Arianna Huffington’s Sleep Challenge 2010 is perhaps the most significant wake up call for American women since Gloria Steinem published Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions in 1983. Yet for many women, even with the best of efforts, trying to sleep better still remains a waking nightmare. Pharmaceutical firms sold $ 4.5 billion worth of sleep mediations to us in 2009, while the number of chronically sleep deprived in this country now tops 70 million and continues to climb.
For many women, being asked to adjust their sleep times and drink less caffeine simply rings hollow. They are hopelessly addicted to sleeping pills and hearing of others progress using these “tips and tricks” only makes them feel more left out and alone than they already had been before. This hopeless desperation can be a dangerous thing, because long term insomnia often leads to increased risk for heart attacks, strokes and suicide in females.
A recent study out of Norway had shown no increase in sleep quality in middle aged people using sedative hypnotics like Ambien and Lunesta, compared to the control group given only placebo. It also showed that slow wave sleep, the brainwaves responsible for providing restorative rest also diminished after two weeks into the medications use. Yet dependency on these and other sleep aids is troubling. Sleep walking, sleep eating and sleep driving are considerably more common than we are lead to believe by the slick pharma ads that tout soft blue butterflies.
So what are these medications and how do they work on the brain?
Ambien, Lunesta and Restoril are a classification of sleep meds called “sedative hypnotics” that are marketed as patently non-addictive. But what your doctor isn’t telling you is that the molecular structure of these medications differs little from that of Zanax and Klonopin, which by the way, are highly addictive and carry a withdrawal period of 6 weeks to 6 months, based upon the dosages and length of treatment.
The other issue that never seems to get mentioned about these drugs is the fact that when ingested for long periods of time, they take over the internal tasks of the brain to regulate its own sleep architecture. Once that entrenchment takes hold, the duties of the brain responsible for sleep begins to atrophy. So when people go cold turkey off of Ambien, the insomnia is usually much worse than before they started. It’s a lot like asking a newly awakened coma patient to run a marathon. And after 5-6 nights of no sleep, most people will throw up their hands out of frustrated exhaustion and, you guessed it… resume their doses. (Okay, all together now! Give me that Big Pharma smile and say….cha-ching!)
Pharma-Treats have never tasted so profitable.
David A. Mayen, CNP is program director and senior sleep technician for Sleep Recovery Centers. You can find his blog at: http://SleepRecoveryCenters.com Or on YouTube: http://tinyurl.com/y9v38f3
Tags: ambien addiction, lunesta addiction, seroquel addiction, ambien side effects, insomnia, sleep disorders
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