Herbal remedies are best used to help you calm down or fall asleep, rather than as a first-line defense for intense anxiety. As a result of this inverse agonism, Benadryl users may report feeling predictably drowsy, sedated, and in some cases, less anxious.At higher doses, Benadryl users may derive additional [yet less substantial] anxiolytic effects via modulation of: acetylcholine, norepinephrine, and serotonin.
Because Benadryl causes many people to feel drowsy, it can also help aid in sleep.
A randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, crossover trial by Furey, Khanna, Hoffman, and Drevets (2010) recruited 52 outpatients with major depressive disorder OR bipolar disorder to test the therapeutic efficacy of scopolamine, a muscarinic receptor antagonist.The trial involved patients receiving intravenous infusions of a placebo OR scopolamine (4 mcg/kg).
When noradrenergic transmission is upregulated in the CeA as a result of immobilization stress, alpha-1 adrenergic receptors are stimulated, which appears to cause fear and anxiety-like behaviors among rats in social interaction (SI) and elevated plus maze (EPM) tests. Though the anxiolytic efficacy of standalone diphenhydramine wasn’t evaluated in this trial, the fact that diphenhydramine plus lorazepam was superior in efficacy to standalone lorazepam provides reason to believe that it generates a relevant anxiolytic effect.Grünberger, Saletu, Linzmayer, et al. Not long after its approval for over-the-counter retail, Pfizer Consumer Healthcare began marketing diphenhydramine under the brand name “Benadryl.” Rights to the name Benadryl were eventually transferred in 2007 to Johnson & Johnson, a subsidiary of McNeil Consumer Healthcare.These days, Benadryl remains a frequently utilized intervention for a host of medical conditions including: allergies, common colds, coughs, extrapyramidal symptoms, itchiness, insomnia, motion sickness, nausea, vertigo, and vomiting.
Superior anxiolytic efficacy of Somnium over lorazepam was evidenced by a significantly greater reduction of thymopsychic dysfunction in the first study, and significantly greater improvement on the Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale in the second study. It is absolutely not addictive. In this study, researchers examined the effect of an H1 receptor antagonist (chlorpheniramine) on the performance of aged Norway rats in various testing paradigms. Other evidence suggests additional abnormalities of sleep among patients with anxiety disorders including: REM dysregulation, decreased REM latency, and decreased slow-wave sleep.There’s some evidence to suggest that diphenhydramine may improve certain sleep problems (e.g. (a comparison would be my prescription: 25mg of Hydroxyzine Hcl - 3x/day for anxiety, and 1x/nightly for sleep. If you are experiencing symptoms of anxiety, talk to your doctor about your treatment options.
The paper concluded that inhibition of the NET does not increase likelihood of anxiety, and may paradoxically decrease it. These researchers believe that targeting inflammation may effectively alleviate anxious symptoms.Although diphenhydramine is unlikely to mediate peripheral inflammation of all causes, it may help minimize allergy-related inflammatory responses by blocking histamine. Though we cannot assume that diphenhydramine exerts the same magnitude of antagonism upon the M1 receptor as scopolamine, it’s possible that even a smaller degree of M1 antagonism contributes to an anxiolytic effect.For this reason, the inhibition of diphenhydramine upon the NET should be mentioned as possibly implicated in an anxiolytic response. To determine the efficacies of the putative anxiolytics in preventing cocaine-related anxiety, various agents were administered intraperitoneally prior to the cocaine, including: diazepam, buspirone, dimenhydrinate or diphenhydramine, OR a saline placebo.