Beta Blockers and Stage Fright

[mtmartin71]

Watched a documentary called "Bigger, Stronger, Faster" which was a great look at steroids and some of the hype both ways around it. One of those docs that will keep me thinking for some time as I used them briefly when I thought it would extend my football career. Anyhow, they went into a number of areas where people take things to enhance performance in other ways that are not scrutinized or illegal like steroids. One I thought was interesting was concert musicians taking beta blockers to curb stage fright and nerves. They interviewed a few and they said that it definitely took that adrenaline/nerves thing away so they could just get up there and play. I've been playing on stage for a while but I get definite anxiety and nerves, to the point of being detrimental, when I get up on stage some times. Soooo...have you tried this, would you try it, downside?

Related to this, in the doc, the narrarator asks whether taking beta blockers is like cheating in sports with steriods. The guy says no because sports is a competition where someone can gain an unfair advantage. The narrarator then follows up with the question of whether beta blockers would give an unfair advantage during tryouts to make the orchestra/band to which the guy fumbled around and didn't have an answer. Nothing is black and white in America...