[tartoran]

I agree, Ambien is a scary drug to rely on as it can create dependency and also masks underlying issues that are causing not inability to sleep. In emergencies when one needs to get some form of sleep it could be useful to break the cycle of not being able to sleep and restore sleep hygiene. I had some sleep issues back in my 20s (luckily they haven't come back) and found that sometimes being too tired made falling and staying asleep quite hard. One thing that helped me is to forcefully yawn before going to sleep, doing it for a couple of minutes.

[diggan]

> Ambien is a scary drug to rely on as it can create dependency and also masks underlying issues that are causing not inability to sleep.

That just sounds like you think every sleeping-pill is scary, as that's true for literally all of them.

Sleeping pills are mostly effective together with other types of therapy to address the underlying causes, just like most "temporary solutions". They're supposed to be used as "We'll try to figure out what's wrong, but in the meantime, so you can feel relatively human, here is a temporary crutch", not as a long-term solution.

[tootie]

Intractable sleep conditions exist. I have narcolepsy which is incurable. I'm on sodium oxybate which is basically just GHB. It's a "scary" drug to be taking every night, but it's very effective and usually very safe in controlled dosage.

[lilyball]

That drug is not a drug designed to put you to sleep though (I mean it kinda does, but that's not its purpose). The purpose of that drug is to change your sleep architecture during the night. I'm on the newer form of that drug (because of idiopathic hypersomnia) and most nights I still take 1–2 hours to fall asleep.

[tootie]

Lumryz? GHB is metabolized very quickly and would be out of your system within 2 hours. Lumryz is supposed to process slower. I have had a few bad nights on xyrem, but mostly it puts me sleep quickly enough. And more importantly puts me on a better sleep cycle so I'm actually sleepy at bed time by dint of being awake during the day.

[lilyball]

Xywav, with the 2-dose schedule. My impression based on how I feel waking up at various times in the morning is each dose produces effects that last somewhere around 3–5 hours. My understanding is most people taking this drug are falling asleep much more quickly than I am, and I do feel it trying to make me sleepy shortly after taking it, but not enough to defeat my delayed sleep phase disorder and various insomnia issues. But my point was that "falling asleep quickly" is not a direct goal of the drug, even if it is a common effect, the goal of the drug is to change what your brain does while you're asleep.