One thing that gets me is how many people choose brand names or marketing messages over reading the active ingredients on OTC (Over The Counter - non-prescription) medications.
Like most people, I occasionally need a little help getting to sleep. And while you can get a sleep aid at the local pharmacy for 15-30 cents a pill, I get the same stuff for around 3 cents a pill because of one thing... I read the labels.
See the active ingredient in most OTC sleep aids is Diphenhydramine, better known by its brand name, Benadryl. You know how allergy medicine makes you drowsy? Well, so do the companies that make the sleeping pills that line the shelves of your local pharmacies. Almost every OTC sleeping pill (aside from herbal or homeopathic ones) uses allergy medicine as its active ingredient.
About 90% use Diphenhydramine... Nytol, Sominex, Tylenol Simply Sleep... They're all just Benadryl with a different name. Really. The active ingredients are exactly the same. Tylenol PM is merely a combo of Benadryl and Tylenol.
Let's run some numbers. At Drugstore.com they sell a box of 32 Nytol Quick caps for $6.99. That's 21.8 cents a pill. For the Rite Aid generic sleep tablets, providing the exact same amount of Benadryl, it's 72 pills for $4.19. That's 5.8 cents a pill. Or, if you want to break it down in different terms, the Rite Aid generic tabs give you 20 more doses of the exact same medicine, plus you save $2.70 to boot.
But if you buy it as a sleep aid, they tag a premium onto it. Drugstore.com is selling 72 "sleep aid" tabs for $4.19 on sale, but they've got 200 "allergy" tabs on sale for $6.49, or just a little over 3 cents each.
Think about it... the name-brand sleep aid is close to 22 cents a pill. The generic allergy tablet is around 3 cents a pill. But both pills contain the exact same medicine in the exact same amount. Why are you paying more than 6 times as much per dose to buy the Nytol?
To an extent, part of the effect of any drug is psychological, a placebo effect. If you believe the Nytol will work better than the generic allergy tab, it may well work better. But if you believe that Benadryl is Benadryl, no matter what name you give it or whether you say it's for allergy relief or sleep, then there's no reason to spend $43.60 on Nytol to get the same amount of medicine you get in a $6.49 bottle of generic allergy medicine.
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Try l-tryptophan or 5-HTP, both available at supplement stores. For more effectiveness, combine it with 500 mg of non-time release niacin and some melatonin under the tongue.
GABA can also help you get to sleep.
Antihistamines may make you drowsy, but you'll feel groggy the next day, and as they are anticholinergic, your memory will suffer so you'll find it harder to learn.
For most people, mild insomnia is a simple issue: Melatonin production.
Artificial light into the night hours prevents your body from converting serotonin to melatonin. Caffeine also interferes with melatonin production.
So... Maybe it's not exactly practical (or even possible) to get a dark environment at 8:00 or 9:00pm.
The good news is that you can buy melatonin for $10 per bottle at just about any store.
Its effect is a bit more subtle than a sleep aid, in that it doesn't *put* you to sleep or make you tired, any more than just being awake all day will do that. But it'll make you stay asleep once you get there.
I use it, and it's been exactly what I need. I like the Natrol time-release 3mg that I found at Albertsons.
I have had excellent luck with an herbal sleep aid called "Sleepy Bear". It is a combination of herbs that are known to help the body relax and fall asleep. The OTC stuff makes me so groggy. With this new product I feel really refreshed when I wake up...no drowsiness.