Problems With Sleep

By Author: Steven Johnson
Total Articles: 494
Comment this article

As a nation, it seems we pop more pills than all the other developed countries. The people who count things release the number of prescriptions written each year, and painkillers and sleeping pills are always racing ahead of the field for that Number 1 spot. It's strange we should find sleep a problem — that's not just falling asleep, it's also staying asleep long enough to feel the benefit the next morning. Why should something that comes so naturally as young children become so difficult for some as they grow older? The answers are long and complicated, varying with changes in lifestyles and habits to the places where we live becoming more noisy. One thing is clear. Sleeping pills are now an integral part of our culture.

You will see references to them wherever you look, whether as ads on TV or the media, or as throw-away lines. For example, when Lacey was kicked out of American Idol, her performance of Ruby Tuesday was promoted as a safer alternative to sleeping pills. And that's before we get to the high-powered celebrities like Tiger Woods. Here's a man who has proved to be a walking-encyclopedia on addiction. ...
... No longer the tame, clean-living golfing hero, he's the sex addict with multiple mistresses in every town on the professional tour. Perhaps we should not have been surprised. Top male sporting stars have always had to walk the gauntlet of women offering their services. The PR surrounding Woods seemed to suggest he rose above the temptations. As it is, he's had to book into sex therapy to try to rescue his marriage. More to the taste of the gossip-mongers was the news that many of his sessions with these mistresses were enhanced by the use of drugs. Contrary to expectations, it seems Woods found sex more exciting when he was fighting the effects of sleeping pills. Many ordinary people reach the climax, ejaculate and then fall asleep. Woods was racing to get to the climax before he fell asleep. That really would make for crazy sex. In any event, he's now in rehab for addiction to sleeping pills and painkillers. With all this therapy and no practice, it's surprising he's announced he's going to start playing again. Going cold turkey on the golf course in front of the TV cameras will make for exciting viewing.

All this should be a kind of warning to us all. In a sensible society, we would not be discussing whether you really do get crazy sex when you take ambien and then get into action. It's faintly perverse to believe a drug designed to send you to sleep enhances your experiences if you fight it to stay awake. It's far better to discuss why our society has become addicted to sleeping pills. What does it say about our lifestyles and the levels of stress we have to endure, if the majority of people who live and work in this country have to rely on medication to get to sleep? The statistics collected on the national economy show increasingly poor levels of productivity. Looking around the workplaces every morning gives you one of the reasons why. People come into work looking and acting like the living dead. Even when ambien is introduced into the equation, there's only some improvement. The sleep induced by pills is not natural sleep. It does not refresh in the same way as natural sleep. As a short-term measure, ambien is great. If insomnia persists, you should get a different type of help to overcome the problem.