Sleeping problems have become increasingly common. In our busy world, it can be difficult to wind-down enough to get good sleep, especially if a person has do deal with stressful situations the next day. These rising sleeping problems have caused a huge rise in sleeping pill consumption – a rise that might be dangerous.

Sleeping pills prescription have become incredibly popular and common. Research shows that a quarter of Americans take some form of sleeping aid, usually in pill form. According to BioMarket, $2 billion dollars was spent worldwide on the most popular pill for sleeping – Ambien – in the year 2004.  The number of adults using pills to help them sleep in 2000 has doubled in the year 2004, says Medco Health Solutions.

Yet National Institutes of Health documents show that the same amount of Americans (70 million) had sleep problems in 1994 and 2006. Consequently, there is no research to show that sleep problems are on the rise. It would appear that either people are taking prescription sleeping pills that don’t need them, or that the sleeping pills are not helping with sleeping problems.

Frighteningly, sleeping pills have been noted to have some unhealthy physical side effects. Psychiatry professor Daniel Kripke from the University of California performed a study of more than a million adults over the course of six years and found that individuals who take sleeping pills every night have a larger risk of death than those that only take them once in a while. Still, occasional usage increases the risk of death by 10 to 15 percent compared to those that don’t take them at all. In his book, “The Dark Side of Sleeping Pills,” Kripke wrote that pills are unsafe even in small amounts. He claims that taking sleeping pills every night is about the same risk-wise as smoking a pack of cigarettes every day.

Sleeping pills can have short-term side-effects as well as long-term ones. They have a tendency to stay in the bloodstream, particularly when a person takes them repeatedly for a long time. The sleeping pills can cause memory problems and decreases in brain functionality, hindering a person’s daily performance.

The British Medical Journal published a study that showed sleeping pills increased incidents of falling or car accidents in people over 60. The study concluded that the risks of the pills outweighed the benefits. Sleeping pills have also been found to cause amnesia and sleep walking.

Insomniacs and others struggling with sleep problems and disorders are advised to either reduce or eliminate prescription sleeping pill usage, but this is no cause for them to worry. Harvard Medical Schools and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center found through a study that pills were not as effective in treating sleeping problems as getting rid of bad sleeping habits. In fact, changing bad sleeping habits has been found to have better shot-term effects as well as better long-term effects than sleeping pills.

If you or someone you know struggles with sleeping, it’s a good idea to go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day in order to establish a healthy schedule. It’s also helpful to only spend time in bed sleeping, as oppose to watching TV, reading, paying bills, etc., and to only go to bed once you’re tired, instead of trying to force yourself to sleep.