Sleeping pills: You don’t need to spend big bucks

Americans spent more than $3 billion on prescription sleep aids in 2007, no doubt urged on by the ubiquitous TV ads, such as the Rozerem commercial, promoting those drugs (you know the ones: luna moths, soft music, Abe Lincoln, a beaver). But for many poor sleepers, a safer, less-expensive solution—a sound machine—may be just as helpful.

That's a finding from a recent sleep survey of 1,466 nationally representative respondents and a parallel survey of 1,093 Americans suffering from chronic sleep loss conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center and published in the September issue of Consumer Reports. Our analysis of what techniques worked best focused on the experiences of 2,021 problem sleepers and confirmed insomniacs, drawn from both surveys.

We asked respondents who had used some kind of insomnia treatment on at least eight nights in the previous month about what they’d tried, and how often it helped. Among the 12 percent who’d used prescription drugs, 75 percent of them said the pills helped most nights. (That included not just drugs marketed exclusively for sleep, like Ambien CR, Lunesta, Rozerem, and Sonata, but other drugs with sleep-inducing properties, including the antianxiety drug alprazolam and the antidepressant trazodone.) But nearly the same percentage—70 percent—of people who used a sound machine (above) in the bedroom reported getting relief. For the most severe cases, however, they were not as effective. We bought three such machines and asked a staff panel to try them out. Their favorite: the Brookstone Tranquil Moments Sound Therapy System, $129, which offers white noise and 11 other sounds.

If you or someone in your household has trouble sleeping, you're not alone. Of the nationally representative sample we surveyed, a whopping 44 percent routinely had trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or sleeping as late as they wanted. Nearly one in five of those respondents took a sleep medication at least once a week. And 5 percent had used a prescription drug every night of the past month. Take a minute to test your sleep smarts (and see how you compare with your peers) with our interactive sleep quiz.   

Finally (there’s so much to talk about when it comes to sleep!), the enormous market for insomnia drugs is the topic of a new 18-page report from our Best Buy Drugs project, a free service from Consumers Union, publishers of this Web site. You can access a summary or the full PDF, all free, on the BBD Web site. 

—Jamie Kopf Hirsh, associate editor

Comments

[Jim]

I have been using the Brookstone sound machine for a couple of years and like it very much. I also take two Benadryl tablets before bed and it's enough to keep me from waking up at 3am or if I do I can fall back asleep. Benadryl is the ingredient in some OTC sleep aids and is cheap in generic form especially at Costco. To me it seems safer than starting a prescription drug and I cleared it with my doctor for long term use. After all its just an allergy drug that many take regularly for that purpose.

[Rita]

I’ve seen ads on TV for Caduet. It has two ingredients. One is Amlodipine and the other is Atorvastatin. With my RxDrugCard I can get 30 tablets of Amlodipine for $9 and 30 tablets of Simvastatin for $9. I’ll bet they are charging more than $18 for this new drug! The unthinking public is going to pressure their doctors into giving them something just because it’s new, when something old or generic would do the job for cheaper.