Sleeping Pills

Don't take sleeping pills unless your doctor prescribes them. The indiscriminate use of self-prescribed sleeping pills can be danger­ous and damaging. Proof of this is found in the fact that the sale of sleeping pills without a doctor's prescription is forbidden in most states. The pills that can be bought without prescription contain ineffective drugs or such small doses that they can't work except by suggestion.

Sleeping pills are sedative and hypnotic drugs, usually but not always barbiturates. Addiction to barbiturates is possible, and in overdoses these drugs can be fatal Bromides and antagonistically (sometimes drugs you take for hay fever) also have a sleep-producing effect, and you may get sleepy if you take them. You need not be afraid to take sleeping pills as long as your physician continues to prescribe them.

In summary: We have introduced the im­portant topic of mental health, dependent both on the human mind and body. We have outlined some simple principles of mental health ("Have faith in something beyond yourself." etc.) and discussed the nature of human emotions, which include bodily reac­tions. We have given a description of the hu­man nervous systems: peripheral, autonomic, and central. We have elucidated the nature and function of the nerve cell (neuron), the fundamental unit of the nervous systems. These, we have pointed out, can be studied as electrical systems in which stimulus always brings response, The important role of the endocrine glands in regulating and integrat­ing body processes has also been discussed. Finally we have presented the phenomenon of sleep, for it reflects conditions of mental health. We come to the simple conclusion that mind and body are tightly intertwined in helping an individual to reach a goal of good mental health.