Sleep Aid

I hate flying. A lot. I have what seems to be mild panic attacks whenever any amount of turbulence hits. This keeps me from sleeping. And since I'm flying down to South America soon on a 12 hour overnight plane flight, I wonder to myself: How will I sleep? Not only do I have panic attacks on planes, but I have (more or less) a moderate addiction to sleeping pills. And since I'm not sure the definition of sleeping pill addiction, I will simply state that I take, every day, some sort of sleep aid unless I'm drunk or stoned, at which point I generally take one anyway but think a little longer about it. This leaves me wondering, should I go to the doctor and tell them I'm a crack head who can't sleep? Or should I go and simply say "Please give me two ambien for my plane flight." I'm slowly weaning myself off sleeping pills at the moment and I don't necessarily want to be put on prescription sleep since I doubt I could ever stop using those. I've never taken a medication before. Are they good?

Anyway, here is my sleeping pill review:


Doxylamine succinate
(NyQuil and generics)

This is the first thing I ever took to get to sleep. It's sort of woozy sleep at first and then you're out. Unfortunately, this has almost no effect on me now. And they took out the pseudoephedrine because it's used as narcotic and not just a way to make falling asleep sick more fun.




Diphenhydramine
(Tylenol PM, Tylenol Simply Sleep, Sominex, Nytol and Generics)

Tylenol PM is the classic with 25 mg of Diphenhydramine. These little dolls helped me through most of High School and the beginning of College. It's really hard to fall asleep in a new place, especially a "low cost triple" in NYU housing without air conditioning so these were necessary. Unfortunately these don't work the way they use to anymore either.
On the upside, Tylenol started making Simple Sleep, which is Tylenol PM without the painkilling agent Acetaminophen but still only 25 mg of Diphenhydramine. Curiously, it's significantly more expensive to buy Diphenhydramine without Acetaminophen than with it. So if you don't particularly value your liver, go for some generic Tylenol PM and save some cash for the transplant.




Dimenhydrinate
(Dramamine and generics)

Ever wonder why this made you so sleepy? It's because Dramamine is made of Dimenhydrinate, which is very closely chemically related to our friend Diphenhydramine. This only has 29 mg of Dimenhydrinate, so you gotta take three of these to fall asleep like you would with Tylenol PM. These used to knock me out. However, it seems abusing this drug builds your tolerance up pretty quickly.




Melatonin

This is the only herbal/natural pill that I actually believe works (unlike St. John's Wort and Echinaeca, which is a bunch of placebo crap). This stuff takes a lot longer to set in, about an hour, and the sleepiness of it feels a little more like your body is actually falling asleep (the exact opposite of the sudden fog of diphenhydramines). I like this stuff for the most part. It doesn't leave me particularly groggy in the morning (not that I am ever not groggy in the morning) and I can make believe it is better for me than something chemical.


I'm slowly trying to work my way off the pills. This has involved a biography of Joseph McCarthy (which is interesting but much much stronger than NyQuil) for half an hour every night. It also helps now that I have ear plugs so I can drowned out my two roommates who insist on making meals all night and bringing very nice but loud people over. I still take the Melatonin, though... But luckily I stopped living my life like this: