Sleeping Pills. Insomnia Cure Or Bad Medicine?

Sleeping disorders are more and more common in today's adult population. For complex reasons such as long working hours, and other economic stresses, it is now estimated that almost 25% of the adult population suffers some kind of sleeping difficulty. Slumber issues wreak havoc on a person's life by making them visibly irritable at work, by not allowing their body a chance to revitalize itself, and by making it increasingly harder to stay alert during the day - especially when driving long distances or performing otherwise complex and potentially dangerous tasks.

As pharmacological treatments evolve, people now turn to prescription sleeping aids as a quick "get it and forget it" fix to assist them in getting the sleep they need. Taken correctly and as prescribed, there is no reason to believe they can’t be extremely beneficial to you. Taken habitually however, or over-medicating from the prescribed dosage, these medications can have extremely hazardous side effects that can enhance the insomnia, instead of providing relief. Below you will find a comparison between the risks and benefits of prescription sleeping aids so that you can be well informed and well armed before heading off to your doctor.

The Benefits of Sleeping Aids

For starters you need to understand that sleeping pills are not bad. They are not spawned from the lab of some evil corporation, and they do not necessarily cause you to become a drooling, addicted mess. They also do not - necessarily - cause hangover-like symptoms, which is a very common complaint. Having said that, they can be all of that and more, when not used correctly. The truth is that prescription sleeping pills have helped millions of American every year who suffer from sleeping disorders, such as transient and chronic insomnia. It is a multi-million dollar a year business because they are an effective - but temporary - relief.

Sleep inducing meds are used to slow down the neurological activity in your brain, enabling you to fall asleep much easier then you would naturally. They depress the central nervous system which inevitably causes the sleepy feelings to take hold and facilitate unconsciousness. It is said that with people with strong neural activity routinely find it harder to fall away to slumber, some regularly complaining of chronic bouts of insomnia. Sleeping pills are extremely effective at slowing down this neural activity - thus inducing sleep.

When you’re taking sleep medications you are most likely to fall asleep, in most cases, within 15 to 30 minutes - with the added benefit of preventing frequent awakenings during the night. These awakenings exist as a form of insomnia in and of itself, and the condition can be just as frustrating as the initial onset of insomnia. This is normally because it is harder to get back to sleep after waking abruptly. Having said that, sometimes frequent awakenings are a result of other medical conditions, such as sleep apnea, and worth a proper diagnosis.

The Risks of Sleeping Pills

As effective as these medications can be, they still come with side effects. It's a virtual guarantee that over time your body will begin to build a tolerance to them, leaving you to require consistently higher dosages to get the same result you experienced from the initial administration.

One psychological component of dependency to sleep medication is that you begin to feel it's impossible to sleep without the drug. This is based within the physiology of the drug's co-relation to your ever increasing tolerance. At this point the exacerbated condition becomes "hyper insomnia", and will continue until your body has successfully weaned from the medication.

In effect, by treating the symptom of insomnia and not the cause of said condition, you will have become more and more dependent on an increasingly less effective drug. This is why treating insomnia with prescription pills is normally used as strictly a short term solution (between 3 and 5 days). The insomnia itself must be investigated with other diagnostic methods (such as a polysomnogram/ sleep study), for more healthy and appropriate treatments to begin.

Weaning from a dependence to sleeping pills can also cause feelings of depression, along with the aforementioned hyper insomnia. These medications were never meant to be taken long term, except in the most egregious cases, because the metabolism of the brain becomes less responsive to the effects, very quickly. The other withdrawal symptoms range from dry mouth, increased daytime drowsiness, and nausea. There are certain drugs now in development, that are said to have no quantifiable dependence/abuse side effects. One such medication is already on the market and is branded as Lunesta, otherwise known as Eszopiclone. While this new treatment shows promise, it's effectiveness and corresponding side effects are still being studied.

As you can see, prescription sleeping pills can be of great benefit to you - for short term treatment, or they can cause you more trouble then they are worth - if you don’t have the discipline to use them as directed. Visit Insomnia Cures if you feel like you need more information on sleeping pills, or for any questions or comments about the horrible condition of insomnia. Remember, your ultimate goal should be to become completely independent from prescription drugs, thus tackling the condition and not the symptom.