Over the Counter Sleeping Aids: Your Best Options
There are lots of different reasons that a person might want to purchase over the counter sleeping aids. Some people are just chronic insomniacs, who lay in bed for hours every night because they just can’t seem to get to sleep. Others are frequent travelers, and need a way to reorient their sleep schedules after suffering from jet lag. Others might be suffering from some sort of pain that prevents them from sleeping normally.
Which sleeping aid to buy can be confusing!
We have researched the best OTC sleeping aids for you:
The results are here
Whatever the reason is for needing sleep aids, it can be a hassle to have to get a prescription from a doctor for them. Maybe you don’t have a chronic sleeping problem, but just really need to get to some sleep before a big day tomorrow. The only real option then is something that you can get over the counter. There are many different brand-name and store-brand versions of sleeping pills available at drug stores and department store pharmacies.
Which to choose?
There are basically just two options when it comes to over the counter sleeping aids. You have your antihistamines, and you have your herbal-based aids. Antihistamines work by affecting your central nervous system, making it slow down and thus causing you to feel drowsy. It is the same sort of medication used for many anti-allergy medications, which is why some of those cause drowsiness.
For herbal remedies, few people really understand how or why they work, but many people swear by them. Some of the herbs used in herbal sleep aids include passionflower, chamomile, and valerian root.
The big concerns for most people when it comes to sleep aids are a) does it actually work, and b) does it leave you overly drowsy the next day? A lot of antihistamines have this problem – they seem to dwell in the system for a very long time. It is as if they work too well, leaving people struggling to get out of bed when they do wake up.
Most people will tell you that the antihistamine-based over the counter sleeping aids work well, but they aren’t without their problems. They are the biggest culprits when it comes to people feeling drowsy the next day. Another problem that can crop up with these sleeping aids is that people eventually can become dependent on them, and unable to sleep without them. That problem is then made worse because the body grows used to the pills and so it takes more and more of them to get the same effect.
As far as herbal sleeping aids are concerned, the results are often mixed. For the same product, you may find one person saying it works wonders, and another saying it doesn’t work at all. It’s hard to tell if some of these claims might be based on the placebo effect.
For isolated uses, sleeping aids with antihistamines are probably the best bet. You can at least be sure they’ll work most of the time. Try to take them early so you aren’t drowsy late into the next day. Also, if you have long-term problems sleeping, you should contact a doctor for a more permanent solution.
