Getting enough sleep is very important for our health and well-being. But many people, especially in the United States, don’t get enough rest.
About one out of three adults are sleep-deprived. That’s why it’s helpful to understand how medications might affect sleep.
A new study from the Berlin Institute of Health looked at beta-blockers, a common type of medicine used to treat high blood pressure and other heart problems. These drugs help the heart work less hard by slowing down the heart rate and lowering the amount of blood it pumps. This helps bring blood pressure down.
Doctors often give beta-blockers to people with heart failure, irregular heartbeats, chest pain, and high blood pressure. But for a long time, people have worried that these drugs might cause mental health problems like depression, anxiety, sleepiness, insomnia, or even bad dreams and hallucinations.
To learn more, researchers looked at data from over 50,000 people in 258 different studies. Most of these studies were about treating high blood pressure.
The good news is that the study found beta-blockers do not make people more likely to feel depressed. This goes against the old belief that these medicines often cause depression. In fact, people on beta-blockers stopped taking the medicine because of depression at about the same rate as people on other treatments.
However, the study did find that beta-blockers might disturb sleep. People who took them were more likely to report insomnia, strange dreams, and other sleep problems. Even though depression wasn’t a big issue, trouble sleeping was more common. Still, the most frequent reason people stopped using beta-blockers was feeling tired or having low energy.
These results are important. They show that beta-blockers are mostly safe for mental health, but they can affect sleep for some people. This is something both doctors and patients should think about, especially if the person already has trouble sleeping.
So, if you are taking beta-blockers and notice changes in your sleep, don’t ignore it. Talk to your doctor. You might still be able to take the medicine, or your doctor might suggest a different one or offer tips to help with sleep.
The study was led by Reinhold Kreutz and was published in the journal Hypertension. It helps doctors and patients make better choices when treating heart problems.
In short, beta-blockers probably won’t affect your mood, but they might affect your sleep. Being aware of this can help you and your doctor manage your health in the best possible way.
If you care about blood pressure, please read studies about common blood pressure medication that may extend your healthy life span and common high blood pressure drug linked to sudden cardiac arrest.
For more about blood pressure, please read studies that timing matters when taking high blood pressure pills and 1 in 5 people with high blood pressure taking a drug worsen the disease.
Copyright © 2025 Knowridge Science Report. All rights reserved.
