Why it’s a problem and five keys to sleep

In the first five months of the year 7% of boxes of psychotropic substances intended for sleep were sold in Argentina More than a year ago, according to the Argentine Pharmaceutical Federation Observatory. The data, which is in line with the increase in the consumption of sleeping pills recorded a few years ago, shows something else: not only do thousands of people sleep very poorly in Argentina today, but rather the lack of patience to solve the problem of insomnia has worsened, and without major problems we have given up. One of the most basic needs (sleep) To sad prescription tablet. Three experts on the subject say that could be different.

It’s easy (and partly boring) to attribute everything to the pandemic. At the same time, how difficult it is to overcome this, when sales lists of hypnotics and sedatives marketed in Argentina confirm that, after the epidemic, the increase in the number of units circulating on the local market has been noticeable.

In 2014, COFA says, 2,713,004 boxes of hypnotics and sedatives were sold. Between 2015 and 2017, there were slight downward fluctuations, but in 2018, it started to grow again. The 2019 data is data that should have been processed in 2020, but the annual report was not issued, as it did not happen in 2020 and 2021. But in 2022, the record is just that Nearly one million more units were sold than in previous years. Total: 3,503,778. In 2023, 3,792,691 sleeping and sedative packs.

Always according to that report, a smaller number were sold in 2024, 3,647,388, but it is a number that it would not be unreasonable to expect to be revised, once the Observatory consolidates the data and issues the comparative report 2024-2025, which it usually does at the beginning of the following year, which in this case will be 2026.

Meanwhile, another interesting character emerges. Compare the first five months of 2024 with the same period in the stressful year of 2025. Between January and May 2024, 1,425,967 units of hypnotics were marketed. This year they were approx 7% more.

The numbers say so More people sleep worseBut the problem remains what to do with it, if we seek to reduce the intake of soothing pills and drops.

It may seem paradoxical, but another segment of psychoactive drugs, those that the COFA Observatory calls “tranquilizers”, fell by 4% year-on-year, in the first months of the year. There is a small information gap here because COFA takes data from international consulting firm IQVIA and the pharmaceutical body has not fully defined what “sedative” means. However, two of the three experts consulted for this article agreed that “sedatives” are the best approach Benzodiazepines also Anxiolytics (Example: clonazepam), and other medications such as zolpidem or eszopiclone.

One of those voices is Diego Sarasola, a neuropsychiatrist and director of the Alexandre Luria Institute. And taking other data from the COFA Observatory, it is an annual increase (also in the first five months of last year and this) in sales of antidepressants and so-called “mood stabilizers”. They sold 1.3% more.

“It is very common to treat anxiety disorders and insomnia with anxiolytics and not antidepressants. This is wrong because this is the treatment suggested in all international guidelines. We should forget the name ‘antidepressants’ because the drugs that work best are those.” Semantic problem Which causes real abuse of anxiolytics. Not only because of poorly made prescriptions but also because Self-prescription. I would say I see an amazing increase in that sense.

Sales of anxiolytics are very large (three to four times as many packages as hypnotics and sedatives), but not only for the treatment of anxiety but also for insomnia. It should be noted that these two conditions are not always true disorders and Only in rare cases do they require drug treatmentThis is a decision that must be made by a health professional.

Cristian Garay is a doctor of psychology, professor at the Faculty of Psychology at UBA and member of the Observatory of Applied Social Psychology (OPSA), an institution that published in 2024 a “Survey of the psychological state of the population of Argentina”, where a part is devoted to the sensitive topic of “dream”. Garay pointed to some of the data collected at the time.

“The pandemic has reinforced something that had happened before, which is greater use of digital devices and working from home. It is obvious to say that, but far from the effects Blue light from screens (This makes the brain think it is daytime and secretes less melatonin, a hormone that helps regulate the sleep-wake cycle.He explained that the home office, which blends rest space and work space, had important consequences for good sleep.

“All of this is what energizes it,” he said now. The problem continues: “A lot of people use psychotropic substances to solve a sleep problem quickly and without medical supervision. It’s been happening for a long time, but it seems to be getting worse now. It’s a very subtle thing: benzodiazepines cause habituation, so you have to take more to get the same effect, and they produce Cognitive impairmentThis is something that has been proven in many studies conducted on elderly people who took these medications for years, and over time they began to decline more and look like they were drunk.

According to the OPSA study, of the nearly 5,000 adults surveyed, 20% said they were able to overcome anxiety through self-medication. “I would say 1 in 4 Argentines use alcohol or self-medicate to manage stress. It’s a complex mix,” he summed up.

Referring to the pandemic and the increased consumption of hypnotic treatments, Sarasola reminded that “there is no human event more stressful than uncertainty.” To another extent, some of that is happening today. “Uncertainty and stress due to the current context affects the ability to relax,” Garay said. “It is very difficult to relax if the last thing you do in the day is watching stressful things on the news, whether they are disasters or an announcement of potentially bad scenarios. They add uncertainty and make it difficult to sleep. I have a friend, Pablo Lopez, who is an expert on these issues, with whom we always think about these things.”

Clarion Talk to Pablo Lopez. He is a well-known psychologist (author of the book I dream of sleeping and it doesn’t come out) and a researcher at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (INECO), where he directs the Sleep Health Unit. In addition, he leads the Psychology degree at Favaloro University.

Lopez warned that there is “an increase in the number of people reporting sleep problems, but they do not necessarily suffer from sleep disorders.” This “showed the peak of the epidemic, but the latest OPSA report shows that,” he said 60% had frequent or occasional sleep problems“.

Again: What do you do with this? To make the issue more complex, Lopez added that psychiatric drugs are particularly well received among young people, who appear to have “more openness to receiving daily psychiatric medications.” Meanwhile, “there is little knowledge about what non-pharmacological interventions for sleep issues are. Not only among patients but also among specialists.”

The first logical approach to sleep treatment is to see a regular psychiatrist (health professionals who are not authorized to prescribe medication). Cognitive behavioralGaray and Lopez agreed. However, “there are serious delays in referral, and there is also the fact that access to these treatments is quite limited: there are very few professionals dedicated to this and almost no training is given at universities on this type of intervention,” López lamented.

Garay added that Buenos Aires has many psychologists, but the public sector is collapsed: “Our study is a biased sample because 25% of those consulted do therapy and not everyone will answer the psychology survey, but among those who do not receive therapy, half of them said they wanted to but could not because they did not have a center nearby.”

Many people with sleep problems know that they should not look at screens before bedtime, eat light food, or avoid physical activity or any type of stimulation (such as caffeine and several hours before bedtime). Saying it’s easy. Do it, no. So?

For Garay, a simpler message can be offered: just try Reduce sedentary lifestyle: “It doesn’t take much time. Half an hour a day. Instead of taking a second bus, walk. It’s not so much exercise as movement.”

For Lopez, “a repositioning of the dream is required.” He cited Colin Espy, a renowned sleep medicine specialist who identified five key principles.

“The first one is Sleep value As something important. When you value something important, you tend to protect it. Sleep protection It is the second principle, meaning seeing what is at hand, trying to evaluate possible guidelines, and increasing adherence to them.”

The third principle is Prioritize sleep. He explained: “Sometimes we really need to sleep. In some moments, we can be more lax, but in other moments we have to prioritize one sleep over the other, without losing sight of the impact this has on daily life, of course.”

“The fourth is Sleep allocation. This is something that has been worked on a lot in recent years, to get rid of this idea that yes or yes you have to sleep 7 or 8 hours and know how many hours you need to sleep. He stated that following a mandate can sometimes become a stressor.

Fifth Trust that the dream will come by itselfLopez said, concluding: “Prescription and constant recommendations can once again lead us to become robots. We must look for the opposite. Deliberate efforts lead us to control and control is incompatible with the dream. We must trust that the dream will come.”