Sleeping pills and your experiences with them

[Syco21]

They make my friends crazy. I mean bat crap crazy.

 

If you do end up taking prescription sedatives, know they will make you crazy and possibly cause massive embarrassment and can even damage relationships in worst case scenarios. Try to make sure your friends know that you will be taking drugs that will make you high and very stupid/crazy and try to keep yourself isolated.

 

P.S. I didn't vote.

Edited February 7, 2012 by Syco21

[duracele]

Are you sure you want to make this a matter of a poll, lol.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzodiazepine#Insomnia

This is what is the standart poison on insomnia/anxiety.

 

First of all everyone reacts differently to herbals. Some people will sleep fine after valeria, some won`t.

i for myself can drink coffee right before bed and sleep well. black tea strangely affects me more though.

People going "crazy" on sleeping meds would have likely gone crazy otherwise, too.

Taken with percaution they can help you through difficult times. But i strongly recommend to you visiting a doctor on this subject!!!

The new Benzodiazepines replaced the old Barbiturates explicitely because they are less dangerous and addictive.

Sleeping Pills should be your last resort after:

- having considered your mental state (why can`t you sleep?)

- tried changing your lifestyle (food, exercises)

- get a regular day schedule to teach your body when to get tired

 

But as stated before i see no harm in you taking a sleeping pill a day in the wake of exams when you really need the sleep.

Just keep in mind that yes there is a danger to addiction and that Benzodiazepines have a habituation effect. Speaking if you take those things

for too long a period in too high a dosage you will need ever more to get the desired effects.

 

good luck to you!

sucks to be insomniatic :/

[Syco21]

If you had taken the time to just read the paragraphs directly below the one you linked, you would see that there are some very serious side affects to those drugs. Including mental degradation.

 

You might go crazy due to insomnia, but those drugs can also make you just as crazy, if not more so. I am not saying he should never consider using them, for some people it would seem that it is the only way for them to be able to sleep. So he definitely should consider them. But before he does, he needs to find out the cause of his sleep issues. It could be any number of things. Things which he may be able to remedy with other, less intense pharmaceuticals. He may not even need medicine.

 

So basically, my opinion is that he needs to speak to his doctor(s), and if it turns out that he does infact need these pharmaceuticals, that he should consider them. But I did not want this stance to be misinterpreted as me saying he should straight jump to this, or that he should never consider them. That is why I did not vote.

 

Though, I can see that I should have worded my post to better reflect this. This is my bad.

[TheScaryKid]

Lately I have been finding it difficult to fall asleep, and last night I was not able to fall asleep period; I simply lied on my bed waiting for myself to fall asleep. I am considering sleeping pills and I am wondering what experiences people have had with them.

 

Edit:

I probably should add in that my sleeping issues are starting to interfere with my classes in college.

 

Because this forum is related to gaming I must ask, do you devote a worth while amount of time to exercising everyday?

 

Or you can just take st. johns wart and rub one out.

Edited February 7, 2012 by TheScaryKid

[Jeoshua]

Ambien, Unisom, and other chemical aids to sleeping are bad. They are all mildly habit forming and can lead to reduced cognitive function.

 

There IS something called "Melatonin", which does nothing more than increase the amount of a natural brain chemical that is released when you get tired. People use it for jet lag or to reset their body's internal clock.

 

Long story short-

 

I use Melatonin. It works great. Doesn't MAKE you sleep, it makes you WANT to sleep.

[Lanceor]

I once dated a girl - she was beautiful, charming and smart. Unfortunately, during the time I knew her, she grew more and more addicted to the sleeping medication Temazepam.

 

I watched in horror as she gradually increased her dosage. Although she was prescribed one tablet a night, she was eventually taking twelve a night just to get any sleep and avoiding withdrawal symptoms. After taking such a heavy dosage, she'd transform from a bright, charming girl into a zombie - almost literally. She'd have barely any awareness of the world around her, she could barely walk and would even drool.

 

I found that pretty much all my "dates" with her involved taking her to yet another doctor for yet another prescription, and then taking her home after she zombiefied. After a while, I refused to help her with her drug habit, and she ended up dating other guys who would help her feed her addiction.

 

Around six months later, I learned that she was in rehab. Even though we expect something that a doctor would prescribe to be fairly harmless, this stuff was more addictive than many "dangerous" recreational drugs. She had to lock herself away for weeks under the care of medical professionals to try to kick the dependence.

 

Two years later, I met her again. Her mind was gone, many of her memories had vanished. She couldn't remember half of the things that we did together and had trouble forming new memories. Her speech was slow and slurred. The drug abuse also took their toll on her body and skin and she looked completely worn out. It's sad to see a bright, attractive girl become unattractive and - I hate using this term - mentally retarded.

 

So if you were to ask me, I'd say use sleeping pills only as a last resort, and take it as instructed by your doctor. And whatever you do, don't abuse it.

[Jeoshua]

.... or in the case of prescription sleep aids, apparently, SERIOUS imparement of cognitive function.

 

Sorry to hear about that Lanceor.

 

I would repeat my love for Melatonin as a sleep aid option. It's non habit forming, found as an endogenous chemical in the human brain. In fact I'm on it right now, typing at you. Getting a bit sleepy but, as you can see, my brain is still working just fine.

 

G'nite.

[duracele]

don`t take it personal but "natural drugs" keep being drugs.

just because nature let`s it grow in plants or humans don`t mean it can`t harm you.

i would strongly recommend using sleeping aids on a casual basis at most!

taking medicine everyday makes you dependant no matter if its melatonin or benzos.

wether its physical or psychological. the big plus of benzodiazepines is that there is NO physical addiction.

That said it`s most times the psychological addiction that does the worst harm.

There are no longtime studies on the usage of melatonin in human medicine.

i`d be rather careful with that.

"everything is poison, it depends on the dosage" - Paracelsus

[TheScaryKid]

I've done just about every drug under the sun, legal and illegal. There's no such thing as a natural drug. Drugs/Meds, what have you, are things that have manipulated on a chemical level. You know ,water, baking soda, gasoline, stir it together. I don't know the recipe. What I do know is that it's the recipe to disaster. Pot on the other hand, that's not bad. St. John's wart, it is also not bad and has been proven (By a lot of folks that have taken, including me) to cure moderate depression and insomnia.

 

My suggestion is to examine your life. If there's something jacked up in it, fix it. Have a well balanced diet. Exercise. Read a good book then take a nice hot shower or bath before bed. Epson salt. If you're not quite there, put some head phones on and listen to some soft music. I'm particularly fond of Debussy. And, really good, candles. I prefer the bath and bodyworks black currant vanilla. s***, their whole line. Stuff smells AMAZING: black currant vanilla . Added bonus, you have a main squeeze or somebody you working up on, they dig it.

 

I've spent way too much time with the doctors. They usually miss diagnose stuff. So, unless you live in a country that has free health care, I'd just sort the stuff out alone. And smoke a bowl.

[Vagrant0]

Some advice on the sleeping issues:

 

When you want to fall asleep, lay in bed and switch on a TV or computer, and just kind of like watch some shows or browse the internet with no lights on. I do this, and it tires me. I don't know why. Worth a shot though.

Generally bad advice for those who get themselves wrapped up in things and lose track of time. You know, the sort to go to bed late, or eat late because they're too wrapped up in browsing the web, playing games, or watching something. In cases like this, a TV or Computer in the bedroom, especially when you can use them in bed, can make insomnia even worse since you end up never falling asleep until you're at the point of exhaustion. Over time, you stop attributing your bed as a place to sleep, and more as a comfortable place to be awake.

 

Back on topic, Melatonin can be good for those rare times that you need to sleep. Unfortunately it doesn't work the same for everyone and comes in either organic or synthetic form, so one may react different than the other (fast asleep or wake up groggy) or alter the quality of sleep (vivid dreams for me). Meaning that in order to make it work how you want, you may have to play a game of trial and error with dosage and manufacture. Atleast for me. Was taking 10-25 mg a night for awhile to get to sleep when I needed to and help establish a normal pattern, but occasionally would wake up with my body feeling heavy for hours. Took more than that (about 35-40mg) on a few occasions, but was noticing some dangerous side effects (irregular heartbeat) so went back to a smaller dose.