow, huddling under a metric ton of blankets, or seeking out long hot showers after a hard day, you’ve likely been trying to simulate human touch without realizing it. (And honestly, who among us has never had a day where a hug was needed?)

“People will hug a pillow without knowing why they’re doing it; this [weighted pillow] is just sort of that added benefit,” said Goldman. As a bonus, he is offering a 20% discount to readers who enter DATING20 at checkout.