If you have ever found it difficult to get to sleep, then at some point you may have used or considered using a sleeping pill.
"Staggering" new studies suggest those who take prescription sleeping pills before heading to bed have a 55 per cent greater chance of early death, The Mirror reports.
Carried out by the National Taiwan University, the study highlighted how life expectancy for those taking the pills shortened by 5.3 years in men and 5.7 years in women, doubling for those who slept for more than eight hours.
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Yu Sun, of the university, outlined: "Our results are staggering, to say the least. Many people rely on sleeping pills to help them sleep, so it's a shock to find that taking them may more than double your mortality risk.
"We suggest avoiding using sleeping pills as a first-line of treatment for insomnia, and try other methods first."
According to The Sun, the study was published in the Elsevier journal Sleep Health and involved looking at the death risk and life expectancy in 484,916 adults in Taiwan from 1994 to 2011.
Four groups were developed - those sleeping four hours or less, sleeping four to six hours, sleeping six to eight hours, or sleeping eight hours plus - and were questioned on their use of prescription pills.
Those who were asleep between four and six hours were 32 per cent more likely to die early if they used prescription sleeping pills.
The NHS website states: "GPs now rarely prescribe sleeping pills to treat insomnia. Sleeping pills can have serious side effects and you can become dependent on them. Sleeping pills are only prescribed for a few days, or weeks at the most, if: your insomnia is very bad, or other treatments have not worked."
The NHS recommends those suffering from insomnia see a GP about your sleep if you have had difficulty sleeping for months, or if your insomnia is impacting your daily life in a way that makes it hard for you to cope.
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