Can I experience withdrawal with my sleeping aids?

Rely too much on sleeping aids to get you to Dreamland and you may find yourself staring at the ceiling when you stop taking them. Find out how to avoid rebound insomnia with sleep medicine expert Carol Ash, DO.

Transcript

00:00

The original reason that they even had the insomnia in the first place has long passed. And now, they try to get off these medications.

00:08

And unfortunately, they experienced this rebound insomnia and immediately say, aha, I still need them. [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:26

What a lot of people don't realize about sleeping pills, after you've been taking them for a period of time, when you stop the sleeping medications, what typically

00:34

will happen is you will develop rebound insomnia. So people will be taking these medications. And many times, the original reason

00:42

that they even had the insomnia in the first place has long passed. And now, they try to get off these medications.

00:49

And unfortunately, they experienced this rebound insomnia and immediately say, aha, I still need them. And then, they're very afraid to even stop

00:57

at that point in time. And so it takes a little bit of time to get back off sleeping pills once you've been on them for a while.

01:03

And what I'll say to patients who have been taking them nightly for months and months or several years even is to start slow.

01:10

So we'll start reducing it. So I'll tell them, well, I only want you to take these sleeping pills now only four nights a week or every other night.

01:18

And we'll keep slowly reducing the number of nights you're taking these pills till we get you down to not needing them at all.