How exactly do sleeping pills work?
I have heard that the less a person takes, the better it works… so if I take one sleeping pill will it be more effective than taking two or three?
If this is the case then why is Ambien prescription? What makes ambien different from tylenol PM (besides the pain medication) or unisom?
They have different modes of action, and therefore their effectiveness can vary.
OTC sleep aids (Unisom, Tylenol PM) are almost always diphenhydramine, better known as Benadryl, an antihistamine. The sedating side-effect of the antihistamine is what makes you drowsy.
Prescription sleep aids - both benzodiazepine (e.g. Dalmane, Restoril, Halcion) and non-benzodiazepine (Ambien, Sonata) - work on certain receptors in the brain. They’re specifically designed to induce sleep and in some cases reduce nighttime awakenings, rather than produce drowsiness as a side-effect.
They’re also probably much, much safer in overdose than diphenhydramine.
It depends on what you’re taking.
It isn’t true that taking less of a sleeping pill’s active ingredient will make it work better. That would be counter to everything we know. 10 mg of Ambien is more effective than 5 mg and so on.
What you may have heard is that some sleeping pills can have in some people what is called a paradoxical effect, causing anxiety, aggression, or even insomnia.
This can happen at low does, so it’s not a strict level of dosage effect. It’s not clear from a quick Google when or even whether larger doses will trigger the effect if it doesn’t happen at the lower dosages, or for which medications.
But you shouldn’t be taking large doses of sleeping pills beyond what the directions tell you to in the first place.
I think the OP misunderstood the concept of “the less you take, the better,” meaning you should take the lowest effective dose, and not for long periods of time unless directed by your physician.
The elderly tend to be particularly prone to paradoxical reactions (restlessness, anxiety) to hypnotics as well as to anxiolytics.
I definitely find that if i take ambien two nights in a row, on the second night i sleep worse than if i hadn’t taken it at all. The first night it works how it is supposed to though. I am not sure if this is an abnormal reaction? Can you build a sort of ‘immunity’ to it that quickly or am I just weird?