Since insomnia is not a standalone disease, but a symptom of another, usually psychological condition, the key to providing insomnia relief is to find out what’s causing the insomnia in the first place so that it can be dealt with directly.
Often, once the problem that’s causing the insomnia is taken care of, the insomnia may go away on its own. If it does not, you are left with two solutions: stuffing yourself with sleeping pills or trying one of the natural remedies for insomnia.
Will sleeping pills provide insomnia relief?
A sleeping pill may, in many cases, give you an instant effect. But all hypnotic drugs (an actual medical term for the sleeping pills) have severe long-term implications.
Over the counter, non-prescription drugs often have little effect. While heavy-duty prescription drugs may change normal sleep patterns and may make you groggy and unable to function in your regular capacity the next day.
Although sleeping pills may be an effective insomnia remedy in the short term, regular use rapidly develops tolerance, and stronger and stronger doses will be required. Severe insomnia sufferers report that the effect of any new sleeping pill wears out in just a couple of weeks, if not days.
Some discover to their horror that sleeping pills are not only a temporary solution, but will actually escalate the intensity of the insomnia if used regularly. So instead of being a cure, sleeping pills can become a cause of severe insomnia, pushing many insomnia sufferers to switch to another pill… only to see it rapidly loose its effect. Some people are practically on the verge of becoming sleeping pill junkies. It’s a dangerous spiral loop without an exit.
Sedative-hypnotic drugs of any kind (the harmful “old school” benzodiazepines, or the newfangled, somewhat less dangerous non-benzodiazepines) cause both psychological and physical dependence, memory and cognitive disturbances with rebound withdrawal effects.
Many clinical reports confirm — if you stop ingesting the pills abruptly there is a very high risk of getting severe rebound insomnia — the insomnia will hit you back immediately and with full force.
Here are just some of the implications of taking hypnotic sleeping pills like the popular Zaleplon, Zolpidem and their re-branded derivatives:
- severe confusion
- day-time drowsiness
- unsteadiness
- agitation
- headache
- nausea
- vomiting
- diarrhea or abdominal pain
- muscle weakness
- tremor
- vivid or abnormal dreams
- and memory difficulties or amnesia.
(Just great! This even sounds harmful!)
I will not bore you any further with the case against the sleeping pills and the pharmaceutical industry. There are pages and pages on the Internet written on this subject with case studies and users testimonials going over the dangers and cruel consequences of taking pills for longer than a short–term basis. And this site is not about that. This site is about providing information on natural remedies for insomnia.
No matter which sleeping pills you take, they all provide only a temporary form of insomnia relief, not a cure. They don’t address the core issue that causes insomnia. All they do is relieve the symptom. Next day you are at square one.
So how do you get relief, if you struggle with insomnia, but refuse to poison yourself with pills?
