Answer: There are a lot of sleeping pills in the market. There is Xanax, Ambien, Haldol, Dalmane;to name a few. , Most of them have the same side effects. Aside from being addicting, , they can cause drowiness. So you are advised not to operate any machinery while using it. If you want less side effects.My father even became suicidal when prescribed Haldol for sleep. It causes a lot of mental confusion in the elderly. Taking a plain antihistamnics like Benadryl. gives the same effect. It also clears up your sinuses .The side effects of the prescription sleeping pills are much like their benefits. At night, we want our brain cells to stop working (unless we need to get up in the middle of the night), so sleeping pills make the brain less active. If the sleeping pill is in the blood during the day, it will make the daytime brain less active and less functional. The problem is that no sleeping pill remains in the blood all night, impairing consciousness, and then suddenly evaporates at the moment of awakening.Besides, a large percentage of people who take sleeping pills do often get up at night. Most of the marketed prescription hypnotics, when taken at bedtime, will remain in the blood with at least half strength when morning comes. Only a few prescription hypnotics marketed in the U.S. leave the blood fast enough to be largely gone from the blood by morning: these include zolpidem (Ambien), zaleplon (Sonata), and triazolam (Halcion). Even these drugs may be found in the morning blood if they are taken in the middle of the night. Ambien CR may sometimes affect people the next morning, and eszopiclone (Lunesta) is likely to produce a few hours of morning impairment, particularly among people over age 60. Oddly enough, despite the brief half-life (time to be half-dissipated) of zolpidem, zaleplon, and triazolam, there is fragmentary evidence that these short-acting hypnotics produce impairments lasting after their disappearance from the blood . Ramelteon (Rozerem) produces no next-day impairment according to the manufacturer studies, but I have heard patients complain.As explained above, sleeping pills suppress the action potentials of a wide variety our brain cells. The psychological effects are to make us sleepy, reduce alertness and vigilance, slow reaction times and judgment, and impair aspects of intelligence and memory. Literally hundreds of studies have been done concerning the psychological effects of sleeping pills, both within a few hours after ingestion and then during the day following taking a sleeping pill at bedtime .