A sleep scientist says you shouldn't take sleeping pills — here's why

By Julia Calderone

For millions of Americans, one of the biggest obstacles of the day (or in this case, the night) is getting a good sleep.
Many are tempted by the quick-fix of taking sedatives or hypnotic medications — fancy words for sleeping pills. If you do this often, you're not alone. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated in 2013 that about 4% of US adults older than 20 used a prescription sleep aid in the past month of their study.
But unless you have a diagnosible sleep disorder such as insomnia — which actually isn't as common as many think — sleeping pills are a bad way to go, according to sleep scientist Patrick Fuller, a neurologist at Harvard Medical School.
"I'm not a basher of hypnotics, because I think that they can play a particularly important role in people who do have true insomnia," Fuller told Tech Insider. "But for the most part, I think most people that are taking hypnotic medications actually don't need them and should work to get off of them."
One reason to avoid hypnotic sleep meds is that once they travel from your blood into your brain, they tend to act erratically.
"They're not this cute little thing that comes in and targets a little cell in your brain that's just all involved in sleep," Fuller said. "These drugs are not that specific; they affect not just the brain, but the peripheral systems as well."
According to Drugs.com, Ambien — one of the most popular prescription sleep drugs — can cause a host of crummy side effects including drowsiness, headache, muscle aches, stuffy or runny nose, memory loss, double vision, diarrhea, swollen neck glands, voice changes, forgetfulness, belching, body aches... the list goes on.
In fact, the Food and Drug Administration announced in 2013 that it will recommend lower doses of Ambien for women because it takes longer for them to metabolize the drug's active ingredient, zolpidem.
The recommendation came after finding that Ambien can severely impair a woman's driving the morning after because it may not be completely cleared from the blood by then. The sleep aid has also been known to cause other severe side effects, such as texting, eating, and even having sex while asleep.
Sleeping pills are also highly addictive, Fuller said, and getting off of them is tough because your insomnia or other sleeping problems may actually become worse after taking them.
"There's a time and a place for pills," Fuller said. "But for the average Joe who's having a little trouble sleeping, there's a lot of things they can try to do to facilitate normal, natural sleep before popping Z-class drugs [common insomnia medications] at night."
Such techniques, Fuller said, include waking up at the same time every day, avoiding caffeine six hours before bedtime, exercising regularly, avoiding alcohol at night, avoiding smartphone and e-reader screens in bed, and setting the sleeping mood.
Stay away from sleeping pills, including seemingly harmless over-the-counter night-time pain medications.
"To me, it's just a cheap fix," Fuller said. "And it's not the right fix."

http://www.techinsider.io/sleeping-pills-sleep-aid-safety-2016-2