At New Directions, we have heard at least six stories about terrible reactions when taking the sleep drug Ambien.
Read “Pete’s” story here. He’s a member of ND.
We spoke to psychiatrist Pam London-Barrett who acknowledged “retrograde amnesia” but we have also heard reports of people sleepwalking, acting out of character, and going into horrible depressions – one man had never been depressed in his life until Ambien – and one woman, who’d suffered from depression on and off her whole life, was prescribed Ambien by her family doctor and has been nearly catatonically depressed for a year and a half.
Read more about the hazards of Ambien in the 2012 book “Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep” by David K. Randall.
Here’s a link for more Ambien horror stories.
While we understand how important sleep is, try other methods than popping a pill. People in our group are using to taking meds, but, think before you swallow.
Ask yourself, “Do I really wanna take yet another drug?”
In bygone days, before the invention of TV and computers, people would fall asleep immediately, sleep for several hours, and then wake up for about an hour. This was normal. During their nighttime waketime they might meditate, communicate with their partner and feel very calm. Researchers later discovered they had large amounts of prolactin in their blood, a relaxing drug.
Then they would fall asleep again, for their deepest and most restful sleep. (Info from David Randall, above, appearing on Radio Times, August, 2012.)
Don’t be so critical of yourself if your sleep patterns are not perfect.