By Brook Sabin
3 News has uncovered what one expert says is an alarming increase in the number of people using sleeping pills.
There has been a 42 percent jump in users in the past five years, and teenagers are also increasingly turning to sleeping pills.
Two hundred and twenty thousand people used sleeping pills back in 2007, but now that has risen to 320,000.
And sleep expert Dr Alex Bartle is alarmed by the figures - saying too many people become dependent on them.
“Eventually it starts not to work very well, instead of half they take one, then they’ll back themselves into taking one and a half and then it stars affecting their daytime – because they can’t sleep with the tablet now because it’s not working so well, and they can’t sleep without it,” says Dr Bartle.
“People are increasingly looking for quick fix,” says psychotherapist Christine Hatcher, “With modern technology and the internet everything is very immediate, so people imagine if they take a pill they will be able to solve their problems.”
Two and a half thousand teenagers, and some children as young as 10, are on the most common type of sleeping pill, zopiclone.
And the scientific community is divided about the effects of long term sleeping pill use.
“One of the recent studies which has just come out has shown that people on sleeping pills have a higher rate of cancer and in fact mortality, which may just put a little bit of brakes on people immediately demanding sleeping pill,” says Dr Bartle.
And with 26 years of life spent sleeping, experts say pills are not the long term solution.
3 News.
source: newshub archive
