By the way, doctor: Are sleeping pills addictive?
But as a geriatrician, I don’t worry as much about dependence and rebound as I do side effects. Sleeping pills — especially the longer-acting benzodiazepines like diazepam (Valium) and flurazepam (Dalmane) — linger in the body, so people feel drowsy and “out of it” during the day. Drowsiness, particularly among older people, causes falls and accidents. Shorter-acting sleeping pills were developed to avoid this problem, but in my experience, some people develop a tolerance for them, so they wind up taking more pills to get the same sleep-inducing effect and daytime sleepiness still is a problem.
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