[cmckn]

I too get really anxious when I have to give a presentation or do an interview. Beta blockers like propranolol have been incredible for these moments. I don’t take them every time, and I luckily don’t face these situations very often. I wouldn’t encourage anyone to dedicate their life to a career that they need medication to survive, doesn’t seem like a good trade off to me. But if you find this to be a real negative thing in your life, you have options besides deep breathing and power poses! Talk to your doctor :)

[ketzo]

Yeah, seriously. A friend and I in college were talking about how we handle our pre-presentation nerves, and I was suggesting she should try deep breaths, counting to ten, etc.; meanwhile, she would routinely go into full-body fight-or-flight mode, panic attacks, barely able to speak.

Yeah... "count to ten" is probably insufficient for that! Her body needed more help managing her chemical response to stress. Same thing for her -- beta blockers (propranolol too, actually) were a complete life change.

Just to hit it on the head for anyone reading: everyone has anxiety, it's a normal part of life. If you find yourself physically incapacitated by anxiety on a regular basis, that's not something everyone deals with, and you can absolutely seek the help of a psychologist or psychiatrist!

[gonehome]

Interesting about the beta blockers - docs mostly seem pretty clueless about this kind of thing and often suggest benzodiazepines (lorazepam, alprazolam, etc.) or SSRIs - neither of which I really want to take given their negative effects.

[gwillen]

It's a bit weird -- beta blockers are not technically, from a doctor's perspective, anti-anxiety meds. They suppress the _physical_ symptoms of anxiety, such as increased heart rate. For many people, that seems to have a big impact, and even reduce or eliminate the subjective feeling of anxiety too (specifically when used for performance anxiety; I don't know about other cases.)

I don't think we really have a good understanding of how all this stuff is connected.