Over The Counter Sleep Aids – Do They Work?
Many people are looking in to over the counter sleep aids as a resolution for their sleeping problems. Always the cure is not found from medication and to treat these conditions you should always try to find the reason that is causing you to have these problems, but in short term cases sleeping aids can definitely be helpful. If you know the reason and you know that using a sleep aid is the only solution, then you can find multiple different products without going to the doctors.
Many people are looking in to the most popular product on the market, and that is melatonin. It is a chemical that is produced by a specific part in our brain, and the lack of it can cause sleeping problems. This is because it has control over the rhythms that we have in our body, and when your body is supposed to go asleep, the production of melatonin is at its highest. When you wake up you are not producing any melatonin but instead you have a huge spike in the production of different hormones that are called corticosteroids. These include such as cortisol, and they wake your body up and consume it’s energy sources – also they relief severe allergic reactions.
One common over the counter sleep aid is called diphenhydramine that is actually an allergy medicine. Our brain has multiple different ways it causes us to be awake, and how it makes us sleep. Histamin has a great effect on the vitality of the brain and since anti-histamins cause the histamin to be ineffective, it will make us feel tired. Most of the modern anti-histamins do not make your sleepy and for that reason they can not be used as over the counter sleep aids. This is because they can not go through the blood brain barrier which is protecting our brain from harmful chemicals. One well known allergy medicine that contains diphenhydramine is Benadryl, and a few popular sleep aids that contain it are Tylenon and Nytol.
Usually the allergy medication that is been used as over the counter sleep aids, are quite powerful, and are mostly used to treat severe reactions like anafylaxia. This might just be the reason why they also have a significant effect on the vitality of the cortex and with that the vitality of the individual – making him or her sleep easier or feel tired. If you are about to use any sleep medication – prescription or no – you should consult your doctor first.
