Beta blockers are a class of medication that has been used to treat high blood pressure for decades. Through that time healthcare providers have discovered that it is also effective for alleviating the symptoms of anxiety disorders. Watch to find out more!
Hi everybody and welcome to another episode with the anxious resistance today we’re going to be talking about a class of medications and they are called beta blockers so beta blockers are often used off label for anxiety disorders particularly things like social anxiety disorder because they’re good medications that take away the symptoms of anxiety so they’ll take
Away the uh the racing heart the sweating um the high blood pressure and so that’s why for for a long time that these have been used to help with that especially since you can take them they kick in and in a small matter of time you can use them for certain situations so you can use them you know if you’re giving a speech or if you’re going to a social event
Or if you’re going on a date whatever the case may be this is something that you can take you know beforehand and it can take away those anxiety symptoms so the most common one is called enderol or propranolol this one is used very often because it it’s shown to work best as a short-term treatment for specific types of anxiety so that’s why that one is used a
Lot and also to norman is used quite a bit also called etenolol so one really good thing about beta blockers is that they can be used to break you out of the cycle of a of a panic so if somebody’s having a panic attack debate you can take the beta blocker and it takes away that racing heart that high blood pressure that sweating and allows you to break out of
That cycle so it allows you to have your body calm down enough that you yourself can regain control of your thoughts in your mind and be able to reorient yourself and bring yourself back to to reality to earth where your anxiety may seem unrealistic and you’ll begin to recover so beta blockers actually hold several benefits over other anxiety medications such
As benzodiazepines benzodiazepines in case you don’t know are medications like xanax or adivan or klonopin um are some of the most commonly used ones also valium but these medications come with a lot of of risk one of them being is that you can become tolerant to them and you can also become addicted to them so they are scheduled for controlled substances where
Beta blockers are not schedule four they’re not even on the schedule so you don’t have to worry about becoming addicted to them at least physically benzodiazepines have also been linked to some serious long-term side effects such as dementia and mental decline and so it’s something that a lot of physicians are really trying to get away from and and for very good
Reason often you will see beta blockers prescribed for anxiety before you see something like a benzo prescribed these days so there was a time in my mental health journey where i took a beta blocker i took propranolol also called enderol i took it for a short amount of time because when i would take it it didn’t work for me it really didn’t help it didn’t take
Away any symptoms which can be the case sometimes with medications they just don’t work right for you now i do believe that i could have tried other beta blockers because they’re i mean they’re chemically similar but they’re not the same so i may have done better on a different one but i never i never really got around to trying it we ended up trying different
Classes of medication instead but there’s something that that are an option for you if you’re struggling with anxiety particularly something like social anxiety disorder so ask your physician about this medication if it’s something you think might work for you and might benefit you and my experience isn’t reflective of everybody’s there are a lot of people who
Say that they really do well on beta blockers and it really takes away a lot of their anxiety symptoms so look into it and always talk to your physician before you start taking any new medications or adding a new medication to your list and as always thank you so much for watching this video with the anxious resistance if you enjoyed this content please like
The video if you have questions comment them down below we do our best to answer questions and respond to comments and thank you so much for watching you
Transcribed from video
Beta Blockers (Inderal, Propranolol, Atenolol) For Anxiety Disorders – Evidence? Experiences. By The Anxious Resistance