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Our health advice – When dealing with insomnia, medications should be exceptional. It is recommended instead to rely on cognitive and behavioral therapies, which have been shown to be effective.
Should we ban sleeping pills altogether? “Sometimes, these are good drugs,” speculates Joel Adrian, neurobiologist and emeritus research director at Insurm. In charge of a sleep management workshop at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital today, she made her comments clear: “When you use them every day, and for a very long time, there is inevitably an addiction that makes them less effective. Then there is a great temptation to increase the dose. And if we stop, it’s horrible: we don’t sleep at all. ! »
This addiction, which scientists call pharmaco-tolerance, has long been known for hypnotics from the benzodiazepine family. This is not their only disadvantage. In the elderly, they increase the risk of falls. “These drugs have the disadvantage of reducing the amount of deep slow-wave sleep, which is certainly the most restorative. On the other hand, and this is a plus, they have…
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