Sleeping pills (or hypnotics) are designed to mimic the mechanisms of natural sleep, which involve many molecules that transmit information in the brain and body, such as neurotransmitters and hormones. Most hypnotics target specific neurotransmitters and the receptor sites in the brain on which they act, especially GABA, the brain's principal inhibitory signalling molecule. Some hypnotics target hormones such as melatonin. Most of these drugs are effective, the newer ones especially so. But they all alter sleep structure and brainwaves to some extent and most sleep medications have side effects such as grogginess the next morning or memory loss for events that happened while awake during the night.
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