Doctor gave me some sleeping pills, ambien, and told me I should take half a pill to sleep. I'm afraid of taking them.

I had pretty severe health anxiety, which then turned into regular bouts of insomnia which made my health anxiety worse. I do notice that when I do manage to get some sleep in and feel more refreshed, it's way easier to control my anxiety.

The last week has been horrible though, all around tossing and turning in my bed, and something snapped and I just wanted for it to stop. I just want to take the bull by the horns now and be done with this nonsense. I'm a 25 year old guy and I graduated so I have better things to do.

So I went to the doctor once again, who told me I didn't look so fresh. He initially refused to give me some meds because he is very much aware of the implications. Yet this time he was slightly convinced to give me a small dose for maximum 5 days to reset my sleeping pattern, so that I could restart things from there. My mom had exactly the same thing a couple of years ago, and she took half a sleeping pill for about 3 days to reset her sleeping pattern, and it worked for her.

I accepted his offer and yesterday night I took half a pill, reluctantly, like he prescribed. Afterwards I had a slight panic attack, I was suddenly fearful about those sleeping pills and their rammifications that I started sweating and almost hyperventilating. I managed to chill out eventually and it gave me a solid 6 hours of sleep, which was fine.

Today I read up about the possible effects of these sleeping pills. I read that they enhance your chances dying suddenly, of having a heart attack, or a torn artery, exactly the things I dreaded so much and gave me a panic attacks in the first place. So now I'm divided, it kind of helped me yesterday night but now I'm really panicky and fearful about possible sudden death because of sleep medicine.

Am I again overblowing this or is my concern legit?