StayBetter Seeks to Wake People Up to the Reality of Using Sleep-Aid Drugs

On Thursday, the National Center on Sleep Disorder Research stated that sleep disorders are one of the greatest plagues of Americans' health, affecting anywhere from 50 to 70 million sufferers. As a result, the market for pharmaceutical sleep aides like Ambien, Lunesta and Rozerem has exploded into a multibillion dollar industry.

Unfortunately, says the Center, the effects of long term or high dose usage can lead to additional health problems that range from high blood pressure, dizziness, nausea and depression to more dangerous behavioral disorders such as sleepwalking, binge eating, or flagrant inappropriate behavior.

Furthermore, the Center asserts that sleeping pills only fight the symptoms of a sleep disorder but do little to fight the root cause, which is usually a lifestyle problem such as excessive multitasking, being stressed out, not getting enough exercise, a poor diet, or the abuse of alcohol.

The pills induce a hypnotic state similar to heavy alcohol consumption and like alcohol can induce hangover effects. The pills reduce brain cell activity, adversely effect short-term memory, and lower the immune system's ability to fight disease. And, perhaps most insidious of all, their effects tend to wear off after several weeks of continued use, leading to the need for stronger dosages which, in turn, leads to addiction. Long term use can also lead to persistent dizziness or depression.

People who use sleeping pills are in fact notorious for becoming totally addicted to the pharmaceuticals, even if they eventually do come to sleep better. They start using the drugs merely because they had a bad day or to get an easy, liquor-like buzz.

Pharmaceutical companies continue their relentless pursuit of the perfect sleeping pill, with some recent claims being made that there are now pills that actually increase memory retention or specifically target the nervous system in such a way so as to induce the REM sleep that is needed by the mind and body, probably because it is in REM sleep-the deep or "sound" sleep-where permanent long-term memories become solidified in the brain. However, these claims to "perfection" seem to be based mainly on animal testing, which is notoriously inaccurate in its predictive qualities when animals like mice are seen as models of human beings, which they aren't.

Health experts have been troubled for some time that Westerners, most especially Americans, tend to want to rely on the development of pills to cure their ills, something which typically fails in the long run as the true, complex cause of an ailment, especially an emotional or psychological one, remains in a person's life, undermining whatever ultimately limited effects the drug has and leading to addiction or new health problems caused by the drugs' side-effects.

"As a society we are playing a dangerous game by consuming more and more of these drugs each year. There are natural solutions to sleep disorders that are very effective and completely safe. We formed StayBetter to let people know there are non-narcotic solutions to most health problems, sleep disorders among them...Alternative care, whether chiropractic, acupuncture, massage therapy or nutrition has been incredibly successful in treating almost every kind of sleep disorder because it always focuses on the source of the disorder," says Art Francis, DC, an Orange County Chiropractor and Co-Founder of StayBetter.com, a natural wellness information website.

Source:
StayBetter, LLC (PR Newswire), "Sleep Disorders: Waking Up to Reality"