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Ambien (Zolpidem)

Almost invariably, certain mental-health disorders are accompanied by insomnia. In the majority of cases, those people suffering from anxiety and panic attacks end up lying in their bed with their eyes opened all night long. Ambien (also sold under the generic name zolpidem) is a fast-acting non-benzodiazepine hypnotic that is popularly prescribed for the above conditions.

However effective for saving you from sleepless nights, Ambien still has not been developed to remove the root cause of insomnia. Moreover, its use in the management of panic and anxiety is limited and to aconsiderable extent dictated by its compatibility with the patient’s organism.

Connection Between Insomnia and Mental Health

Insomnia is defined as an inability to fall asleep (onset insomnia) or stay asleep (middle-of-the-night insomnia or early awakening). According to the HMHL, from 50 % to 80 % of people with psychiatric disorders, hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and bipolar disorder also suffer from lack of natural sleep.

This runs counter to public opinion as most people believe that bad sleep is just a nuisance that could be dealt with at once. Surveys show that the predominant number of insomniacs try to alleviate the issue rather than having their condition properly examined.

Anxiety as a Source of Panic Attacks

In naturally occurring stressful situations, anxiety is a powerful stimulator that drives your body until dangerous or stringent conditions are left behind. If anxiety visits with you at inappropriate times andstays fortoo long, it may itself become a stressful factor that destroys your health.

Abnormal states of anxiety may develop into panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and/or social phobias.

Two different etiologies include genetically predisposed clinical anxiety (e.g. GAD) and conditions mediated by traumatic experiences (e.g. PTSD). In the USA, around 40 million of adult anxiety sufferers go to hospitals on a yearly basis.

Clinical experts claim that the occurrence of anxiety and similar disorders in adult females is 60 % higher as compared to adult males.

Treatment for Anxiety and Insomnia in one bottle

Regular sleeplessness is considered an alarming sign and almost always requires medical intervention. While occasional night disturbances and sleeping cycle disbalance can be returned back to normal through behavioral changes, clinical insomnia is a severe and harassing disorder. In this case, neuroleptics often are the only option left; it is not uncommon to see those drugs accompanied by antidepressants and anti-anxiety agents.

Officially, there is no clinical data that would indicate anxiolytic properties of Ambien. On the other hand, Ambien’s mechanism of action implies a strong sedative effect – therefore, anxiety symptoms tend to decline in Ambien patients who get a full night’s rest.

In other respects, Ambien resembles the typical effect of benzodiazepines, which is just too short to offer a proper anxiety treatment.

Another issue that decreases the possible anxiolytic benefit of zolpidem is a fast-built tolerance. Ambien may appear to you perfectly straightforward at the beginning – it hits the target in less than 30 minutes after you ingest it.

This is followed by a deep 7–8-hour sleep; however, those things are about to change within the course of a single month.

One of the biggest mistakes is to try increasing the dose, as this results in drug dependence and, consequently, withdrawal. Your doctor should provide you with clear instructions, and it is in your health’s best interests that you follow them closely.

Anti-insomnia Mechanism of Ambien

Most people taking Ambien report that it has a swift action and sometimes causes increasing drowsiness even before you go to bed. Ideally, the drug should put an insomnia sufferer to sleep in the shortest possible time interval. Late onset of the effect makes for a worse awakening with the feeling of drowsiness and feebleness haunting you all day long. Still, even in case of undesirable prolonged effect, Ambien meets its purpose, providing insomniacs a deep and regenerative sleep.

Two variations of Ambien on the market were created to approach sleep disorders from different sides. Tablets of plain Ambien are designed to provide a rapid effect and avoid overlong sleep latency. The medicine provokes muscle relaxation and calms you down, ensuring a full night’s rest. The pills, known as Ambien CR (controlled release), work in a similar way, with that difference that the active ingredient releases more evenly in your bloodstream.

As its pharmacological action is more distributed in time, your organism does not get hit all at once. With its high clinical efficacy unaffected, the CR version of Ambienis claimed to be better compatible with a natural sleep pattern and bring you a heavy head feeling more rarely in the morning.

Is Ambien addiction an actual problem?

Ambien does not have too much dangerous side effects and its addictive potential is quite moderate. In addition, the drug is infamous for causing some people to sleep-drive and/or sleep-walk. This happens only rarely in cases when Ambien is not taken as directed or longer periods of time than recommended.

A predominant number of cases in which zolpidem patients became addicted involved administration of higher doses than prescribed by a doctor. Typically, the situation with excessive drug use occurs when people try to compensate the built-up tolerance with higher doses for the same sleep-inducing benefit.