One of the major side effects while tapering off a benzo/z-drug is insomnia and I personally never found anything herbal or natural that helped while I was doing my taper off diazepam. I tried just about everything that was suggested and all it did was cost me a lot of money.
A couple of things that really did help though was an amitriptyline AD (I used Endep). These ADs are very sedating at low doses and, while they may be an AD, they are much better to use than a benzo or z-drug.
The other thing I used was an over the counter antihistamine called doxylamine. I'm not sure what brand names you have available, but some that I know of are Unisom, Dozile and Restivit. This is also very sedating at low doses, and there are many people on Benzo Buddies who swear by it.
Of course, like all sleep meds, neither is good to rely on all the time, so you do need to find another solution to your insomnia problem, like HRT if you aren't already on it. They shouldn't be taken continuously because you can develop tolerance to them. There would be times when I would sleep quite well without any meds, but if my insomnia was particularly bad I would use one of these meds for 4-5 days and then switch to the other for 4-5 days, and then back again if I needed to.
Every so often I still need to rely on these meds, because even though I finished my taper off diazepam 18 months ago, I still get some residual insomnia. This is quite common because it can take a number of years before you get full GABA receptor healing after benzo/z-drug dependency. Another reason to never take this stuff ever.
