Chronic use of sleep medication can create a physical and/or psychological dependence on the medication. It can also impair your ability to function the following day by causing lingering drowsiness or muddled thinking. Ironically, sleep medication can actually disrupt REM sleep and alter deep nonREM stages if used continually for more than two or three weeks.

On the positive side, sleep medications can be helpful to those who have short-term sleep disruptions caused by jet lag, shift-work rotations, or acute emotional difficulties such as divorce or loss of a loved one. To garner their benefits and limit their risks, it's important to take them only when they are truly needed, to find the right type of sleep medication for your needs, and to use them only for a brief period of time. We'll talk more about this later.

In the next section, you will read about the sleep medications known as benzodiazepine receptor agents (BRAs), including their history, effect on sleep patterns, and side effects.

For more information on sleep and sleep disorders, see:
This information is solely for informational purposes. IT IS NOT INTENDED TO PROVIDE MEDICAL ADVICE. Neither the Editors of Consumer Guide (R), Publications International, Ltd., the author nor publisher take responsibility for any possible consequences from any treatment, procedure, exercise, dietary modification, action or application of medication which results from reading or following the information contained in this information. The publication of this information does not constitute the practice of medicine, and this information does not replace the advice of your physician or other health care provider. Before undertaking any course of treatment, the reader must seek the advice of their physician or other health care provider.

 

Sleep medications work best if taken only when absolutely necessary.
Sleep medications work best if taken
only when absolutely necessary.

Sleep medications -- to dispel one popular myth right away -- can't cure insomnia, regardless of how long you take them. Insomnia is a symptom of an underlying problem. Taking sleep medications over a long period of time actually masks the underlying problem instead of solving it.