By Ron Soderquist, PhD

Click here to contact Ron and/or see his GoodTherapy.org Profile

This is what we hear from people who call our clinic:

“I am exhausted. It takes me hours to fall asleep, and then I wake up and can’t get back to sleep. I can’t shut down my racing mind. I am so groggy the next day, I’m afraid I’ll mess up at work. I am miserable to live with. I am desperate! Then I see those ads for Ambien and Lunesta and I get e-mail coupon offers to take to my doctor. The couple in the ad sleeps 8 hours and wakes up feeling wonderful. I don’t like being dependent on drugs, but what other choice do I have? I can’t go on like this. Besides they assure me it’s safe and there’s a one-week free trial.”

It’s not surprising doctors wrote some 49 million prescriptions for sleep drugs last year. The trend has been for doctors to prescribe more and more drugs for sleeplessness every year.

Are you desperate to get some sleep? What are the three issues drug companies don’t want you to think about?

The first issue drug companies don’t want you to think about is that through their massive spending on advertising, they have programmed you to think that the only way you will solve sleeplessness is by taking drugs. Over a two-year period (2005-2006) Sanofi-Aventis spent $350 million to advertise Ambien and AmbienCR, Sepracor spent more than $500 million to market Lunesta and Takeda (which makes Rozerem) spent $100 million. Is it any wonder so many people and doctors are convinced drugs are the only solution for insomnia? University of Minnesota’s Dr. Mahowald said, “I personally think the extent of advertising [for sleep drugs] has just been unconscionable.”

The second issue drug companies don’t want you think about when you are desperate to sleep is the danger inherent to taking sleep medications. While drug companies do disclose the known risks, this message is secondary to their sales pitch. One might say the risks stay in small print. Besides, when you are exhausted and desperate for sleep, it isn’t easy to read the small print, nor are you interested in potential side effects when you are desperate for sleep. And who has time to research warnings by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA)?

A recent (March 15, 2007) New York Times article describes how its reporters and others prodded the FDA to look into complaints by users of Ambien, the most widely prescribed sleeping drug.

“Complaints included sleepwalking, hallucinations, violent outbursts, nocturnal binge eating and — most troubling of all, alcohol-driving while asleep [yes, you heard it right … read on]. Night eaters said they woke up to find Tostitos and Snickers wrappers in their beds, missing food, kitchen counters overflowing with flour from baking sprees and even lighted stoves. Sleep-drivers reported frightening episodes in which they recalled being in bed, but woke up to find they had been arrested roadside in their underwear or nightclothes. A forensic toxicologist in Wisconsin, Laura J. Liddicoat, gave a presentation at a national meeting on six instances of Ambien-impaired driving.”

“There’s a false sense of security,” adds Michael Negrete, chief executive of the Pharmacy Foundation of California. “They think, ‘I see it on TV all the time. All my friends are taking it.’ People need to understand that no matter how many times they see a drug on TV, these are dangerous medications.”

With the wrong combination of pharmaceuticals, over-the-counter drugs, herbal preparations or alcohol, anyone can concoct a Macbeth’s cauldron of “double, double, toil and trouble.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that unintentional poisoning deaths increased from 12,166 in 1999 to 20,950 in 2004. In what should be a wake-up call to doctors and patients alike, 95 percent were drug overdoses.

One of our own patients, Mindy Rose, didn’t need to read about side effects, she lived them! After successfully learning to sleep without drugs, Mindy gave permission to share her story with its “YIKES” factor.

“I am so thankful to be free of Ambien! No more embarrassing moments of talking to my sons late at night when I was incoherent, and they would say to me, ‘Mom, you need to find something else to help you sleep!’ Or ordering a piece of exercise equipment (not once or twice, but three times on an infomercial in the wee hours of the morning … and have no recollection of doing so (but when your e-mail, password and credit card and security code matches … and then something triggers the memory it did indeed happen … YIKES! I even had my husband lock our bedroom door and I would still get up after I had taken the Ambien and wander the house! It is a scary feeling to know that a medication can so greatly alter your mental capacities. I am so thankful that my brain no longer needs a sleeping agent of any kind to get to sleep! My husband and sons are also very happy that I no longer take Ambien!”

Another patient exclaimed, “When I came downstairs in the morning, I was shocked to discover I had rearranged the living room furniture sometime during the night.” Yet another reported her surprise at receiving a vacuum cleaner which she had ordered off the Internet in the middle of the night while “asleep,” after taking Ambien.

How real are the dangers?
While drug companies assure us sleep driving is rare, scores of cases have been reported. According to Dr. Greg Thompson, associate professor at USC’s School of Pharmacy, sleep driving is not even the worst danger.

“The newer generation of prescription sleep drugs interacts horribly with alcohol or Xanax. The way accidental deaths occur is usually with a combination of pills and alcohol. And the interaction is more than addictive. If you drink a martini and then have another martini, you’ve had two martinis, but if you take a sleeping pill and then have a martini, you may have taken the equivalent of four martinis,” according to an article in the Los Angeles Times’ Feb. 4, 2008, issue.

What is the third issue drug companies don’t want you to know about? The typical cause of sleeplessness is the “racing mind.” In other words, your thoughts and worries flood your brain, and you feel powerless to stop them. Drug companies don’t want you to know there is a drug-free way to control your racing mind.

You may ask, “If doctors know there is a drug-free way to calm the racing mind, why are they still writing 49 million sleep drug prescriptions a year?” Sharon Begley, Wall Street Journal Science Editor, in her fascinating book, Train Your Mind — Change Your Brain, makes this point:

“Until very recently, medical scientists believed the brain was hard-wired and unchangeable. Therefore the only way to calm the agitated brain circuits was to use drugs! You couldn’t get at the brain circuits any other way. Therefore those agitated worrisome thoughts keeping you awake couldn’t be controlled except through drugs.”

Fortunately, according to Begley, new research contradicts the old beliefs and instead holds that, “The brain is malleable; the brain circuitry is plastic.” For example, Jeffrey Schwartz, MD, in his book, The Mind and the Brain, describes convincing research which can be summarized by one brief statement: “Skills instead of pills.” We have adopted this motto at our own treatment center.

Your doctor will be happy to know about drug-free solutions for insomnia. Instead of taking coupons for a week’s supply of sleeping pills, take information to your doctor about drug-free solutions. Many doctors enjoy learning better ways to help their patients. There are several effective drug-free treatments for insomnia available that have been thoroughly researched. This is not what has been derisively referred to as “talk therapy.” “Brain training” better describes the process, which can be quickly taught, and when learned, empowering to the patient.

To find a “brain training” specialist, Google “mindfulness integrated cognitive behavior therapy,” or “cognitive-behavioral therapy” or try the website www.sleepnopills.com, which applies an integrative approach and adds NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming).

Now you know the three issues drug companies don’t want you to think about: the excessive marketing budgets that encourage you to seek a drug solution to sleeplessness, the dangers of these drugs and that there are drug-free methods to calm the mind and get a good night’s sleep without drugs. So take heed and find the alternative that’s right for you!

©Copyright 2008 by Ron Soderquist, PhD. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Ron and/or see his GoodTherapy.org Profile