You may be wondering why on Earth we are warning you about Beta Blockers when everybody else seems to advocate the wonders of these modern drugs. The main reason is that Beta blockers have harmful effects to physical and mental health.
Taking beta blockers might help alleviate your symptoms on the short term, but they will give you a whole new set of problems in the long term: including sleep disturbances, low pulse rate and nausea… and they might not be as effective as you might hope in treating your anxiety disorder or relieving its symptoms.
How do beta blockers work?
Beta blockers are medicinal drugs that doctors will prescribe for treating a number of physical disorders/traumas like hypertension, migraines, and heart related. They specifically target the body’s beta adrenergic receptors which can be found in the brain, heart, lungs and blood vessels.
Beta blockers manage the effects of norepinephrine (also known as the stress hormone) and diminishes the adrenaline effects to the body, thus slowing down the blood rush and oxygen supply to the heart which happens normally during a fearful state of mind.
To cut the long story short, this drug is used to calm anxiety; the problem is that it doesn’t actually treat the condition… it just makes its symptoms go away. And that’s just one of the reasons why beta blockers shouldn’t be used as an actual anxiety treatment.
Reasons why beta blockers shouldn’t be used to treat anxiety:
High risk of inducing chemical dependency
Not a real solution, since it only diminishes the symptom (not the condition)
Side effects: may cause hallucinations, nightmares and depression
May disrupt the normal operation of the central nervous system
There are several natural alternatives you should explore while looking for a solution to your anxiety problems, and you should think of beta blockers as a last resort – one that you should use only when nothing else works in reducing your anxiety.
