Sleeping pills offer the promise of an improved night's sleep and an overall improved capacity to cope. This is a promise that is hard to turn down. Sleeplessness leads to a kind of desperation that makes the likes of Ambien, Sonata, Restoril and Dalmane seem positively irresistible.

But are they all they're made out to be? Do they in fact improve sleep and overall daytime functioning?

Lets take a look at the way sleeping tablets function. Sedative hypnotics, as they are sometimes called, suppress the action potentials of a wide variety of brain cells. This slows and sedates both the central nervous system and the brain. This in turn affects thinking, feeling, and body movement. The result is a slower reaction time and impaired aspects of intelligence and memory.

The Rolls Royce's of sleeping pills like Ambien claim to be clear of your system when you awaken. Longer acting sleeping pills like Dalmane and Doral remain in the body and brain in a diluted form for the most part of the day. Tests have shown that even the faster acting sleeping pills have a residual effect during the day. This residual effect is accumulative over time. This means that despite the persuasive marketing, sleeping pills, even the Rolls Royces, will impair daytime functioning.

On the physiological side, ongoing use can produce a tolerance that requires higher doses of the medication to gain the same effect. On the psychological side the active ingredients in the sleeping pill produce a calming effect accompanied by a sense of wellbeing that can result in a psychological addiction. Mixing sleeping pills with alcohol produces exaggerated effects. The synergistic relationship is a dangerous one that can sometimes lead to death.
 

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