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Sleeping Pills
Sleeping pills are generally bad
news as they will break down your body's
natural sleep
cycle and make sleep very difficult in the long term.
Studies have shown that the effects of prolonged use
of sleeping pills have an overall negative effect on
the sufferer and concluded that sufferers of insomnia
are better off without them.
Sleeping pills can be addictive,
like any other drug and whilst you maybe thinking that
they are safe, sufferers who use them generally have
higher mortality rates. The chemicals in sleeping
pills are not only addictive, but they also decrease
brain cell activity during the day.
Over time your body will build
tolerance and dependency to sleep medication and they
may become ineffective. Many sufferers increase their
dosage because of this, to try and attain the same
affect.
This severely increases the risk of
damage to mental and physical health. 100,000 deaths
occur a year in the U.S. alone, due to adverse drug
reactions. More than 1000 of these deaths are due to
the overdose of sleep medications.
Because most major sleeping
medications interfere with normal brain wave patterns
you may not experience the deeper and restorative
stages of sleep at night. As a result you may find
that you wake up feeling groggy, drowsy or tired.
Other Side effects include urinary retention, blurred
vision, dizziness and palpitations.
Another reason to avoid taking
sleeping pills is that prolonged use can cause
'rebound' insomnia. When you begin to take sleep
medication you are no longer relying on your natural
ability to sleep. Sleep is a natural process which is
supposed to just happen. When we begin to rely on
sleeping pills the body and mind increases dependency
on them.
In reality sleeping pills are a
crude way to fall asleep. Sleep no longer becomes
natural, you are essentially being drugged to sleep.
As we build dependency it becomes increasingly
difficult to stop taking them. If by any chance we are
able to wean ourselves off them we get what is called
'rebound' insomnia, which is far more difficult to
treat.
Although they may help you to fall
asleep, they do not improve daytime functioning
whatsoever. In fact people who take sleep medicine
often complain of fatigue, lethargy, sleepiness and
the inability to concentrate in the day.
Sleeping pills cannot provide
quality restorative sleep, which many people have been
misguided to believe. Unfortunately people still
rather take them because of the feel-good effect they
produce. New users often become dependant on sleeping
pills and end up becoming chronic sleeping pill users.
Shockingly in a recent study it was
shown that a group of insomniac patients given a
placebo, performed better than those given sleep
medication. In a world obsessed with quick-fixes,
something must be done to inform sufferers of the
consequences and reality of taking sleeping pills.
Unknown to most, there are effective
drug-free methods and techniques to
conquer insomnia.
If you've had enough of sleeping pills and want an
alternative, then sign up for our Free
Newsletter at the bottom of this page.
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