No rescue here! (Bach Rescue Night)

Member Name: emmachilcott

Product:	Bach Rescue Night
Date:	07/10/09 (167 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: No side effects, non drowsy

Disadvantages: Doesn't actually work

My eldest son (who we shall call "Bob" for the purpose of this review) has been struggling to get to sleep for months, so much so that he gets really annoyed with himself, which stops him from sleeping even more. For the odd few nights, I would generally just leave him to sort himself out, but this has happened every night for almost a year, and we are both at the end of our tether when he is still awake at midnight! I decided to go to my local health food shop for some advice, and I was recommended Bach rescue night. He is almost eleven, and quite well built - I would not want to give anything to a child any younger.


As I have always suffered from a bad sleeping pattern; I'm tired during the day and I fall asleep regularly, and at night I find it difficult to get to sleep and then I wake up in the wee small hours and lie awake for hours, I decided that I would test this product on myself first to ensure that there were no side effects before giving it to Bob.


Rescue Night is a herbal remedy, and the main ingredients are glycerine and water. It also contains a combination of five flower essences and white chestnut, and these ingredients when combined together are supposed to give you a good night's sleep. It says on the box that the product is suitable for the whole family, but it does not specify ages. Rescue Night comes in a small brown glass bottle with a dropper for the lid and you are advised to either put four drops on your tongue or add four drops to water and sip slowly. If you put them in water, no taste is detectable, but if you put them on your tongue, they taste just like rubber to me (like licking a hot water bottle!). There are no instructions stating when you should take them, so I just take them on my way up to bed.


I must be honest and say that I really noticed no difference in my sleeping pattern at all. They did not make me drowsy or the slightest bit sleepy, and I woke up just as I normally do at 3.20am! There were certainly no side effects what so ever; I felt as though I had taken nothing at all! I took them for two weeks, and I felt as though they were safe enough to give to Bob. On the first night, I put four drops in water and sent him up to bed with a book. Within twenty minutes he shouted down that he was feeling sleepy and after half an hour he was asleep! Result! But hang on a minute.


Bob took this on week nights for a couple of weeks and fell asleep really well every night, but then the bottle ran out. I didn't have any spare, so I filled the bottle up with water and dropped it into water as usual! Naughty I know, but a useful experiment. He took them as usual then went up to bed - and fell asleep! I did this for another week, and exactly the same happened, which only leads me to believe that this product is somewhat of a placebo, and it is very much mind over matter. Bob took them believing that they would make him sleep, so he slept - I wish that I had the same sort of belief. He doesn't take them anymore, as he believes that the drops "cured" him, and so stopped taking them by choice.


I cannot absolutely slate this product, as in a roundabout sort of way; it did what was expected of it! However, it did cost me over £5 and they may as well have just put water in the bottle rather than an expensive combination of ingredients. I think that a lot of herbal remedies work alongside your state of mind, but so long as the end result is a positive one, who am I to judge? If you do want to give this product a go (if only to get the empty dropper!) it is available in most health food shops.

Summary: I'm fairly sure that this is just a placebo....