Musicians use beta blockers like athletes use steroids.

As it turns out Beta blockers are used outside of the sporting world and are advantageous to all musicians, however specifically classical musicians have been passing beta blockers around orchestras like candy since the 1970’s.

Beta blockers are used under the pretence of combating the crippling curse of stage fright.

So, it begs the question should you as a musician be using beta blockers.

What are Beta Blockers?

Beta blockers are the steroids for musicians

Beta Blockers are a group of drugs used to slow down heart rate and lower blood pressure.

By blocking hormones like adrenaline, which increase our heart rate and blood pressure (high blood pressure causes stress).

In layman’s terms beta blockers calm someone by stopping the release of adrenaline, keeping your blood pressure low.

High blood pressure is common in the elderly, in fact many of our grandparents probably have beta blockers in a pill case somewhere.

Please don’t ‘BORROW’ them however as beta blockers are only prescribed after trying other forms of blood pressure medication and therefore chances are your granddad really needs them.

This information although can be seen as just a joke it turned out to be very important, as I realised if beta blockers are prescription drugs how are musicians getting them?

The answer to that being through doctors prescribing beta blockers to musicians with high blood pressure or heart issues.

What are the potential Side effects of beta blockers?

• Dizziness is common when using beta blockers simply because when your blow flow is a lot slower there will be less blood in your body and in your head.
• Cold hands and cold feet are experienced whilst using beta blockers because blood flow is slower meaning less blood flows around your body. So, your body decides to prioritize the parts of your body that are more important and need blood. This mean blood is sent to your organs not your hands and feet leaving them cold.
• Weight gain although doctors aren’t sure why certain beta blockers cause weight gain, they believe it might be because beta blockers slow down our metabolism.
• Diarrhoea
• Vomiting
• Headaches
• Irregular heartbeat

What are the medical uses of beta blockers?

Beta Blockers are prescribed to treat various health issues: Heart failure, heart failure means that the heart is unable to pump blood around the body properly usually because the heart has become too weak so heart failure is common in the elderly.

And heart attacks (caused when the bloods path to the heart is blocked).

Beta blockers are used to treat these health issues because like beta blockers have the ability to relax you, they relax your heart also slowing your heart rate, lowering the production of harmful substances to the heart and in time improve the heart’s pumping ability.

Also, beta blockers are used to treat high blood pressure because beta blockers slow your blood flow, reducing blood pressure.

Beta Blockers used to treat anxiety

What is anxiety? A feeling of great unease or worry commonly caused by stress.

Although beta blockers aren’t primarily used to treat anxiety, they can in fact manage and control your body’s physical reaction to stress.

Our body reacts to stress by increasing our heart rate, making us shake and sweat.

By stopping these reactions, you will feel less anxious. 2016 research about beta blockers being used for treatment of anxiety showed beta blockers are an effective short-term solution.

Which tells us classical musicians popping these capsules before performing are actually benefiting from the use of beta blockers and this drug does help them cope with stage fright.

Musicians using beta blockers

The dark side of music

Beta blockers can supposedly help treat anxiety and this is exactly why musicians have turned to this drug to help stop stage fright.

I can only guess that the lack of research and proven methods of possible solutions to stage fright are to blame for musicians turning to betta blockers for aid.

It personally shocked me that the classical music industry was in fact the industry to take advantage of beta blockers because its so hard to believe the men and women dressed so well that they even look like aristocrats, back stage they are essentially getting drugged up ready to perform.

It doesn’t seem right. Until someone explains exactly how musicians can benefit from it. As musicians we all know stage fright can really ruin a performance.

I myself have countless stories of performance fails. Stage fright effects performances in so many ways, you can even panic and freeze which we all know has to be the worst.

There’s no doubt it sucks.

So, its important that all musicians ‘cure’ their stage fright. Especially for classical musicians as jobs are few and far between now with rising competition.

So, for an aspiring classical musicians stage fright isn’t an option as error isn’t an afforded luxury. In fact, in a 1987 study of the top 50 orchestras in America 1 in 4 musicians openly admitted to using beta blockers and 70 percent was receiving their pills illegally.

So, it seems beta blockers have been normalised in the classical music world as an industry standard solution for stage fright.

Beta blockers are just another step closer to perfection for musicians.

So why is there no Lance Armstrong of the musical world?

It has to be said you must have been living under a rock to not have heard of Lance Armstrong, the 7-time American tour de France winner who was eventually disqualified for doping.

But you will be excused if like me you didn’t realise beta blockers are a form of ‘doping’ because beta blockers slow down your blood flow rate and doping is simply the manipulation of your blood.

So why is it the use of beta blockers has derailed the careers of athletes and Olympians but musicians openly admit to using beta blockers?

Although we wish we had the answer we really don’t and we can only guess that because 1 in 4 classical musicians use beta blockers it has been accepted as normality.

Other groups of people using Beta blockers

Athletes also us beta blockers in Athletics but for a very different reason for greater blood flow allowing more oxygen to flow around the body.

More oxygen around the body allows an athlete for example to run or cycling longer.

However, athletes may also use beta blockers in a similar way to musicians to combat performance anxiety just like musicians use beta blockers to get over stage fright.

Summary: So, should you use Beta Blockers?

Beta blockers are a prescribed drug used to treat high blood pressure, heart failure and even anxiety.

Which musicians and athletes alike have been self-prescribing to cope with performance anxiety for a very long time.

However, it should remain a substance of the past for musicians as there is plenty of new and better solutions to stage fright available now.

An alternative… Nitrovit