Having sold 83 million records does not seem to be protective factor for Britney Spears’ mental health. In recent times she’s shaved her head, treated worldwide viewers to a peformance which was described as likely "go down in the history books as being one of the worst to grace the MTV Awards” and lost custody of her children. The celebrity site TMZ.com files many of her stories under ‘Train wrecks: Britney Spears’ and has described her behaviour as being ‘nothing less than a meltdown’ In the world of celebrity she is not alone her problems. On July 24 2007 actress Lindsay Lohan was arrested and charged with possession of cocaine and driving under the influence and driving with a suspended license. Her life relentlessly chronicled by tabloids and gossip magazines, it was well known that she had been going about her business the previous week wearing a device to monitor alcohol levels in her body.

How do rich, pampered, beautiful – and occasionally talented – people can end up in such difficulties? Here are just some of the ways in which celebrity lifestyles can destroy your personality:

Celebrities are a self selecting group

The tribulations and humiliations required to launch oneself as a celebrity may exclude many of the mentally stable.

Celebrities tend to be young

Spears is 25, Lohan is 21

Celebrities are often young, immature and impressionable

Exhaustion

Easy availability of drugs

Pressure to attend succession of parties and events

Itinerant lifestyle

Community and relationships

When entering the world of celebrity people swap their previously supportive community for one where one’s standing is based on the shifting sands of media profile and ‘bankability’.

Previously confiding relationships become strained and are often replaced with those that are superficial and sycophantic

Sycophantic friends will encourage narcissistic behaviour whereas constructive opposition from secure friendships and family leads to constant reevaluation and greater stability.

Constant media intrusion and intense scrutiny into private lives

 High media and public visibility brings with it relentless assaults on the ego.

 Celebrities careers very vulnerable to the evaluations of other people.

Simply being in the public eye gives them a public forum to act out attention-seeking behaviour when things aren’t going well, and this could exacerbate the other issues

In cases like Spears they have never known life out of the public eye. Media attention is closely aligned with their sense of self.

The conflict of personal and commercial career goals.

In his Kurt Cobain’s suicide note, he wrote that he was not being honest with his fans and feared that he had lost all authenticity

If you are interested there is a book published on the subject Illusions of Immortality: A Psychology of Fame and Celebrity by David Giles

Added 17 February 2008:

There’s an entertaining arcticle in the 17 February Observer Music Monthly about why rock stars ultimately disappoint us.  

‘Wankerdom of one sort or another is almost unavoidable, if you have that many people thinking you’re great’ nicely sums up the inevitable personality development.

There is a coffee shop in East London’s Brick Lane which proudly displays the sign ‘Come happy, leave edgy’ on the pavement outside its front door. Look at it one way and our society is permeated with establishments vending pleasing pick-me-up drinks to lighten the fatigue of socialising punters. Look at it another and we’re beset by drug pushers dealing a psychostimulant so skilfully disguised that we hardly notice. And in common with other drugs it’s big business: only oil exceeds coffee as a globally traded commodity.

Each cup of coffee contains approximately 100mg of caffeine, each cup of tea 50mg. Caffeine’s mechanism of action is not fully understood but appears to be dose related; it has a stimulating effect on the central nervous system, heart, blood vessels, and kidneys and also acts as a mild diuretic. The positive effects of moderate doses (up to approximately 200-300mg daily) include improved motor performance, decreased fatigue, enhanced sensory activity, and increased alertness.

However it is also recognised that habitual users of caffeine can suffer from symptoms of withdrawal and a dependence syndrome is also described. DSM-IV lists four caffeine-induced psychiatric disorders: caffeine intoxication, caffeine-induced anxiety disorder, caffeine-induced sleep disorder, and caffeine-related disorder not otherwise specified. A 2004 analysis (1) lists the following as attributable effects to caffeine withdrawal, and found that as little as one cup a day of coffee can produce a caffeine addiction:

headache, fatigue, decreased energy/activeness, decreased alertness, drowsiness, decreased contentedness, depressed mood, difficulty concentrating, irritability, and foggy/not clearheaded, flu-like symptoms, nausea/vomiting, and muscle pain/stiffness.

If this doesn’t bother you, another study in 1994 (2) found caffeine withdrawal to carry with it such behaviours as screaming at the children, missing work, going home early, and cancelling a child’s birthday party.

The majority of our intake comes from tea and coffee, but it is also available in energy drinks, food and tablet form. You can see from this list that there is a wide range of caffeine doses. The caffeine content of coffee is well known, but what about that in chocolate or 7-UP? Starbucks coffee comes out top of the ‘caffeine content’ pops, the speculation is that it is not the strong flavour and distinctive aroma (piped into the street) that keeps customers coming back for more, it is – like other addictive drugs – the avoidance of withdrawal effects.

Furthermore, unlike oil or tobacco, caffeine is neither regulated nor taxed. I’ll give Roland Griffiths, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins the last word:

"We need to recognize that caffeine really is a drug and accord it respect as a drug. People need to know what it does when they take it, and what it does when they cease to take it, and make an adult decision about that".

(1) Juliano, L. M., Griffiths, R. R. (2004) A critical review of caffeine withdrawal: empirical validation of symptoms and signs, incidence, severity, and associated features Psychopharmacology 176, Number 1 / October 2004 1-29

(2) Strain, E., Mumford G. K., Silverman, K., Griffiths R.R. (1994) Caffeine dependence syndrome: evidence from case histories and experimental evaluations JAMA 27 1043-8

In the press

I’ve  spent how much on coffee?  Polly Vernon Observer 23 June 2008