For insomnia, the medication that doesn't disrupt sleep architecture is trazodone

#1

What is your experience with trazodone for insomnia? As you know, trazodone has a half-life of 5-6 hours, so it doesn’t cause drowsiness the next day. It lowers cortisol through 5-HT2 receptor antagonistism and increases non-REM stages 3-4, which are deep sleep stages. It doesn’t suppress REM sleep. It has no anticholinergic effect, which makes it a good option for chronic use. Also, recent studies show that it clears misfolded proteins in the brain. Are there any similar good sleep medications?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1389945703002065

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#2

1/2 life of 5-6 hours doesn’t mean it doesn’t cause drowsiness. That is actually pretty long for a sleep medication.

Roughly 40% is still around when you wake up which is certainly enough to cause drowsiness if that was going to be an issue.

It seem like the neuroprotective data is all animal and fairly high dose relative to what humans do for sleep.

The DORA class has human data regarding tau phosphorylation and reduced amyloid beta levels. Whether this is helpful is unknown.

People have good reports here from both for sleep. They both are better than alternatives for sleep when it comes to sleep quality and neuro concerns.