The Health Risks of Sleeping Pills

Sleeping problems can occur for many reasons.  Among them are stress, a poor diet or eating schedule, excessive caffeine intake, or even loss of time tracking when you are deeply concentrated on an activity of interest.  In an attempt to alleviate this problem, millions of people have resorted to the consumption of sleeping pills.  Many of these sleeping pills belong to a class of drugs called benzodiazepines, while others are diphenhydramine based.  Their potential for harm is multifaceted, while they do little, if any, good.

How Do Sleeping Pills Work?

Sleeping pills work to amplify the effect of GABA, which is a neurotransmitter.  This increased effect results in the person feeling sedated, as well has their muscles relaxing.  Sometimes, they may even have the feeling of dissociation; they feel detached from their relative surroundings.

Tylenol PM, a common over the counter diphenhydramine sleeping pill.  Author: Damian Finol, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Sleeping Pills Alter Brain Activity During Sleep

The obvious reason behind taking sleeping pills is to counteract loss of sleep due to insomnia.  However, research continuously shows that in addition to many other side effects, these drugs do not even yield the desired effect.  While they put you to sleep, it is not quality sleep.  Rather, they mask your underlying sleep problems by making you drowsy.  There are two main stages of sleep, REM and non-REM.  One phase of non-REM sleep is slow wave sleep.  These drugs inhibit the brain's ability to actually rest and consolidate during both slow wave and REM sleep.  Slow wave sleep is when your brain cements what you have learned through the day into its short term and long term memory banks.  This is the reason that pulling an all-nighter before an exam usually does not work.

Your Body Builds a Tolerance

Taken long term, sleeping pills tend to lose their effectiveness at the same dose.  Therefore, in order for them to put you to sleep, you will need to take more of them.  Some actually reach the point where they are unable to fall asleep without them.  Much like narcotics such as cocaine, it creates a greater dependency as time goes on.

Daytime Dysfunction

Because these drugs severely impact the quality of your sleep, impairing the brain's restorative ability, you are very likely to develop chronic fatigue during the day.  You will experience daytime drowsiness.  This also tends to affect your mood in the way of irritability that is common with people who are tired.

Affectations of Memory

This is a consequence of the alterations of brain activity and the reduced quality of both slow wave and REM sleep.  Because this is the period where your brain strengthens both its short and long term memory, long term usage can result in the loss of both types of that memory.  This can, in some cases, be severe enough that it mimics the symptoms of early stage dementia.

Cancer and Mortality

Research by Daniel Kripke, M.D. claims that sleeping pills actually raise the risk of cancer and death of all causes.  These trials were conducted out of the University of California, where Kripke is an emeritus professor.  He has done several research projects since the 1970's in relation to the dangers of sleeping pills.  In the most recent study, conducted over a five year period between 2002-2007, the death rate of all cause mortality was five times higher among pill users.

Melatonin

Melatonin is a natural hormone that is produced to help guide your circadian rhythm.  It is also a quite potent antioxidant.  This can be a quite favorable alternative than the synthetic benzodiazepines or diphenhydramine.  However, even with taking encapsulated melatonin, there are risks.  Taking an excess of melatonin, or taking it for too long of a period of time, carries many risks.  Follow the guidelines listed in this article about melatonin.  In particular, pay attention to the dosage recommendation, and if the capsules you purchase are not time released, break them up into the recommended fractions, instead of taking the whole pill.  Most whole capsules contain a lot more than is actually needed.