What Are Beta-blockers?
Beta-blockers
In recent years, with concern over benzodiazepine use, there has been interest in the use of beta-blockers in the treatment of anxiety, principally propranolol (Inderal) and atenolol (Tenormin). Although they are used mainly in the treatment of hypertension, angina and cardiac arrhythmias, the rationale for their use in psychiatry is that they block the peripheral manifestations of anxiety, such as increased heart rate or shaking in the hands. Signs such as these are the cues we all use to judge, how anxious we are. When these effects of anxiety are controlled, it seems that two sets of feedback loops may be interrupted. Part of becoming anxious involves anxiety at signs of becoming anxious, such as increased heart rate and shaky hands. These manifestations of anxiety can lead to worries in their own right, for example, for the concert performer who may worry about both the audience and the effects of shaky hand on the violin bow. Similarly public speakers may have their nervousness faced with an audience augmented by nervousness about the effects of tremulous voice or a dry mouth on the act of speaking itself. Controlling effects such as heart rate, voice timbre and hand steadiness, therefore, can interrupt one feedback loop by taking away a set of stimuli to further anxiety. It can also interrupt another and ease the central anxiety by, as it were, removing the cues by which we all judge just how anxious we are. Read more…
