Ambien doesn’t just change how you sleep 👉 it changes how your brain cleans itself. A 2025 paper in the journal Cell showed that zolpidem (Ambien) reduces glymphatic clearance by ~30% by flattening the vascular norepinephrine waves that normally push fluid through the brain at night (ie clean out the toxins and waste, so if you aren’t clearing your accumulating). This means you may be “knocked out,” but your brain’s waste-clearing system is underperforming. If someone has to use Ambien, support