• Posted October 31, 2025

Insomnia? Avoid This Common Strategy If You're Older, Experts Say

Middle-aged adults and seniors would age more gracefully — and save a few bucks – if they lay off prescription sleep medications, a new study says.

Avoiding sleep drugs would reduce older Americans’ lifetime rate of falls by nearly 9% and brain decline by 2%, researchers report in the upcoming December issue of The Lancet Regional Health-Americas.

It also would increase life expectancy by more than a month and save folks thousands of dollars, researchers said.

“Our results show reducing use of sleep medications could help older adults live healthier lives with fewer limitations,” lead researcher Hanke Heun-Johnson, a research scientist at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics, said in a news release.

More than 15 million Americans 50 and older take prescribed sleep meds, including benzodiazepines and sedative-hypnotic drugs like Ambien, researchers said in background notes.

Guidelines discourage long-term use, but docs often prescribe these drugs for long periods anyway, researchers said.

Insomnia affects as many as 50% of people over 65, increasing their risk of depression, anxiety, heart disease, high blood pressure and brain decline, researchers said.

However, sleep drugs increase the risk of broken bones from falls, sleepwalking, night terrors and cognitive impairment, researchers said.

For the new study, researchers developed the “Future Elderly Model” to project the impact of sleep drug use among older adults.

Using two decades’ worth of data from the federal Health and Retirement Study, researchers analyzed current use of sleep meds and how people might fare if everyone stopped using them.

They found that people 65 to 74 had the largest potential benefit from avoiding sleep drugs, in terms of brain and physical health.

Seniors also would save about $6,600 on acreage across their lifetime, mostly from improvements in their quality of life, researchers said.

People would do better to try cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, which teaches better sleeping habits, researchers said. It’s just as effective as sleep drugs in the short-term and more effective in the long run, and can be delivered through an app.

“Insomnia is a serious issue for many older adults, but regular use of sleep medication can pose real risks,” senior researcher Jason Doctor, a senior scholar at the Schaeffer Center, said in a news release. “Supporting physicians in reducing prescriptions and promoting safer, proven alternatives will ultimately benefit patients and society.”

More information

The Sleep Foundation has more on cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia.

SOURCES: University of Southern California, news release, Oct. 27, 2025; The Lancet Regional Health-Americas, December 2025