Clarissa, Author at The Sleep Consultant

Ozempic and Sleep Apnea: What the Real Trial Data Shows

“Ozempic and sleep apnea” is a common search, but the strongest, FDA-approved evidence here actually belongs to a different, related drug. Tirzepatide (sold as Zepbound for weight management and Mounjaro for diabetes) became the first and only FDA-approved medication specifically for moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in adults with obesity, based on results from the

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Ambien Side Effects: What the FDA Warnings Actually Say

Ambien (zolpidem) and the other “Z-drugs,” Lunesta (eszopiclone) and Sonata (zaleplon), are among the most commonly prescribed insomnia medications, but they carry the FDA’s strongest possible warning label. In 2019, the FDA added a Boxed Warning to all three drugs after identifying 66 cases over 26 years of serious injury or death linked to “complex

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Sleep Restriction Therapy: The Counterintuitive Fix for Insomnia

Sleep restriction therapy (SRT) sounds backwards: it treats insomnia by temporarily reducing the amount of time you spend in bed, not increasing it. The logic is that lying in bed for 8 or 9 hours while only sleeping for 6 trains your brain to associate bed with wakefulness and frustration, and dilutes your natural sleep

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Melatonin for Jet Lag: The One Use Case With Strong Evidence

Melatonin for jet lag is, ironically, the one use case where the evidence is genuinely strong, in real contrast to melatonin’s weak evidence for general chronic insomnia, which we cover in Melatonin and Sleep. A Cochrane systematic review of 10 randomized controlled trials found that melatonin, taken close to bedtime at your destination, reduced jet

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5-HTP for Sleep: What the Direct Research Shows

5-HTP (5-hydroxytryptophan) is the direct chemical link between tryptophan and serotonin, one step closer to serotonin in the pathway than tryptophan itself, and it crosses into the brain more readily. That raises the same question we explored in Serotonin and Sleep: since serotonin’s well-established primary role is promoting wakefulness and inhibiting REM sleep, not sedating

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Diphenhydramine for Sleep: What the Research Says

Diphenhydramine, the active ingredient in Benadryl, Unisom SleepTabs, ZzzQuil, and most “PM” pain reliever formulations, is one of the most commonly used sleep aids in the US, despite not actually being recommended for regular sleep use by sleep medicine guidelines. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s 2017 clinical practice guideline recommends against using diphenhydramine for

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CBD and Sleep: What the Direct Research Actually Shows

CBD and sleep are marketed together constantly, but the direct clinical research specifically on CBD and insomnia is thinner and more mixed than the marketing suggests. The most rigorous independent trial of pure CBD, 150 mg nightly for two weeks in adults with moderate-to-severe insomnia, found no significant difference from placebo on insomnia severity, sleep

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Melatonin and Sleep: What the Guidelines Actually Say

Melatonin and sleep are connected through a real, well-understood biological mechanism, melatonin is the hormone your pineal gland releases in response to darkness, signaling to your body that it’s time to wind down. Where it gets more complicated is exogenous, supplemental melatonin’s actual effectiveness as a general insomnia treatment. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s

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Melatonin Dosage: How Much Should You Actually Take?

Melatonin dosage research points to a clear pattern: for helping you fall asleep faster, effectiveness increases with dose up to roughly 3 to 5 mg per day, then plateaus, meaning the 10 mg tablets common on store shelves generally don’t work better than a well-dosed 3-5 mg product. For circadian purposes, like jet lag or

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Inflammation and Sleep: What the Research Actually Shows

Inflammation and sleep are genuinely connected, but the real research has an interesting wrinkle that most content skips over. Large observational studies do consistently find that people with disturbed sleep have higher levels of inflammatory markers like CRP and IL-6. But when researchers directly tested this in controlled experiments, depriving healthy people of sleep for

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Clarissa