What is the danger of taking sleeping pills for a long period of time?

Taking sleeping pills for longer than directed can have some bothersome side effects, says sleep medicine expert Carol Ash, DO. Learn how long it's safe to keep taking sleeping pills.

Transcript

00:00

There's a reason why you're probably not sleeping at night. And it really takes a lot of information

00:06

to really dig down deep and figure out what exactly is the problem for me.

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Well, most of us don't realize that sleeping pills are not really meant to be taken for prolonged periods of time.

00:24

Sleeping pills are OK to use three to four nights a week. Really we like to limit the use to four to six weeks.

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There are some that have been marketed for longer use. But what we like to use sleeping pills for is somewhat of a bridge.

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It's to help us transition to better sleep while we're working on other solutions. And so unfortunately, what happens with the sleeping

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pills, people will have trouble getting to sleep. And they'll turn to sleeping pills out of desperation because they don't really have good solutions.

00:53

And so they've never really solved the problem. And that's the issue with sleeping pills. You've really got to get at the root cause.

01:00

Why am I not sleeping at night? And not sleeping at night is like having pain. There's a reason why you're probably not sleeping at night.

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And it really takes a lot of information to really dig down deep and figure out what exactly is

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the problem for me. So not only are we not getting at the root cause many times and just using the sleeping pills sometimes

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for months and years on end. In addition to that, these pills are addicting and unfortunately they do have side effects.

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So you don't want to continue to take these medications without looking for other solutions. And you can use natural substances which

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would be a better substitute. And also you want to work on what we call sleep hygiene, setting that relaxing bedtime routine,

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making sure same time to bed, same wake up time, making sure the environment is calm and really allows you

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to transition into sleep, and making sure you've created a quiet, and a dark, and a cool environment for you to sleep in.