Nytol
I've struggled lately to readjust my sleep schedule so I'm not staying up, and then waking up, so late. This is a common problem for me and is made worse by being self-employed, since it means I can make my own schedule. My natural tendency is to stay up later and later since I've always been a night owl, and tend to get more energy as the day goes on, rather than being a morning person. Finally, out of frustration I decided to do something I've never done before, and that is take an over-the-counter sleep aid to try to force myself to fall asleep earlier.
I learned a lot of things. First, Nytol and Unisom are not specially designed "sleep pills." Both are actually just antihistamine tablets which have marked drowsiness as one of their side effects. I had never known that before, and it worried me because the kind of drowsiness caused by cold/allergy medicines usually results in weird, fragmented dreams, and thus fragmented sleep. I didn't have to worry though, since another thing I learned was that Nytol doesn't really work for me. I took one pill a half-hour before I wanted to be asleep. I felt nothing after that half hour, so I took the second pill, giving me the full dose. After another sixty minutes or so, my throat began to tickle, my ears were ringing slightly, and I was a little bit lightheaded, but not really drowsy. So all Nytol did was give me some physical discomforts but not put me to sleep. A full four hours after I had taken the first pill, I started to feel drowsy. Admittedly it was not a "natural" drowsiness, but indeed the familiar cold-medicine fogginess that I dreaded. Perhaps I fell asleep an hour or so earlier than I would have otherwise. I was too groggy to keep checking the clock. And my dreams were indeed fragmented but not as bad as they could have been. Then after waking up I felt "blech" for the rest of the day. The ticklish throat, even a sneeze or two persisted. I wonder if taking antihistamines when you aren't suffering an allergy attack makes your sinuses over-sensitive or something. So much for magic pills to adjust my sleep. Here I am up at 1:00 AM again.
I learned a lot of things. First, Nytol and Unisom are not specially designed "sleep pills." Both are actually just antihistamine tablets which have marked drowsiness as one of their side effects. I had never known that before, and it worried me because the kind of drowsiness caused by cold/allergy medicines usually results in weird, fragmented dreams, and thus fragmented sleep. I didn't have to worry though, since another thing I learned was that Nytol doesn't really work for me. I took one pill a half-hour before I wanted to be asleep. I felt nothing after that half hour, so I took the second pill, giving me the full dose. After another sixty minutes or so, my throat began to tickle, my ears were ringing slightly, and I was a little bit lightheaded, but not really drowsy. So all Nytol did was give me some physical discomforts but not put me to sleep. A full four hours after I had taken the first pill, I started to feel drowsy. Admittedly it was not a "natural" drowsiness, but indeed the familiar cold-medicine fogginess that I dreaded. Perhaps I fell asleep an hour or so earlier than I would have otherwise. I was too groggy to keep checking the clock. And my dreams were indeed fragmented but not as bad as they could have been. Then after waking up I felt "blech" for the rest of the day. The ticklish throat, even a sneeze or two persisted. I wonder if taking antihistamines when you aren't suffering an allergy attack makes your sinuses over-sensitive or something. So much for magic pills to adjust my sleep. Here I am up at 1:00 AM again.