Famous Performers Use Anxiety Medication To Ease Performance Anxiety

It's easy to feel like you're the only one feeling anxious in performance situations, whether it's giving a speech in front of a few people or performing in front of thousands. Even experienced and famous performers like Barbra Streisand are not immune to severe performance anxiety and social phobia--Streisand gave up performing live for 27 years after forgetting the words to a song during a concert in Central Park.

An interesting article published at The Sydney Morning Herald explores the use of beta-blockers among musicians as a way to control performance anxiety. Professor Dianna Kenny, of Sydney University, surveyed 357 musicians for top Australian orchestras and found that 106 of them use beta-blockers as a way to get through every concert in which they perform. Professor Kenny says that performance anxiety is more acute in musicians than in other performers, and has written a book entitled The Psychology of Music Performance Anxiety.

Whether you use beta-blockers, psychotherapy, or other methods, it's important to remember that performance anxiety and social phobia can be overcome. Streisand, for example, returned to live performances in 1994, embarking on a successful comeback tour after nearly 3 decades of avoiding such situations.

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald
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