Living in a drug-happy world

When anxious and depressed, I often start randomly browsing. I came across this article on beta blockers, which is really interesting. Beta blockers prevent the outward signs of anxiety -- trembling hands, shaking, etc. -- and in so doing, also happen to block some of the performance anxiety or public speaking fears that many people have.

In a world where drugs are prescribed for depression and anxiety regularly, it seems that beta blockers are the next step for helping people cope. I'm generally not a fan of relying on drugs -- it's too often the case that there are side effects that are less pleasant, or they're addictive, or the pharmacist screws up your drugs, etc. -- but in this case, it seems to even the playing field for people in test-like or public-speaking-ish situations. Our current President has massive public-speaking anxiety; it's part of why he so often flubs his lines. We might even see an intelligent mind somewhere behind all that stammering if he were taking a beta blocker to calm his heartrate, suppress the trembling hands and sweating, and generally if he could be assured that any outward signs of anxiety would already be taken care of.

Recently, the prenatal-massage class I took included a hands-on test component. I hate those; it makes my touch much more nervous, and I know that the person I work on must feel it, which creates a cycle of anxiety and trembling on my part. If there had been a beta blocker around to calm me down, I would have taken it, especially given that I just got a message from the teacher of the class asking me to call her back regarding that particular section. (That makes me feel totally awful, of course. Bah. I know that I actually had the hands-on component down afterwards, but at the time, I was a wreck. Also, for the record: a continuing education class that involves testing for any purpose other than "quick mini asssessment" is utter bullshit.)

For people who have massive test anxiety, is it a good idea to give them something to calm them down? Not a valium to put them to sleep or anything, but if the dosage could be managed well, are we moving towards a world where we simply hand the drugs over to kids and tell them to self-medicate enough to manage?

Josh & Shelley's wedding

So as everyone else said, Josh and Rachelle's wedding was beautiful, and also tons of fun. It's the also first time off Neil & I have taken in over a year, so it was really, really nice.

Salem is a seaside town, but unfortnately, because it was blindingly bright when we were walking by the water, you don't get to see photos of the sailboats. I can throw in a few photos of other stuff, though.

( Random shots of stuff from around the town itself )

( The library where the ceremony was )

( Gratuitous shots of friends, including the shocking sight of Seth in a tux )

( Josh and Shelley walking to the reception and dancing )