Better sleeping through chemistry? Your employees need to know the risks…
In case you missed the last edition of Six Things, it was all about sleep hygiene. We were originally going to lump sleep medications in with sleep hygiene, but, based on what Quizzify has learned from responses to its sleep quizzes, there is enough misunderstanding on the subject of sleep meds that we decided to create a dedicated “Six Things” post, rather than append it to the previous one.
Wellness programs need to recognize that employees live in the real world, and that real-world issues need to be addressed. (For that reason, we were the first vendor to address opioids https://www.quizzify.com/opioids-employer-quiz.)
For sleep, we need to go beyond “sleep hygiene” and directly address the 10% to 15% of employees who use drugs to get to sleep. As a special bonus, at the end, I will tell you how I use drugs to get to sleep. Stay tuned.
1. Benadryl is probably not safe for long-term nightly use
While Benadryl is one of the safest drugs around for occasional and short-term use, few employees are aware of the risk of nightly use of Benadryl. https://drugabuse.com/hooked-on-benadryl-its-much-more-than-a-harmless-dependency/ The feeling generally is, if it’s over-the-counter and it’s been around forever, it must be pretty harmless. However, as you will learn in our upcoming Six Things Employees Don’t Know About Heartburn Pills, there are very few drugs designed and labeled for short-term use that are safe for long-term regular use.
By way of background, Benadryl is an antihistamine originally developed, using technology older than virtually everyone reading this posting, to relieve allergies. Its sleep-inducing property was originally a bug but is now a feature.
2. Employees may be taking Benadryl without knowing it
Benadryl goes by the generic name of diphenhydramine. It’s contained in – get ready — 115 over-the-counter drugs. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5541127/ Included in that list of drugs are popular products like Advil PM, Aleve PM, and Anacin PM. And that’s just the A’s. The list literally goes from A to Z, with the last entry being ZZZ-Quil.
3. Since they don’t think of Benadryl or these “PM” drugs as sleeping pills, employees may not realize the risk of dependence
Most employees can recognize a sleeping pill when it’s labeled as such. But when they see a familiar name, sold over the counter, they may not realize that it’s the “PM” (or “ZZZ”) part of the name to be concerned about, not the brand name. PM drugs can create a dependence. A dependence is not an addiction but many people don’t know the difference. Frankly, we didn’t know the difference until we started researching the subject.
4. Ambien may have a less concerning safety profile than OTC drugs containing Benadryl
Some people experience immediate side effects from Ambien, like short-term amnesia. Some side effects – like sleepwalking – are bizarre enough to get in the media every now and then. But the thing about short-term side effects is that you know whether you are experiencing them or not, and can discontinue a drug if you are.
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