The alarming sleeping pill warning scientists pray you (and your doctor) hear

If you’re a senior who uses prescription drugs to help you sleep…it’s time for a serious wake-up call.

Just this past spring, I told you about a new FDA alert, in which the agency finally got around to officially warning us that prescription sleep aids are linked with serious, and even deadly, injuries caused by sleepwalking.

And a few years ago, a British Medical Journal study linked sleeping pills with an astounding 320,000 premature deaths in the U.S. each year! That’s deeply shocking, but there’s more: Researchers estimated that using just 18 pills per year prompts a threefold increased risk of death.

But what’s so ironic is that any one of us can put to use a simple strategy — anywhere and at any time — that requires no pills, costs nothing, and even improves your overall health while helping you get to sleep.

Too good to be true? Not at all! I’ll circle back to that approach in a moment.

First, let’s look at an important new warning for seniors who use prescription sleep aids. It’s fresh from a recent Alzheimer’s conference, and it confirms the link between sleeping pill use and high risk of cognitive impairment and dementia.

It’s time for doctors to get the message…

What effect could a simple little pill have on the clarity of your thinking?

Quite a bit, as it turns out.

At the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Los Angeles last month, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), presented a disturbing study, saying: “We hope this research will raise caution among clinicians.”

I wish they could have said that with a megaphone in every doctor’s office in the country, because their findings are alarming enough to make just about anyone lose sleep.

In this shocking study, the UCSF team followed about 15 years of medical records for more than 3,000 participants who were all in their 70s at the outset of the study.

The final analysis showed that those who reported using prescription sleep-aids “often” or “almost always” had more than a 40 percent increased risk of developing dementia, as compared to those who reported “never” or “rarely” using sleep meds.

In typical fashion, the researchers dutifully pointed out that this type of study doesn’t “prove” that sleep-aids contributed to a sharp rise in dementia risk, but come on! This is just the latest in a long line of research that confirms this connection. The gig is up!

The bottom line: It’s long past time for doctors to step up and discourage their patients from using these potentially dangerous drugs — especially their older adult patients.

Awaken the nerve that can help you sleep

With 1 in every 5 U.S. seniors using prescription sleep aids on a regular basis, I’m sure millions of people would worry about how they’d get to sleep if they didn’t have their Ambien®, Lunesta®, or one of the many other powerful sleep-aids.

The first thing people need to know is that they’re not actually getting quality sleep while taking those drugs.

Sure, the drugs will zonk you out, but it doesn’t provide the same nourishing, whole-body benefits as the natural sleep your body needs and craves.

Secondly, there is a safer, more natural technique of stimulating your vagus nerve — the longest and largest nerve in your body. The vagus is often called the “wandering nerve” because it branches from your head, down through your voice box, around your heart, throughout the organs in the trunk of your body, and into your legs.

This vagal stimulation technique is highlighted by Jim Donovan in his Whole Body Sound Healing System Protocol. Through years of research as a musician and practitioner of using sound as a healing tool, Jim has explored the way your vagus nerve interacts with all the systems of your body — including the sleep centers in your brain.

Let your body’s “feel good” chemicals do their job

Jim explains that when you use your voice box to stimulate the vagus nerve, “a cascade of positive health effects begin to occur, starting with the release of “feel good” chemicals.

These chemicals (which include nitric oxide, dopamine, endorphins, and oxytocin) strengthen your immune system and help relieve chronic pain. But they also trigger a host of benefits such as improved mood, reduced stress, feelings of wellbeing, and deep relaxation that put you in the ideal state of mind to drift off to sleep.

Jim notes that nitric oxide (NO) is a major player in this process. He points out that scientists haven’t figured out exactly how NO helps you sleep, but they do know that a brain region called the basal forebrain requires sufficient amounts of NO in order for sleep to occur.

So when you stimulate your vagus nerve, you’re supplying your brain with that essential sleep ingredient.

Jim has developed a revolutionary new technique for stimulating the vagus nerve and prompting NO production. He calls his method Brain Humming, and explains: “Brain Humming is a beginner-friendly practice that uses the sound of your voice. This means that we will vocalize certain sounds in a specific and deliberate way. The sounds are easy enough for anyone to do.”

Jim stresses that last point, noting that anyone who can hum can easily put Brain Humming to use with great success — no musical talent is necessary.

Jim’s simple approach to solving your sleep problems also happens to be highly effective in relieving other health issues like depression, stress, anxiety, headaches, chronic pain, high blood pressure, sinusitis, and more. Click here to learn about the exciting innovations in Jim Donovan’s Whole Body Sound Healing System Protocol, or to get started right away.

SOURCES

“Frequent Sleeping Pill Use Linked to Increased Dementia Risk” Medscape, 7/19/19. (medscape.com/viewarticle/915836?nlid=130735_426&src=WNL_mdplsfeat_190723_mscpedit_fmed&uac=120541EV&spon=34&impID=2038486&faf=1)