Sleep problems and insomnia: are medications always needed?

Sound and healthy sleep is a nat­ur­al need of any per­son, from birth to old age. If it is dif­fi­cult to fall asleep in the evenings, you have to spend sev­er­al hours wait­ing to fall asleep, many imme­di­ate­ly go to the phar­ma­cy for sleep­ing pills. But such an approach is fun­da­men­tal­ly wrong, since con­stant stress, lack of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, cer­tain dis­eases, and even the micro­cli­mate of the bed­room often inter­fere with nor­mal sleep. If the elim­i­na­tion of all pos­si­ble prob­lems does not lead to the nor­mal­iza­tion of sleep, a vis­it to the doc­tor is nec­es­sary, only he can pre­scribe med­ica­tions that have a hyp­not­ic effect. But they are not per­fect, and these are drugs of last resort.

Sleep disorders and wrong tactics

Nor­mal sleep is very impor­tant for health, high per­for­mance and pos­i­tive mood. If a per­son chron­i­cal­ly lacks sleep for at least a cou­ple of hours over sev­er­al years, this adverse­ly affects metab­o­lism, health, and even life expectan­cy. There is a cat­e­go­ry of peo­ple whose poor sleep has already become a con­stant com­pan­ion of life. But with the prob­lem of insom­nia, they are in no hur­ry to see a doc­tor, look­ing for var­i­ous recipes of tra­di­tion­al med­i­cine on the Inter­net, tak­ing herbal prepa­ra­tions or even sleep­ing pills. As a result, the qual­i­ty and dura­tion of sleep prac­ti­cal­ly do not improve, and the gen­er­al con­di­tion some­times suf­fers even more than it was orig­i­nal­ly. Due to con­stant fatigue, peo­ple become dis­tract­ed, con­cen­tra­tion and mem­o­ry suf­fer, depres­sion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion dif­fi­cul­ties occur. It is impor­tant to iden­ti­fy the true cause of sleep prob­lems, elim­i­nate it, and then the prob­lem often resolves itself.

Common causes of sleep problems: stress, discomfort, pathology

Often, sleep dis­or­ders are caused by con­stant overex­ci­ta­tion of the ner­vous sys­tem, which is why the brain can­not switch to rest in the evening. Often the cause is chron­ic stress — phys­i­cal or psy­cho­log­i­cal, the release of hor­mones that spur a tired and exhaust­ed body to be active again and again. Against the back­ground of stress, nor­mal sleep-wake rhythms are sup­pressed, which can lead to drowsi­ness in the morn­ing and after­noon, and an excess of activ­i­ty in the evening. Also, con­stant stress sup­press­es the pro­duc­tion of the hor­mone mela­tonin due to an excess of cor­ti­sol. It also neg­a­tive­ly affects the process of falling asleep and the qual­i­ty of sleep at night. It is not uncom­mon for peo­ple to go to the phar­ma­cy for over-the-counter sleep aids that solve prob­lems for a while. Prepa­ra­tions of this type usu­al­ly con­tain seda­tive com­po­nents that elim­i­nate anx­i­ety, irri­tabil­i­ty, and reduce the effect of stress on the body. How­ev­er, if stres­sors con­tin­ue to be exposed, often mild seda­tives and seda­tives alone are often not enough.

When do I need a doctor’s consultation and a prescription for sleeping pills?

If insom­nia has become pro­tract­ed, it has turned into a chron­ic severe form, it is nec­es­sary for the patient to be exam­ined by a doc­tor, to deter­mine the pres­ence of a prob­lem and its cause. If the impact of con­stant lack of sleep is great, there are health prob­lems asso­ci­at­ed with insom­nia, exac­er­ba­tion of patholo­gies and social prob­lems, the doc­tor may decide to pre­scribe sleep­ing pills. Usu­al­ly, strong sleep­ing pills are sold only by pre­scrip­tion, tak­en strict­ly accord­ing to the rec­om­mend­ed reg­i­men and under the con­trol of side effects and tol­er­a­bil­i­ty. For most patients, the spe­cial­ist will rec­om­mend lifestyle changes, light seda­tives, vit­a­mins, anti-stress activ­i­ties, psy­chother­a­py. In the vast major­i­ty of patients in the ini­tial stage of insom­nia, when the prob­lem has not gone far, it is quite pos­si­ble to do with­out strong drugs that are not as harm­less as it might seem.

Why are sleeping pills dangerous?

A group of drugs that have a hyp­not­ic effect refers to potent and pre­scrip­tion drugs. These funds are tak­en strict­ly on the rec­om­men­da­tion of a doc­tor, indi­vid­u­al­ly select­ed for each patient and clin­i­cal sit­u­a­tion. It is equal­ly impor­tant to know that, in addi­tion to the main hyp­not­ic effect, these drugs also have a num­ber of side effects and con­traindi­ca­tions for tak­ing. And in com­bi­na­tion with cer­tain drugs or alco­hol, they can even lead to death, espe­cial­ly when the dose is exceed­ed.

Uncon­trolled intake of drugs with a hyp­not­ic effect leads to the inhi­bi­tion of cer­tain phys­i­cal process­es, has an extreme­ly neg­a­tive effect on think­ing and mem­o­ry, espe­cial­ly short-term, but the addic­tive effect is espe­cial­ly dan­ger­ous. This leads to the need for a con­stant increase in the dose of the drug, which ulti­mate­ly leads to seri­ous con­se­quences with­out prop­er med­ical super­vi­sion.

Ide­al­ly, these pills are used only in emer­gency sit­u­a­tions, the course of their intake should be short, fol­lowed by a tran­si­tion to “lighter” treat­ment options. OTC tablets, cap­sules or oth­er forms of drugs are milder, they have few­er side effects and effects on the psy­che, there is prac­ti­cal­ly no addic­tion effect.

How to treat insomnia: is it always pills?

Ini­tial­ly, it is nec­es­sary to treat insom­nia by iden­ti­fy­ing its true caus­es. If this is a banal over­work, high phys­i­cal or men­tal stress, a change in cli­mate or time zones, the influ­ence of stress, it is worth elim­i­nat­ing the influ­ence of this. Episod­i­cal­ly occur­ring insom­nia or peri­ods last­ing no more than 3–4 weeks may require the use of seda­tive or seda­tive tablets or infu­sions. Due to such drugs, relax­ation and seda­tion are formed, which is nec­es­sary for many peo­ple.

If sleep­ing pills are need­ed, their intake is always com­bined with mea­sures to nor­mal­ize sleep (cre­at­ing a micro­cli­mate in the bed­room, tak­ing a walk before going to bed, avoid­ing sol­id foods and stim­u­lat­ing drinks). Often, a com­bi­na­tion of drugs with phys­io­ther­a­py and ses­sions with a psy­chother­a­pist, changes in the dai­ly reg­i­men, hard­en­ing helps well. Only if the prob­lem is not solved for a month or more, the doc­tor can decide to pre­scribe stronger pills.