MORE than one in four Americans say they are literally losing sleep over the economic downturn — tossing and turning over personal finances, the economy, job security or health care costs.
Those were the results of a poll released last month by the National Sleep Foundation, a nonprofit group financed by federal and private sources that include health care companies like Merck, Wyeth and Johnson & Johnson and mattress makers like Sealy.
It is little surprise, then, that some over-the-counter sleeping pills have been doing a brisk business in recent months.
In the four-week period that ended March 22, sales of Advil PM tablets, which combine a sleeping aid with a pain reliever, were up 16 percent compared with the same period a year ago, according to Information Resources Inc., whose totals do not include sales at Wal-Mart. The brand’s year-over-year increases for the previous four weeks were even sharper, rising 33 percent, and were up 26 percent the month before that.
Sales of Tylenol PM, the leading pain-relieving sleeping pill, were up 6 percent year-over-year for the month that ended March 22, according to Information Resources, a market research company in Chicago.
There is plenty of sheep-counting even in the best of financial times. The National Institutes of Health estimates that 30 percent of Americans have trouble sleeping and 10 percent have some form of insomnia; their daytime symptoms include moodiness as well as impaired concentration and memory.
But economic factors do weigh heavily. A survey done by the market research firm Experian Simmons in 2008 found that those with household incomes under $25,000 were 48 percent more likely than the general population to have sleep disorders, and those with no employed adults in the household were 45 percent more prone.
According to a recent report by the market research firm Packaged Facts, the age group most likely to suffer from insomnia are people 55 to 64 years old, who may suffer from arthritis or other ailments and are 26 percent more likely than the average consumer to buy pain-relieving sleep aids.
“Not only does this age group have to deal with the pains of getting old, but they are also most affected by the financial crisis, a huge headache in and of itself,” the Packaged Facts report said.
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In an Advil PM television ad now running broadly — by Grey New York, part of the Grey Group division of WPP — a couple on a camping trip tuck into side-by-side sleeping bags — hers blue with the Advil PM logo, his red like Tylenol PM packaging.
Then, a third pajama-clad actor, holding a lantern outside the tent, announces it is the “middle of the night,” and the woman is shown sleeping peacefully while the man rubs his lower back and neck, grimacing.
“With Advil PM, she’s spending less time lying awake with aches and pains, and more time asleep,” the actor says. “He should switch to Advil PM. Maybe you should switch too.”
Sales of Advil PM, which was introduced in 2006, grew 17 percent in 2008, making it the fastest growing product for Wyeth Consumer Healthcare, whose overall sales for the year were “slightly down,” according to Doug Petkus, a spokesman for the company. The company has done comparative ads that mention Tylenol PM since Advil PM’s introduction, he said.
Nearly two decades ago, Tylenol PM was the upstart, challenging Excedrin PM, which introduced the first nighttime pain pills in 1969. In 1992, the year after Johnson & Johnson introduced Tylenol PM, a judge dismissed a lawsuit by Excedrin PM claiming that its new competitor’s use of “PM” and its packaging constituted a trademark violation.
Representatives from both McNeil Consumer Healthcare, the Johnson & Johnson division that makes Tylenol PM, and Novartis Consumer Health, which makes Excedrin PM, declined requests for interviews.
Packaged Facts estimates the entire over-the-counter sleep aids market for 2008 at $604 million, and painkilling sleeping pills account for 61 percent of that ($370 million). Leading the nighttime analgesics market is Tylenol PM, with a 50 percent share, followed by Advil PM (23 percent), store brands and other private labels (19 percent) and Excedrin PM (7 percent), according to Packaged Facts.
The active ingredients in most over-the-counter sleeping pills are antihistamines, like those in allergy pills. Sominex, Advil PM, Tylenol PM and Excedrin PM all contain diphenhydramine — the same active ingredient as Benadryl, an allergy medicine. (Benadryl describes diphenhydramine on its label as an “antihistamine” while the sleeping pill labels describe it as a “sleep aid.”)
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Dr. Phyllis Zee, director of the sleep disorders program at Northwestern University, says she has had patients for whom over-the-counter pills have been effective, but she added that the medicines were not risk-free and discouraged using them more than occasionally.
“If you take something like Advil PM intermittently when you have pain and can’t sleep, that’s a reasonable approach,” Dr. Zee said. “But I don’t think there really have been long-term studies to look at their safety and efficacy when taken on a long-term basis.”
In a 2005 report about insomnia, the National Institutes of Health cited “significant concerns about risks” of such antihistamine sleeping pills, including “residual daytime sedation, diminished cognitive function and delirium, the latter being of particular concern in the elderly.”
For those lying awake worrying about money, meanwhile, one way out of their financial predicament might be to develop solutions for people lying awake worrying about money.
Packaged Facts projects that sleeping aids — not just medication but a host of products including herbal supplements, travel aids like neck pillows, sound machines and sleep masks — will continue to grow as much as 10 percent annually through 2013.
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