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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards

Benzodiazepine half-life and "afterglow" questions.

B

behindblueeyes

Bluelighter
Joined
Dec 17, 2010
Messages
89
This is with Xanax; I took 2 mg altogether last evening and last night, and felt okay (benzos never leave me with a euphoric feeling or anything)... well I took 15 mg mirtazapine as well to ease sleep and of course I passed out; well, this morning I woke up feeling calm as ever. I usually wake up with racing thoughts, anxiety, etc., but today is different. This usually happens the morning after I take a benzo to sleep. Any reason for this considering xanax is only supposed to last a few hours?

unfortunately now as I am sipping coffee that calmness is slipping away and I'm slowly coming back to myself :(
 
Behind...this happens to me, as well. Its primarily because you got such a good/deep nights sleep. If you slept 7 hours without a benzo, it wouldn't leave you as refreshed as opposed to having one in your system.

Throughout the night, we may wake up a few times a night and not get into full REM sleep. With a benzo, if you slept for 7 hours, you would notice a significant difference. You go into full REM sleep, without any interruptions. I find with a benzo, sometimes, I can sleep for 5 hours and feel absolutely refreshed. Don't take too frequently though; can lead to a nasty addiction. Take it when absolutely needed or a few times spread throughout the week.

Cheers
 
Threads about the effects of drugs belong in Basic Drug Discussion. It aint appropriate for Drug Culture, DC is about the CULTURE of drugs, not for questions about the dosing, high, and side effects of drugs. moving to BDD.
 
the benzo half life is long. i feel calm for a few days sometimes
 
^Exactly.

It really depends on the half life of the benzodiazepine in question, however, with high enough doses, I have felt afterglows even with short acting benzos such as alprazolam. You're not likely to feel anything using lower-end dosages (0.125 - 1.0mg), however.

To understand the reasoning behind this, you have to understand the meaning of the term "half-life", which, in short means the amount of time (on average, usually given as a range) for half the drug or drug's active metabolite to be eliminated. In other words, after that amount of time, there is still the other half of the given dosage remaining in the individual's body.

Take alprazolam for example, the half is from 6-12 hours, so we can take the middle of that, 9 hours for our example:

If you take 4mg of alprazolam (a considerably high dosage), 9 hours later there will be 2mg of alprazolam remaining your system, so if you took 4mg at bedtime, there would still be a large enough amount still in your system for you to feel the afterglow. So, both dosage and half life are important.

I recommend taking a look at the Bluelight Benzo Conversion Chart for information on the half-life properties of common benzodiazepines.
 
The Xanax was still in your system, even though it has a short half-life, 2 mg is a lot, so what was left in your system was enough to keep your anxiety at bay.
 
Exactly the point I was trying to show above. :)

Also, I'm editing the title of this thread for easier searching in the future. OP, PM me if you have any questions.
 
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