Regular forum readers know how hard I am on "woo woo" medicine posts. But I've been hard on unnecessary neck dissections, mandatory PEGs, failure to do TSH test before TX and other "western medicine" issues. Today's Wall Street Journal had an excellent article on sleeping pills and the placebo effect.
Since I'm a subscriber, my links go thru a pay wall and don't work here so I'll excerpt it
[quote]About 60 million prescriptions for sleeping pills were filled in the US last year....Yet a number of studies have shown that drugs like Ambien and Lunesta offer no significant improvements in the quality of users sleep....patients taking popular prescription sleeping pills fell asleep just 13 minutes faster than those given a sugar pill. They slept for a grand total of 11 minutes longer. People seem to overestimate the effectiveness of sleeping pills partly because of the placebo effect and partly because some of these pills cause short-term memory loss that leaves people believing they got better sleep than they actually did- they just don't remember all their tossing and turning. [/quote]
NIH has a series of studies saying the same.
Charm

Charm -

That article is outside the paywall, so available for all.

leslie

Thank you. Unless I delete my WSJ sign in cookies, I can't tell from my computer which article WSJ has decided to be generous with sharing. . There were lots of other interesting stuff in that article like "first sleep" and "second sleep" before we had artificial lights so your posting that link will let everybody enjoy it. Thanks again
Charm

Great article!! The "first sleep" and "second sleep" mention really made me feel a whole lot better because this is exactly what is happening to me! I fall asleep early and wake up 3 or 4 hours later. Then I'm awake - so I usually either check OCF to see who else is awake and then I'll read or play scrabble or solitaire on my iPhone. After that I'm sleepy enough to go back to sleep. I guess I'm just living in the pre-electricity days. Woo too! So now I don't have to listen to all those people on TV telling me I have to get 8 hrs of continuous sleep!

The only time I really feel rested is when we go camping - I guess there's something else than just 'vacation' going on. Thanks for the links!
Maria

Thanks for this article. I have had sleep difficulties since my initial cancer diagnosis in 2005. Prior to that I was a great sleeper and often took advantage of the first sleep/second sleep awakening to journal, read, enjoy the stars. A book that I highly recommend for those who have sleep problems is "Healing Night" by Rubin Naiman, Ph.D. While it offers practical guidance for good sleep hygiene, it also explores the science of sleeping and dreaming.