Over-the-counter sleeping pills for sound sleep – 12 mild medications

The desire to ensure good sleep prompted people to use various substances as sleeping pills. Emotional overexcitation, caffeine consumption, and illness do not allow the body and nervous system to rest, which leads to exhaustion. Next, we will consider in detail how sleeping pills work and outline the specifics of its use.

Causes of sleep disorders and types of disorders

A sleep disorder is an indicator that indicates a problem. In one case this is due to illness, in the other – to nerves or taking stimulants. Lack of rest harms the body, so you need to determine the cause.

Classification of sleep disorders

1. Insomnia or insomnia. A person cannot fall asleep on time even when tired. In some cases, insomnia manifests itself in the form of short periods of sleep.
2. Hypersomnia or drowsiness. This type is characterized by constant fatigue, which occurs after waking up. There is a lack of energy, mental and physical activity decreases.
3. Violation of rest and wakefulness patterns. Typically for those who cannot go to bed on time (work, study, external factors). This also occurs in people who have switched to polyphasic sleep (several short periods of rest).
4. Parasomnias. Manifests itself in the form of “sleepwalking,” epileptic seizures, and enuresis. This is a disruption in the phases of sleep, which results in incomplete awakening or unnatural motor activity.

Main reasons:

• Abuse of stimulants.
• Alcohol abuse.
• Emotional overexcitement.
• Heart problems.
• Malignant brain tumors.
• Mental disorders.
• Violation of the regime.
• Late dinner.
• Lack of physical activity.
• External factors.

When the reason lies in the past

It often happens that the cause of insomnia is an event that happened months or even years before the onset of symptoms. Most often with acute anxiety disorder caused by the death of a loved one. In the first time after loss, insomnia does not occur due to stress and regular adrenaline surges. But when, six months or later, a person relaxes a little, then chronic sleep disorders appear.

Dr. Kolchina says: “A woman over 80 years old encountered the problem of insomnia 3 years after the death of her husband. She tried to regain sleep with the help of alcohol and tranquilizers, although she had never drank before. It was still not possible to get enough sleep, and the patient had problems during the daytime, including impaired motor functions and even falls. In this case, combined drug and psychotherapeutic treatment helped.”

Obese people often complain about the quality of their sleep. They fall asleep easily, but experience breathing problems during sleep due to pulmonary hypoventilation syndrome. Fat tissue puts pressure on the chest, the lungs breathe only due to the diaphragm. As a result, the body receives insufficient oxygen, which aggravates obesity by inhibiting metabolic processes. That's why overweight people often wake up in the middle of the night and don't get enough sleep.

The benefits and harms of sleeping pills

Any drug can both help and harm. Therefore, you should know about the pros and cons of taking psychoactive substances.

All sleeping pills are divided into two large groups: artificial and natural. Natural medications include herbal-based sedatives. Artificial ones are represented by chemical compounds that act on receptors.

The benefit is that after taking the pill, the process of inhibition of the central nervous system starts. Emotions and problems fade into the background, which makes it possible to quickly fall asleep. The action lasts about 6-8 hours. As a result, your body has time to rest and recover. After waking up, you feel lightness and a huge supply of vital energy.

The harm is due to side effects, namely:

• addiction with long-term use;
• dry mouth;
• dizziness;
• panic state upon refusal;
• nausea;
• depression;
• short-term memory loss.

You should know that most of the “side effects” appear after taking artificially based pills. Sedative medications are not addictive, but their effect is short-lived.

What are the dangers of overdose?

Pharmacies offer many options for sleeping pills that help you sleep. Depending on the composition, the negative consequences will vary. For this reason, you should always read the instructions carefully.

Herbal-based sleeping pills do not produce a dangerous effect on the body in case of overdose. Even if you exceed the dose ten times, your condition will be stable. In this case, the reaction to stimuli will slow down, drowsiness and partial disorientation in space will appear.

With chemical-based drugs, things are much more serious. Older barbiturate-based drugs can cause death even at ten times the dose.

Modern sleeping pills are less dangerous, but uncontrolled use leads to hallucinations, loss of orientation in space, vomiting, and dermatitis.

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Main symptoms of overdose:

• apathy;
• slow heart rate;
• increased salivation;
• loss of consciousness;
• tongue sinking;
• a sharp decrease in blood pressure;
• dysfunction of the liver and kidneys;
• coma;
• stopping breathing.

Sedatives: prescription only?

Over-the-counter dispensing of potent drugs is prohibited. This is due to the presence of a large number of side effects. Many of these drugs are quite inexpensive, which is seen as their advantage, but they are often very dangerous, as they inhibit physical activity, cause memory impairment, provoke drug dependence and addiction, and most dangerously, they can cause sleep apnea. Only a doctor can prescribe such a remedy after examining and establishing the cause of insomnia. In this case, the recommended medicine will be as safe as possible for health.

Do you suffer from insomnia? Call +7 and we will help you effectively. You can also leave your phone number /, and we will call you back. To cope with sleep disturbances, you should consult a somnologist or enroll in Dr. Buzunov’s cognitive behavioral therapy program for insomnia.

It should be noted that any drug that is supposed to be used to treat insomnia should not only be potent, but properly selected for the existing sleep disorder. For example, in case of sleep disturbances, the use of drugs with a short effect is sufficient: they will be enough to cause a person to fall into deep sleep. When waking up at night, longer-acting medications are prescribed.

Over-the-counter sleeping pills generally do not have serious side effects, do not affect psychomotor function, and can be recommended for different age groups. What sleeping pills, available without a doctor's prescription, can replace the dangerous phenobarbital, nitrazepam or nozepam?

The principle of action on the human body

Sleeping pills act on certain areas of the brain that are responsible for the cycle of sleep and wakefulness. As a result, the supply of impulses slows down, which leads to inhibition of the central nervous system. Alcohol and opiates work in a similar way.

In fact, the central nervous system, under the influence of psychoactive components, reacts mediocrely to external and internal stimuli, such as pain, fear, light, noise. This allows some tablets to be used as painkillers.

Side effects

The interaction of alcoholic beverages and sleeping pills causes side effects. Staying in one position for a long time during sleep can cause positional compression of the limbs. Impaired blood flow to the limb leads to kidney failure due to the accumulation of waste products in the muscles. In severe cases, the victim's limb is amputated due to necrotic changes.

Other side effects include retrograde amnesia, disorders of the digestive system, and drug dependence. In this regard, it is necessary to avoid drinking alcoholic beverages during the treatment of insomnia.

Types of sleeping pills by mechanism of action

The mechanism depends on the active components, so the following groups are distinguished:

• barbiturates;
• benzodiazepine;
• zolpidem.

Barbiturates produce a quick effect even in severe cases, but they disrupt the usual physiological process. The action is aimed at GABA receptors, which, under the influence of active substances, acquire increased sensitivity. As a result, the influence of the brain stem on its cortex is inhibited.

Benzodiazepine derivatives are CNS depressants. The principle of action is identical to barbiturates. They have a tranquilizing and anticonvulsant effect. The main differences are the absence of dependence and sleep phase disturbances.

Zolpidem selectively acts on receptors (does not affect the peripheral part), which increases the deep phase of sleep. This allows for complete physical and mental recovery.

Potent sleeping pills: which one to choose?

All sleeping pills are divided into groups according to their mechanism of action:

• GABA receptor agonists

Brain cells are equipped with receptors for gamma-aminobutyric acid. This acid causes inhibition reactions in the nervous system and suppresses the occurrence of nerve impulses. Sleeping pills of this group interact with GABA receptors, causing inhibition processes in the brain, which contributes to drowsiness.

GABA receptor agonists include benzodiazepines (phenazepam, lorazepam, nozepam) and some other drugs. Taking these drugs gives a pronounced hypnotic effect, relieves anxiety, and has an anticonvulsant effect.

It should be especially emphasized that these drugs are strictly contraindicated for snoring and sleep apnea!

Disadvantages of this group of funds:

• Rapid development of physical and psychological dependence, possibility of overdose. In this regard, their use for longer than 2-4 weeks is contraindicated.
• Disturbance of the normal sleep structure (ratio of REM and slow sleep phases). Result: painful nightmares, difficult awakening the next morning.

Due to the serious side effects (addiction), GABA receptor agonists are not available without a doctor's prescription.

This group also includes drugs such as zolpidem, zaleplon and zopiclone (Z-group). They are safer, but they are also not sold freely.

• Narcotic-type sleeping pills

These include barbiturates (phenobarbital, thiopental), as well as heterocyclic and aliphatic compounds (chloral hydrate). A narcotic sedative is the most powerful sleeping pill: such drugs are used in medicine to put a patient under anesthesia. The mechanism of action of the drugs is a pronounced inhibitory effect on the nervous system.

Disadvantages of narcotic sleeping pills:

• Development of drug (mental, physical) dependence.
• A slight increase in dose above the therapeutic one leads to the development of coma and other serious toxic effects (they suppress cardiac activity, cause severe bronchospasm, etc.)
• Disturbance of sleep structure.

Narcotic sleeping pills are not available without a doctor's prescription. The main area of ​​their use is the introduction of anesthesia, as well as the relief of seizures.

• Sleeping pills of other groups

This category includes drugs containing the sleep hormone melatonin (Melaxen), drugs that act on H1-histamine receptors (diphenhydramine, donormil), as well as anesthetic drugs (sodium hydroxybutyrate). Melaxen today is one of the best and safest sleep aids that can be officially purchased without a prescription.

What you need to know before you take it

There are certain rules for taking psychoactive drugs that help avoid adverse reactions, as well as create an optimal regimen for use.

How long does it take for sleeping pills to take effect on a person?

Most medications come in tablet form, which means they first pass through the digestive tract and then enter the bloodstream. For this reason, the effect appears no earlier than after 20-30 minutes. In some cases you have to wait up to 1 hour.

Product manufacturers indicate in the instructions when the tablet will begin to act. It is important to understand that a possible delay of 5-10 minutes is associated with the characteristics of your body.

Effect duration

There are separate groups of sleeping pills with different durations of action.

1. Short (3-4 hours). The drugs suppress only irritants without affecting receptors. As a result, natural inhibition of the nervous system begins and the person falls asleep. Herbal sleeping pills have this effect.
2. Medium (5-8 hours). Medicines in this group not only eliminate irritants, but also initiate inhibition of the central nervous system. This leads to an increase in exposure time and eliminates spontaneous awakenings.
3. Long-term (8-10 hours). Medicines strongly inhibit the nervous system, so they help with serious sleep disorders. They eliminate early and night awakenings.

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The most effective drugs

The best remedy for insomnia is the one that does not cause side effects and solves the problem, it varies from person to person. Due to the individual characteristics of the body and health status, it is necessary to be diagnosed in a hospital before starting treatment. Otherwise, what suited your neighbor or friend may not only have no effect on you, but also lead to a number of deviations.

Depending on the degree and nature of sleep disorders, doctors most often prescribe the following remedies, which can be purchased at the pharmacy.

Almost all of these drugs can be easily purchased in Moscow and other cities of Russia and neighboring countries at affordable prices without a prescription. The cost may vary depending on the city and pharmacy chain.

What if sleeping pills don't work?

Medicines may not work at all, for which there are reasons.

• Firstly, regular use of tablets causes addiction to the receptors, and they do not respond to the active components.
• Secondly, they simply do not work for many people, which is due to physiology.
• Thirdly, in case of serious diseases, blocking receptors does not always work. All this suggests that psychoactive substances are not able to solve any problem.

Where to start treating insomnia

It begins with an examination (polysomnography) to identify the causes of insomnia and to exclude sleep apnea. Based on the diagnostic results, therapy is prescribed.

For episodic (up to 1 week) and short-term (1-4 weeks) insomnia, over-the-counter sedatives will help you. If you decide to take medications yourself, you can opt for herbal preparations, but objectively you will achieve the best effect from taking Melaxen.

Drug therapy must be prescribed in combination with sleep hygiene, which is even more important than the medications themselves. It can be supplemented with physiotherapy, psychotherapy and other methods. You can read about how insomnia is treated at the Sleep Medicine Center at the Rehabilitation Clinic in Khamovniki here.

Your insomnia lasts longer than 4 weeks, and neither sleep hygiene, nor sedative herbs, nor Melaxen and similar remedies help you? The situation is serious. To restore sleep, you need to consult a doctor and, possibly, Dr. Buzunov’s cognitive behavioral therapy program for insomnia. To make an appointment with a somnologist at the Sleep Medicine Center at the Rehabilitation Clinic in Khamovniki, call: +7.

How to neutralize the effect of sleeping pills?

All drugs affect receptors inside the brain, increasing or decreasing their sensitivity. Neutralization requires substances that will affect the same receptors, but their effect will be the opposite.

Let us clarify that caffeine-based products are not suitable for these purposes, so do not use them under any circumstances. Coffee, tea or energy drinks will lead to serious disruptions in the functioning of the central nervous system and brain.

In case of drug poisoning, it is necessary to artificially induce vomiting and drink absorbents. Next, you should drink a lot of clean water at room temperature to speed up the elimination of substances.

If you need to cancel the effect of a sleeping pill, then you can’t do without injections. Flumazenil is administered intravenously at a dose of 1.5-15. It blocks the increased sensitivity of GABA receptors. The higher the dose, the stronger the effect. It is important to introduce the drug gradually.

Features of use in children and the elderly

The hypnotic effect manifests itself differently in people of different ages, so children and elderly citizens need special medications.

For children

In babies under 6 months of age, problems with falling asleep are caused by age-related characteristics. There are only two diseases for which sleeping pills are necessarily prescribed - cerebral hydrocephalus and postnatal encephalopathy. In all other cases, herbal decoctions (chamomile, mint, lemon balm, motherwort) or special mixtures with tryptophan are used. This is an amino acid that helps you sleep without any harm to the body.

At the age of 6 months to 1 year, the sedative medicine “Pantogam” is used. It improves blood flow to the brain and also does not cause negative effects. Prescribed exclusively for disorders of the nervous system.

Preschool children (2-5 years old) are given homeopathic medicines that normalize blood circulation and improve the functioning of brain cells. They help with stuttering and enuresis. The doctor may prescribe magnesium B6, the lack of which prevents the baby from falling asleep.

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Children under 14 years of age should not be given medications containing strong chemicals. Only mild sedatives and soothing teas are used.

For the elderly

The main feature of the body of older people is a slow metabolism. For this reason, the period of elimination of medications increases, which requires a dose reduction. Another important problem is early awakening, which makes herbal preparations useless.

In old age, it is dangerous to take pills whose active ingredients are barbiturates. They cause respiratory arrest during sleep, and the “side effects” appear many times more often. Also, tranquilizers should not be used, as they contribute to central nervous system dysfunction.

Doctors, as a rule, prescribe hormonal medications or those that block histamine receptors. The first option supplies the body with melatonin, which causes drowsiness. The second allows you to fall asleep in the presence of pain of varying severity or emotional disorders.

Reviews

Lydia: “Insomnia overtook me after 40, when serious problems with the gastrointestinal tract began. “Novopassit” helped - a mild, fast-acting remedy that helped me fall asleep within half an hour. Now there are no such problems, but at one time the drops made my life much easier.”

Olga: “When I was divorcing my husband, I was under terrible stress and I was prescribed Amitriptyline and Eglonil (antidepressants and tranquilizers). After 2 months of taking it, I managed to overcome not only apathy, but also insomnia. But they slow down consciousness and constantly make you sleepy.”

Irina: “I often suffer from problems with sleep, but I haven’t gotten around to taking pills yet. Herbal teas help more or less. But chemistry will show itself sooner or later, so it’s better not to get carried away with such treatment for insomnia.”

Choosing the right sleeping pills

Before choosing and purchasing medications, you must visit a doctor. This should be done not only to obtain a prescription, but also to make an accurate diagnosis. In the absence of diseases, there is no point in using strong sedatives, as they quickly lead to addiction. And if you have chronic insomnia, then such treatment will lead to addiction rather than solving the problem.

In fact, the choice is between natural and artificial sleeping pills. Natural ones will help with nervous overexcitation, and will not affect reactions (driving, dangerous work). They can be taken without fear of developing addiction. However, the effect is limited to calming, so they are not able to help sleep in severe disorders.

Artificially based drugs “turn off” the interaction between the central nervous system and the outside world. This allows you to solve any problem, but only for a short period of time. They should be used only during treatment of the disease that caused insomnia.

If problems with the regime are caused by flights, work or training, as well as emotional stress, then it is better to stop at the hormonal drug Melaxen. It is an artificial analogue of melatonin, which helps improve the functioning of the nervous system and brain in the shortest possible time. The body produces it after dark, which signals the need for rest.

In case of serious sleep problems, Sanval based on zolpidem is used. This is a strong remedy that has a minimum of side effects, but can be addictive.

People's help

In some cases, it is better to use home treatment methods and prepare a sedative yourself.

• Grind the valerian root, pour boiling water over it, and leave to steep for 7-8 hours. Filter and drink 1-3 times a day.
• 1 tsp. Pour a glass of boiling water over dried oregano flowers and leave for 30 minutes. After straining, take 1/3 cup three times a day.
• Brew herbal teas with mint, lemon balm, chamomile, desert, elderberry.

Each natural remedy has a beneficial effect on the body, helping to relieve tension and irritability.

In addition to internal intake, herbal baths and aromatherapy are useful for sound sleep.

Regardless of age, if you have insomnia and other disorders, it is useful to develop several habits:

• sleep less during the day;
• regulate nutrition;
• to live an active lifestyle;
• go to bed at the same time;
• do not drink alcohol before bedtime;
• provide a comfortable environment in the bedroom;
• Don't go to bed irritated.

Sometimes alternative methods are enough to overcome the symptoms of insomnia. If all the manipulations do not make it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep, you should consult a doctor. So, insomnia is a frequent guest that comes uninvited. But you don’t always need to resort to strong sleeping pills to get rid of it.

Most modern drugs have a strong effect and, if treated negligently, can undermine health. Therefore, the fight against insomnia should be carried out under the supervision of a doctor, who, in parallel with eliminating insomnia, will prescribe treatment for the root cause that provoked it.

Over-the-counter medications

1. "Melaxen";
2. "Donormil";
3. "Sonmil";
4. "Dormiplant";
5. "Persen";
6. "Phenazepam";
7. "Novo-Passit";
8. "Sonylux";
9. "Phytosedan";
10. "Glycine".

Insomnia is an indicator of problems, so you need to take this symptom seriously. The drugs discussed are exclusively symptomatic medications that do not solve the problem and do not eliminate the cause. It should be remembered that the active compounds can cause allergies, so preliminary tolerability tests will not hurt.

Which doctor will bring back sleep?

If a person is seriously concerned about a sleep disorder, he or she should contact a somnologist. He must find the root cause of the problem and, if necessary, refer to another specialist. The main type of diagnosis is polysomnography. This is a comprehensive sleep study that records the characteristics of breathing, heartbeat, and bioelectrical activity of the patient’s brain in a sleepy state. The procedure is usually performed in a clinical sleep laboratory.

Polysomnography reliably detects sleep apnea, in which the patient is suffocating and cannot sleep. The procedure allows you to determine heart rhythm disorder syndrome, in which a person wakes up with a heartbeat that is elevated to 150-160 beats per minute. Then he is sent to a cardiologist, and then usually to a surgeon.

Older people often suffer from disturbances in the perception of sleep, when insomnia itself may not exist. Often the patient claims that he has not slept a minute for many years. When the sleep of such a person is studied in detail in the laboratory, it usually turns out that he sleeps superficially, with frequent awakenings, but sleeps through his 6-7 hours a day.