Are Sleep Aid Tablets Addictive?

If you have had trouble sleeping and it has been problematic enough to make you consider (or actually take) a sleeping tablet or supplement, you may have wondered whether you were in danger of getting addicted to your sleep aid. In this blog from Energy By Science, we’d like to explore this question and provide some common-sense guidance. If you’re like most people, you want to protect yourself from an unhealthy dependence on a substance, yet you don’t have the luxury of doing nothing — or you’ll be stuck lying awake at night. When sleeplessness at night cuts into your productivity during the day, how do you balance your need for sweet sleep with your commitment not to let yourself get sucked into an unhealthy cycle where you need more and more and more of something in order to get the same results?

The Most Addictive: Prescription Sleep Pills

There’s a reason that prescription drugs are controlled substances. It’s because they create a dependency or an addiction to one or more of their ingredients. If you are taking prescription sleeping pills, you should be aware of their short-term and long-term side effects. If you are not taking any prescription sleep aids yet, know that they are safe in that the FDA has approved them, but that YOU might not be safe from getting addicted to them or from their side effects.

In the Middle: Over-the-Counter Sleep Aids

Most over-the-counter sleep aids use antihistamines as a sedative. If you’ve ever taken allergy medication to reduce symptoms like itching, runny nose, and sneezing, you’re probably already familiar with antihistamines, but they also tend to make people drowsy, which resulted in them being approved for over-the-counter sleeping medication.

Antihistamines bind to histamine receptors in your cells and prevent histamine from binding to those sites (which is what would normally happen). The reason why they make you drowsy is because they can cross the blood-brain barrier, where they interact with your brain.

It’s a known fact that the body builds up a gradual resistance to antihistamines, meaning that you’ll have to take greater and greater quantities to see the same effect. However, they are not “addictive” in the sense that they do not create a true chemical dependence on the body.

There is also the probability of developing a psychological dependence on your over-the-counter sleep aid. A psychological dependence is one where your body is not physically or chemically addicted, but you still experience trouble sleeping if you try to wean yourself off the tablets, making you not want to stop taking them.

The Best Option: Natural Sleeping Tablets

The natural sleeping tablets from Energy By Science are based on the science of how our bodies go to sleep, and they provide a boost of the same exact natural ingredients that your body itself produces in order to initiate the sleep cycle and help you to stay asleep. When you give your body the elements it needs, it both lets you fall asleep and keeps you sleeping peacefully.

If you haven’t tried natural sleeping tablets before, you shouldn’t expect them to feel the same as a typical sedative that knocks you out. Instead, you’ll feel much closer to the natural rhythm of falling asleep peacefully, and you’ll wake up rested and less groggy.

Buy your natural sleep aid today from Energy By Science.