Brief Answer: There are better options available Detailed Answer: Hello, Thanks for choosing health care magic for posting your query. I have gone through your question in detail and I can understand what you are going through. Sertraline is a good drug for depression but it may take more than 2 weeks to have its effect. It may at times take more than 2 weeks as well. Ones the depression gets better your sleep disturbance will also settle down. If your husband has problem of insomnia then he may take some medications for sleep disturbance. Zolpidem clonazepam or alprazolam are good drugs for insomnia with stroke. They may be taken 1 hour before sleep. The problem with most of the herbal medicines for sleep is that they contain tryptophan or serotonine and when taken with sertraline it may cause serotonine syndrome. The problem is more likely to occur in patients of stroke where chances of delirium are high. Hence I would personally request you to avoid taking any kind of herbal preparations with sertraline. You may instead discuss the options of clonazepam or alprazolam or zolpidem with your treating neurologist. Hope I am able to answer your concerns. If you have any further query, I would be glad to help you. If not, you may close the discussion and if possible you may rate the answer for me, so that I get a good feedback. In future if you wish to contact me directly, you can use the below mentioned link: bit.ly/dr-srikanth-reddy Wish you good health, Kind regards Dr. Srikanth Reddy M.D.

---