Do sleeping pills help recovery from training?

Short answer

No. Sleeping pills only cut the time to fall asleep by 22 minutes; the amount of each sleep stage stayed the same, and next-day exercise performance showed no difference from a placebo.

Do sleeping pills help recovery from training?
'Sleeping pill → deep sleep → better recovery': is it true?
Recovery after training happens during sleep, so some think more sleep from a pill means faster recovery. We checked how much sleeping pills change sleep and how the body does the next day.
How much do sleeping pills change sleep?
People fell asleep 22 minutes faster
An analysis that pooled 13 trials with 4,378 people found that pills like zolpidem cut the time to fall asleep by 22 minutes compared with a placebo. Other measures, such as time awake after falling asleep and total sleep time, showed no difference from the placebo.
Did deep sleep increase?
The amount of each sleep stage stayed the same
When 8 people took zolpidem and their sleep was measured with brain waves, the amount of each sleep stage, including deep sleep, showed no difference from a normal night. The pill did not add extra deep sleep.
Was next-day performance better?
No difference from a placebo
26 people were randomly given one of two sleeping pills or a placebo, and endurance, muscular endurance, strength and coordination were tested the next day. There was no difference among the three. The pills neither lowered nor raised next-day performance.
What about daytime fatigue in people who cannot sleep?
It dropped, but no more than with behavioral therapy
In a trial that randomly split 211 people with insomnia, zolpidem improved daytime fatigue and daily functioning with no difference from behavioral therapy. Anxiety dropped more with behavioral therapy, and over 12 months the groups that had behavioral therapy kept improving.
The next morning had a cost
Some pills disrupted morning driving
An analysis that pooled 26 trials found that some pills, such as zolpidem and triazolam, made lane-keeping while driving the next morning worse than a placebo. Most approved pills at labeled doses were close to the placebo, and taking them several nights in a row made the effect smaller than at first.
Summary: sleeping pills are not a recovery aid
They only moved sleep onset 22 minutes earlier
Sleeping pills cut the time to fall asleep by 22 minutes but did not add deep sleep, and next-day performance showed no difference from a placebo. Zolpidem made lane-keeping while driving the next morning worse than a placebo. They eased daytime fatigue in insomnia, but behavioral therapy did the same. We found no reason to add a sleeping pill for recovery.