Eye Pillow Discovery

I didn't know eye pillows even existed, until my neighbor found out my daughter started a sewing and asked if we could fix hers.

"I can't fall asleep without it," she said.

She'd been sleeping with it every night for the past 8 years. It was thread-bare in parts and she'd find a few seeds on her bed every morning. So we made her a new one, a pillowcase for her old one, and while we were at it, 50 more for ourselves and others.

It turns out it's not just a cute sleep accessory. There's actual science behind why these things work like a charm to help you fall asleep and stay asleep.

Filled with organic flax seeds, eye pillows help to regulate your nervous system, mood, digestion, and heart. These pillows do it all through their light seed weight on a nerve just below the surface of your skin called the vagus nerve.  

This nerve responds to the light acupuncture pressure on your eyelids and sends a message down the back of your neck to your chest and heart, then to your nervous system or abdomen. The message is to RELAX. The RELAX message goes into the muscles in your face and even into your shoulders.

The gentle weight of the eye pillow actually triggers the occulocardiac reflex, which lowers your heart rate and regulates your mood.

Cutting out visual stimulus, including light, sends a message to your brain that it’s time for your mind to be still. You can slow down your racing thoughts by laying down with an eye pillow on your eyelids for 10 minutes before bed.

How hard is it for us to relax, be still, and even sleep (especially with the dang blue light from my iPhone!). Training ourselves to continue productivity past our limits is unhealthy (darn) and also trains the body and mind to react negatively to stillness.

Using an eye pillow for 10 minutes before bedtime, preferably to give yourself at least 8 hours of sleep per night, can aid in training yourself back to what is instinctually needed for a healthy sleep cycle.

EVER HEARD OF THE TERM SLEEP HYGIENE?

Sleep hygiene refers to the habits necessary to have good nighttime sleep quality and full daytime alertness.

Why is it important to practice good sleep hygiene? Remember sleep training our babies? Even as adults we aren't much different from them--we need healthy sleep! We need it for both our physical and mental health.

How can I improve my sleep hygiene? Establishing a regular relaxing bedtime routine.  A regular nightly routine helps the body recognize that it is bedtime. This could include elevating your feet against a wall for 20 min before bedtime (see my post about swollen feet and calves). It could also include laying down with your eye pillow 10 minutes before bedtime.

Yes, my daughter makes them to sell, but you can also easily make them yourself!

The Pattern: Eye Pillows

Two 10 x 4.5" rectangles from muslin cloth

Two 10 x 4.5" rectangles from a decorative fabric (choose a design you really like)

1-1/4 c flaxseeds (2/3 of the way full)

3-4 drops of lavender essential oil mixed into seeds

• Mix together the flaxseeds and lavender in a large bowl.

• Pour flaxseeds onto wax paper in a thin layer to allow it to dry for a few hours so that you don’t end up with oil spots on your eye pillow.

• Stack the two decorative fabrics face-to-face. Stack the two muslin pieces on top of that.

• Sew together the 4 pieces on 3 edges. Turn it inside out.

• Find the opening between the two muslin cloths and fill with lavender-infused flaxseeds.

• On the open end, flip the edges in 1/4". Sew to close.

If you want to make an outer pillowcase for your eye pillow so that you can remove it to wash every once in a blue moon, here are the instructions for that:

• Instead of sewing your decorative fabric together with your muslin cloth, follow the instructions above with only the muslin cloth (so you're only sewing together those 2 pieces rather than 4.

• Cut one 10.5 x 5" piece of the decorative fabric and two 6 x 5" pieces.

• Stack the two smaller pieces on the larger piece, face-to-face, one aligned with the left edge and one aligned with the right edge.

• Pin together so it doesn't move.

• Sew 1/4" from the edge around the whole thing.

• Turn inside out.

• Put your flaxseed-filled muslin inner pillow inside the pillowcase and it's complete!

That took way more words than I expected to type all those instructions out.