Why Does Jennifer Aniston Use a Weighted Blanket? All About Her Sleep Tools and Nightly Routine
Better sleep has become a full-blown wellness obsession, and weighted blankets keep showing up in the routines of people who claim to have cracked the code. Count Jennifer Aniston among them. The Morning Show star, who has spoken openly about years of insomnia and sleepwalking, says the heavy bedding changed how she rests — and her endorsement has pushed the weighted blanket back into the spotlight for anyone still hunting for a fix.
“I have a weighted blanket and that is another game-changer,” Aniston told Real Simple in 2023. “I got one about two years ago, and that’s very helpful for sleep.”
How a Weighted Blanket Works
A weighted blanket is filled with materials like glass beads or plastic pellets that make it significantly heavier than a regular comforter, typically ranging from about 5 to 30 pounds. The added weight is designed to create gentle, even pressure across the body — often called “deep pressure stimulation” — meant to encourage the nervous system to shift into a more restful state, similar to being hugged or swaddled.
People use them to unwind before bed, calm restlessness or improve sleep quality, though the strength of scientific evidence varies and results differ from person to person. They’re a comfort tool rather than a medical treatment.
Why Jennifer Aniston Calls Weighted Blankets a ‘Game-Changer’
Aniston has been candid about her long history of bad sleep. “My sleep started to suffer 10 or 15 years ago,” she told Women’s Health in 2023. “I realized I don’t feel good, and I’m not performing the way I should be performing when I didn’t sleep well. My workouts are suffering. My work and memorization is not on point.”
She told People in 2022 that going to bed was “almost like walking the plank,” and admitted she’s set off her own house alarm while sleepwalking during particularly sleep-deprived stretches. After seeing a doctor — something she “absolutely recommends people do” — Aniston rebuilt her nights from the ground up. The weighted blanket became one of the anchors.
Inside Jennifer Aniston’s Nightly Routine
The blanket is just one piece. Aniston now treats her wind-down as non-negotiable.
- Phone goes into the kitchen or bathroom — out of the bedroom entirely
- Walks the dogs, locks the doors, aims for an 11 p.m. bedtime
- Washes her face, sometimes followed by a hot bath
- Does stretches, yoga, meditation and a prayer before lights out
“When I make myself do that ritual, that nightly routine, I just know how good I’m going to feel the next day,” she told Women’s Health.
Even brutal call times don’t break it. “When I do have to go to work and I have that awful wake-up hour, I am so good about doing my nightly routine and my nightly ritual. I’ll start it two hours before I know I have to be asleep,” she said. “I actually feel more refreshed when I wake up at those awful hours.”
What She Does in the Morning
Aniston’s mornings are just as protected. She told Vogue in 2021 she doesn’t touch her phone for at least the first hour after waking, keeping her chargers in a drawer six feet from her bed and using an old iPhone strictly for alarms and sleep apps.
“The mental difference this makes impacts the whole day,” she said.
Her broader message, repeated across interviews: self-care isn’t selfish, and skipping sleep catches up with you. “You can’t catch up on sleep,” she told Women’s Health. “Eventually those cells are just not doing well. So we end up expediting the aging process.”
This article was created by content specialists using various tools, including AI.
This story was originally published May 13, 2026 at 4:00 PM.
