It can turn anything from job interviews to the most routine of family gatherings into a sweat-inducing ordeal.
Posted on 06/23/2008 7:57:18 PM PDT by Stoat
But a 'love drug' produced naturally by the body during sex and childbirth could offer hope to the millions of people blighted by shyness, scientists have said.
Investigators believe oxytocin - a natural hormone that assists childbirth and helps mothers bond with newborn babies - could become a wonder drug for overcoming shyness.
Sixty per cent of Britons say they have suffered from shyness and one in 10 say it impedes their daily life.
Researchers in the US, Europe and Australia are now racing to develop commercial forms of the hormone, including a nasal spray.
They believe it could also be turned into a 'wonder drug' to treat a range of personality disorders such as autism, depression and anxiety.
Paul Zak, a professor of neuroscience at California’s Claremont Graduate University said: 'Tests have shown that oxytocin reduces anxiety levels in users. It is a hormone that facilitates social contact between people.
What’s more, it is a very safe product that does not have any side effects and is not addictive.'
Professor Zak has tested the hormone on hundreds of patients. Its main effect is to curb the instincts of wariness and suspicion that cause anxiety.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Please click on the Daily Mail link to read the complete article....I had to cut away about half of it in order to be allowed to post anything from it at all here, and so you'll miss quite a bit of the story if you don't.
Scientists find childbirth wonder drug that can 'cure' shyness Mail Online
As to the anti-shyness drug....I thought that we already had one; it's called booze :-)
"snicker"
LET ME OUT OF HERE!!!!
Just in case there isn’t any liquor around, there’s a drug to ‘cure’ shyness :-)
Bun not as fun.
LET ME OUT OF HERE!!!!
LMAO
One thing from the article that intrigues me is this line:
Sixty per cent of Britons say they have suffered from shyness
Of course the definition of 'suffer' is the key point here, but I find it interesting that 'only' 60% admitted to shyness.....the other 40% have never felt it at all then? I hate it when survey questions are so broad as to be utterly meaningless.
Britney Spears can’t wait.
bttt
Anything that can provide benefit changes the body and will, at least if too much is taken, cause side effects. The body is too complex to claim that a hormone will only have one effect and any additional effect is a side effect.
Where was this when I was a kid!! Man, I was terminally shy!! Oh well, it all turned out for the best. I did get married and have kids, and much more sociable now than I ever was. So, who needed it anyway?
I’m not an outgoing person, but I wouldn’t take this drug. I wouldn’t be “me.”
Bun not as fun.
Indeed, and also potentially hazardous. Shyness is part of our self-defense and self-preservation mechanism, and artificially cancelling it out might cause people to become victimized by criminals whom they might ordinarily avoid, and a host of other concerns.
Of course it's all a question of degree, and people who have troubles with extreme, life-altering levels of shyness may indeed need help, but if there is any rush to generally redefine shyness as a 'disease' or an 'illness' in the majority of people with a subsequent rush to 'correct' it, we will be in for some interesting times ahead :-)
Oh lawdy, that's all we need....an even LESS SHY Britney!
(No, I'm going to resist the temptation to post an illustrative photo here....I have great respect for your imagination :-))
Anything that can provide benefit changes the body and will, at least if too much is taken, cause side effects. The body is too complex to claim that a hormone will only have one effect and any additional effect is a side effect.
Agreed...I'm wondering if these doctors and other researchers think that they are onto the 'next Viagra' mega-moneymaker?
I can just see this becoming the next Ritalin....overprescribed and potentially harmful to hundreds of millions of people who are normally shy but, like most of us, wish we could artificially control it sometimes.
Mother Nature usually knows best, and this sort of thing raises lots of red flags for me.
“What’s more, it is a very safe product that does not have any side effects and is not addictive.’”
Except for falling in love with the next person you see after taking the drug.
No, thanks. I watched as my wife was induced with Oxytocin. I guess it helped with the delivery of our son, but it turned her into Lucille Ball for a week or so afterward. (Not physically, but she was a ditz.)
I'm guessing that your experiences mirror probably 95% of people....growing up can be very tough, but most of us can get through it okay without drugs or artificially changing the way we are.
I have concerns that, among other things, the marketing of this drug may suggest to many people that if they feel shy at all that it is a 'defect' that should be corrected.
And we'll end up with a society full of belligerent, arrogant, loudmouthed jerks.
I'm concerned that if this drug is mass-marketed in the usual over-the-top way, that there are a great number of people who would not necessarily have the healthy, reasonable and balanced perspective on the matter that you obviously do.
Normal shyness could become redefined as an 'illness' or a 'personality defect' that needs to be 'corrected' with drugs.....a scenario that has untold hazards associated with it.
If there are no shy people, how will I get a chance to talk?
Oxytocin is supposedly one factor responsible for the greater ability of women to handle repetitive tasks. Maybe it would be good for ADD.
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