Way to cope or potetially dangerous habit?

I always had trouble sleeping, but it's so much worse lately.

I am pretty much depending on natural sleep aids lately, mostly valerian tincture.

One thing I noticed, is it makes me oddly "high" and giddy.......... and i do enjoy the feeling muchly. I do take higher dose than is recommended in the instruction...

I only use it for sleep though, because I hate to toss for hours. And actually i wake up so much more smoothly with my sleepy remedies than naturally.

Still, all herbaries warn one should make breaks when taking this stuff. Too afraid to do so though.

did I develop a psychological dependency? Or am I just trying to cope with my weird sleep patterns the best way I know?

Is the tincture ethanol based? If it is, it may be worth switching to an aqueuous extract as this could address some of your concerns about it being habit forming and perhaps even the giddiness 'high' you mention. Personally I find ashwagandha extract, theanine, and time release melatonin helpful in calming down enough, for the most part, to fall asleep and stay asleep. Ethanol and other GABAergic sedatives can have strong interactions with ashwagandha which warrants some caution when using it.

Though, to be honest I wonder if my own use of herbals and exogenous melatonin will lead to noticably adverse side effects. Even if it does, I do not believe it could be anything remotely as destructive as the sleep aids I've been prescribed.

Maybe you got it from your cats! For cats, valerian root is a huge upper and does make him high and yes, giddy.

Slowly wean off of it so your tolarence goes down. Then start again. Have you thought if you have a hypo mania episode.?

Psychological dependency or coping strategy, the label really doesn't matter at this point because either way what's best is you cut that shyt out for a while.


Detox and start from scratch.


The sooner you do so, the better, before there's more valerian than blood in your Venus veins...


And none of that "I need it for sleep" excuses, you've had *****ed up sleep before and survived, you will survive it again.


Once you've safely detoxed, you can restart your dose from scratch.


Ps, liking that giddy floaty feeling is exactly why I refuse to take benzos daily. I don't wanna end up liking it a bit too much.

I'm not surprised you've developed a psychological dependency. You sleep, you feel high, you don't toss for hours and you wake up smoothly.

I'm just really not sure how wise it is to take a higher dose than that which is recommended. I understand that it's a "natural" sleeping aid but you don't really know what it's doing to you long term and physically within your body.

I'd really recommend you have a one on one honest conversation with a medical practitioner about the consequences of this.

There could be other "natural" alternatives that you're unaware of or haven't tried yet.

I've got this cool app on my iPhone that's used for relaxation and putting you to sleep. It's calm, it's soothing, it doesn't give me a high and I'm not putting substances into my body. Not necessarily saying that that would work for you, merely pointing out that there may be other options so that if you do reduce or stop you don't feel like you're going into free fall and you have a backup. Which I think is the real underlying problem right now.

Best of luck with this. You can do it. I know you can.

Sounds like you just chose to take alternative medicine to help to some extent, instead of stuff from doctors that many people think they have to take each day.

Yes do a taper, yeah, you will toss and turn, but your riding that thin line that could fling you into a toxic zone. Not a good thing.

Drop that shyt like a bad habit then once your body resets use it when needed.

Venus, here we have a whole bunch of supplements that contain a small dose of the valerian root. Say, melatonin+a bit of valerian root+other substances that are believed to help with sleep. Chamomile, of course. Just a long list of ingredients that include the valerian root. I am pretty sure similar mixtures are sold where you are. Maybe if you try that, your dose of the valerian root would be enough to help with sleep but not enough to cause your being giddy. Maybe it is dose-dependent - just a thought.

yah, gonna try to not to use anything for a bit. I see how it goes over the weekend. If it's not working, Ima gonna try other herbals and in smaller doses.

Will see how it goes.

I am well aware that the emotional turmoil I am in right now cannot be solved by substances. They give nice time out, but all i can do is to merely tone it down for a bit... I will see what I can do with it.

Hamster, funnily... acting as cat is what I do (around friends) when in distress. I pretend I am a cat when I am in bad emotional place. I don't talk about it much. Pretending to be rabbit gotten me sent to psych eval long time ago.

Miguel'smom - I don't even know what emotional state I am in anymore. Might be mixed. May be extremelly human.

Would you consider seeing an alternative therapist? Maybe a herbalist or homeopath even for guidance/recommendation on your situation?

I don't really have the finances to see a therapist.... especially alt one.

Thing is... I know my herbs. I just need to use them responsibly and not seek escapism (in my defense... I only take my stuff for sleep and liking my state before passing out is just what it is. Yeah, I been in strong emotional turmoil lately and it's likely not gonna get better any time soon.) Although... is ocassional escapism wrong if I know what it is and don't do it too often? Dunno.

Right now venusss you should see a herbalist or homeopath because currently you can't trust yourself to properly take the herbs because right now your in episode.

I don't know if I am in episode or not.

I can read the labels on the supplements or the books. It's just I sometimes don't follow them. Will try to be better... really.

well, managed to sleep without. Any no revolutionary nightmares involving world on fire either... or "being on train and not knowing where i am heading to" dreams either.

Feeling bit restless though, but maybe it's because of my life circumstances. At mom's place when I wanna be doing revolution stuff in Prague (but gotta see my mom sometimes too, because I do worry about her a lot lately).