Long story short, I’ve had chronic insomnia for as long as I can remember. But, I’ve been adamant about not taking any sort of medication to sedate me because, 1, I don’t want the side affects or after affects, and 2, I don’t like the fear of possibly being dependent on a pill to fall asleep.
Well for the past couple week, work has been hectic and super stressful, and even when I come home, no matter how hard I try, I just can’t unwind and end up laying in bed tossing and turning for hours.
Finally I went to see my doctor and he prescribed me Ambien, also known as Zolpidem. He explained that I should take 1 pill about 20 to 30 minutes before I plan on falling asleep. Well, I’ve been sleeping around 4am so obviously that wasn’t a good idea.
I took the pill around 8:30pm, and got tired and fell asleep pretty quickly. I don’t remember waking up at all while I was asleep. But, I woke up exactly 4 hours later.
I’ve normally been getting between 4 and 5 hours of sleep, per night, for the passed few weeks. I’m not sure if that’s why I woke up.
But when I did wake up, I wasn’t tired or even groggy. I felt lazy, but not lazy enough that if I was to lay down again, I’d fall asleep. I tried to go back to sleep… But just ended up tossing and turning trying to get comfortable.
Does it take a while for sleeping pills to start affecting your body to sleep a “normal” amount of sleep? Should I have been able to sleep 8 hours last night?