SleepEasy Program to Reduce and Eliminate the Need for Sleep Medication—Without Withdrawal

Please read this page well before you are actually going to begin reducing your sleep medication. Midway through this page are descriptions of two small accessoriess to purchase, which are important for your medication reduction.

Overview

Although SleepEasy is about ultimately being able to sleep without medication, it's important to acknowledge that sleep medication is very useful for some people because it’s far better to sleep with medication than to not sleep.

The SleepEasy app gives you guidance about initially continuing to take your medication and adding the SleepEasy method. You'll find yourself falling asleep more quickly and easily than you previously did with just the medication. That's proof you're not just being drugged—your body is learning how to sleep better on its own. Continue taking your sleep medication for however many nights you wish, to build your confidence in your improved ability to sleep. As you gain confidence in that, the need for medication begins to naturally fall away.

Don't just use your mind's determination to decide when to begin medication reduction ("I'm going begin reducing medication soon!"). Instead, using the SleepEasy method plus your medication, wait until you are sleeping well with that combination for a while, so you have confidence in that. Wait until after you've had enough good nights' sleep so your nervous system is calming down. After that, then you can consider beginning to begin reducing your dosage of sleep medication.

Sleep medication reduction should be carried out in consultation with your physician or nurse practitioner. We have created a summary of the SleepEasy Sleep Medication Reduction Program. Please email this URL to your physician's office and ask them to please forward it to your physician or nurse practitioner. Then your physician will be informed for when you have your appointment.

The SleepEasy Sleep Medication Reduction Program provides resources which enable you to reduce 2% per night. That is such a small reduction, your body doesn't notice it, making it even easier to reduce medication without withdrawal. At that gradual rate, complete reduction takes about two months, but you don't need to wait until after you have completed medication reduction to feel relieved. You will feel great relief and encouragement to be in the process of gradually reducing.

If your medication is in pill form, the precise and gradual reduction will involve you crushing your pills. If your pills are time-release, those shouldn't be crushed. Ask your physician to prescribe that medication in regular, not time-release form. sleepeasymethod.com/physician gives your physician a full understanding of this program.

Materials

To follow this gradual reduction process, you will need the following:

Digital milligram scale $24.99 on Amazon. This makes it possible to accurately measure very small amounts of reduction. The use of this is explained below.

Pill crusher $7.49 on Amazon.

Steps

This will involve some preparation steps. However, once you are set, the medication reduction process is easy.. Follow these instructions once you have your scale and pill crusher with you.

1. Put your full dosage of medication—pills or capsules—on the scale.
2. Enter that number of milligrams (mg) into your Sleep Medication Reduction Calculator below:

Sleep Medication Reduction Calculator

What is milligram scale weight? What is a full dose, in milligrams? Your name:

Submit

3. Your medication bottle label will tell you the mg dosage of medication contained in that amount of pills or capsules.
4. Enter that number of mg into your Sleep Medication Reduction Calculator.
5. Click "Submit"
6. The program then generates a report that has three columns:
   Percentage Scale Weight Active Dose
   Scale Weight = Weight of your full dosage of medication—pills or capsules.
   Active Dose = The mg dosage of medication contained in that amount of pills or capsules.

The report has 100 rows, corresponding to percentages going from 100% of medication, gradually down to 0.

With the buttons at the bottom of your report, you can:

• Copy the report to the clipboard of your computer. From your clipboard you can paste the report into whatever program you have that would be best.
  or
• If you have Excel on your computer, you can download your report in .csv format.

7. If your medication is in pill form, use your pill crusher to crush a number of pills. The crusher comes with easy instructions. You can put the powder of your crushed pills in the storage area in the pill crusher lid. If your medication is in capsule form, empty a few capsules into a container (possibly get an empty pill bottle from your pharmacy). Keep the container of crushed pills or poured capsules out of the reach of children or pets.
8. This next step, and the two steps after it, will be easy to understand after you have your scale, are reading the instructions and actually carrying them out.
9. Your scale comes with a small pan into which to pour your crushed pills or capsule powder. Turn your scale on. Put the small pan on the scale. Push the "Tare" button and your scale calibrates to remove the weight of the dish and your scale will show "0.000"
10. For your first night of reduction to 98% of full dosage, look at your report in the second column, "Scale Weight."
11. From your container of crushed pills, pour that amount of weight of crushed pills into the scale pan. If you pour too much, pour some back into your storage container. If needed, go back and forth until you get close to the right weight. Getting "very close to" the amount is good enough.
12. Take the crumbly bits of crushed pills, or the amount of powder and put on your tongue. Then a bit of water. If it doesn't taste good, have more water. However, you want to drink a minimum amount of water before bed to minimize having to go to the bathroom.

***

I recommend that you reduce 2% per night. That is such a small amount, your body won't even notice that reduction.

Do that for the first 60% of reduction, so that will take 30 days.

Then when you progress from 40% to 0, I recommend you reduce 1% per night.

With that, the complete process will involve about two months total.

While you'll feel very good when you can sleep well without any medication, you don't have to delay until then to feel good, because simply being in the process of gradually reducing will feel very encouraging right away.

Write down what reduction you are using that night, so the next night you know what next reduction to go to.

If you have a challenging night, the next night go back to full dosage for one night. Then return to the dosage you were at before the challenging night. Stay at that dosage for 1-2 nights before going to the next lower dosage.

So, it will be a total of 2-3 nights "pause."

Although that slows your progress, the knowledge that you have the "safety net" of being able to temporarily return to full dose for one night will give you comfort and assurance, and that comfort will help you progress.

When you are progressing well with your sleep medication reduction, you can consider adding natural sleep supplements to give you comfortable support as you further reduce and then your pharmaceutical sleep medication and then want to sleep well without it. For information on effective natural sleep supplements, go to https://www.sleepeasymethod.com/resources