Musicians take too many drugs, eat badly and drink too much. Wrong. Here are the facts...

Musicians and health? You have to be joking — the two words are diametrically opposed, I hear you muttering cynically. Okay, I suppose the idea of a healthy musician is pretty boring: much more appealing is the romantic image of the totally wasted muso, which history has no trouble in backing up, from Charlie Parker to Keith Richards, and which the daily comics have no trouble in propagating with classically clichéd headlines like "Rock Star Dies From Drug Overdose". Maybe a not inconsiderable number of musicians do seem to have enjoyed doing themselves in one way or another, but are they all like that? What is the truth of the matter? How about a few facts? And this, dear reader, is where your friendly neighbourhood psychologist steps in with the latest episode of the Musicians and Stress Survey.

As you may remember (or more likely, probably don't), I sent a questionnaire out to a large number of popular musicians, and included in the questionnaire were a lot of questions covering different aspects of health. Bearing in mind the fact that people don't always answer questionnaires absolutely truthfully, I present for your delectation some of the findings. 250 musicians returned the questionnaire, and they worked in every area of popular music, and covered the spectrum from the very famous to the everyday working musician. For purposes of comparison, I broke the sample down into five groups — Jazz musicians, Pop band members, Pop session musicians, commercial session musicians, and general freelance musicians.

First of all, let's have a look at general health. Included in the main questionnaire was a mini-questionnaire asking about general physical and mental well-being. It asked questions like, "Are you ever troubled by headaches?", "Does ill health ever affect the amount of work you do?", and "Are there times when you get tired very easily?". On this questionnaire, the higher the score obtained, the less healthy you are. And, believe it or not, from the results of this, the majority of musicians, about 90%, in fact, are no more or less healthy than the rest of the public at large. If this surprises you, bear in mind that the sample of musicians under scrutiny aren't a bunch of self-indulgent Rock stars, but mainly musicians just trying to earn a living. Interestingly, on this and a number of other measures, it was the general freelance musicians who came out worst; 11% of them had poor general health scores. Which goes to show that you may be compelled to do dance band gigs or a provincial version of the Rocky Horror Show to bring the rent in, but it doesn't do a lot for your head or body.

Relating to this, another part of the questionnaire asked whether musicians gained satisfaction from their work, since there's a high correlation between standard of health and job satisfaction. The highest percentage of musicians expressing dissatisfaction with their work were the general freelance musicians — 11% were very dissatisfied, compared to only 3% of Jazz musicians and only 2% of Pop musicians. So it seems that, overall, Jazz and Pop musicians are pretty happy in what they're doing.

Something that did emerge from the general health questionnaire was that a fair proportion of musicians have stomach problems, and this isn't surprising when you consider the sort of places they're often forced to eat in, either on the way to, or after a gig. One of the questions asked, "Are there times when you just don't feel like eating?", and again it was our old pals the freelance musicians who came out worst on this, with 22% saying they frequently didn't. Pop band members came next, with 11% having problems with their appetite. So it looks as though one thing that musicians need to do to improve their health is to develop better eating habits. Not easy, but worth thinking about.

Relax

One way of assessing how healthy people are is to look at the methods they use to relax. Interestingly, the main way that musicians said they eased tension was by using humour, and overall, around 50% said they frequently or always used this method. Of course, there's always been a strong connection between music and humour — they're part of the same creative process. Some of the most inventive humour can develop on a long journey in a band bus...

When it comes to other methods of relaxation, it does turn out that quite a lot of musicians would rather have a drink than do something more healthy like some form of exercise. Around 45% of musicians said that they frequently had an alcoholic drink in order to relax. However, this doesn't mean that musicians are averse to exercise. In fact, in terms of carrying out some form of sport or physical exercise frequently, 28% of Jazz musicians, 23% of Pop band members, 20% of Pop session musicians, 26% of commercial session musicians and 26% of freelance musicians said they did. So, contrary to popular opinion, musicians are becoming much more aware of the need to be physically fit, and this fact is confirmed when you hear what quite a lot of eminent Rock stars are up to these days. For instance, Roger Daltrey does weight lifting and plays squash, while Pete Townshend does calisthenics. Mick Jagger goes running, works out with weights, and uses a cycling machine, and Keith Richards plays tennis regularly. Robert Plant plays tennis, squash and football. Sting runs and swims and even David Bowie has got in on the act by practicing martial arts and swimming. Old habits die hard, and the total-raver-Rock-musician image still has a lot of appeal, but there's definite evidence that musicians are becoming more health conscious.

What about other "healthy" relaxation methods such as yoga and meditation? Jazz musicians came out as being the most frequent practitioners of these techniques: 15% of Jazzers, as opposed to only about 5% of other musicians, used them frequently. It could be concluded from this that Jazz musicians tend to have the most "spiritual" outlook, and this somewhat contradicts the old sleazy Jazzimage.

Musicians as a whole seem to have an aversion to things like tranquillisers and anti-depressants. Jazzers never use them frequently, and only 5% of Pop and freelance musicians, and 2% of Pop session musicians do. The most frequent users, at 10%, are commercial session musicians, and this is interesting because they also have the highest 'Type A' personality scores. A 'Type A' personality is someone who is competitive, impatient, and strives for achievement, and this ties in with the often tension-producing, competitive world of the recording sessions scene.

Plow do musicians shape up when it comes to those good old everyday vices; smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol? Looking at cigarette smoking, 39% of Jazz musicians, 45% of Pop band members, 36% of Pop session musicians, 29% of commercial session musicians and 45% of freelance musicians said that they were currently smoking. Thus, more than half the sample of musicians don't smoke, and this seems to be another indication of an increased awareness about health. These statistics are similar to those relating to the general public. The latest survey carried out by the Department of Health Education shows that 38% of the male population are currently smoking.

The demon drink

When looking at alcohol consumption, a criterion frequently used to define excessive intake is the drinking of more than three pints of beer or the equivalent per day. 17% of Jazzers, 12% of Pop band members, 13% of freelance musicians, 11% of Pop session musicians, and 18% of commercial session musicians reach this criterion. So the commercial session musicians come out top in the drinking stakes, closely followed by Jazz musicians. However, these figures don't seem excessive when compared to the drinking behaviour of other professional groups, and with musicians, drinking is a social phenomenon as much as being evidence of any dependence problem.

We now come to the topic which is inextricably intertwined with musicians in the minds of the public — namely, drugs. As I said before, keeping in mind the fact that people are often loth of be totally truthful when answering questionnaires, nevertheless, I present a few facts and figures — something which, as far as I know, hasn't been done previously. I talked to one or two well-known musicians about this subject. One famous Rock musician was of the opinion that "You'll always find a musician will do something more than any other person, whether it be drinking, smoking or into dope of some form. Regrettably, the more successful they are, the more things they go into". This last factor is important, because if you're in a famous band, you can afford to indulge yourself, but this isn't the case with most musicians.

A different viewpoint was given by a noted Jazz musician. He said, "It's a lot better than it was. Very few guys that I know are hung up on anything. There was a time when it was 50% of the guys".

So let's look now at musicians who say they use cannabis frequently. In the survey, the statistics were as follows: Jazz musicians, 14%, Pop band members, 20%, freelance musicians, 10%, Pop session musicians, 11%, and commercial session musicians, 5%. Pop band members come out top with 20% being frequent cannabis users, and this may seem a not inconsiderate percentage, but how does this compare with consumption in the general public? It's difficult to get hold of British figures, but in 1979 the American National Institute of Drug Abuse found that 35% of young adults use cannabis regularly. So, relatively speaking, perhaps Pop musicians aren't that heavy in their consumption.

Moving onto other drugs, out of all the categories of musicians, only 3% of Pop musicians said they used cocaine frequently. And again, with heroin, only 2% of the entire group of musicians said they used it, and then only rarely.

So, looking at the entire spectrum of popular musicians, drugs are used, but there are no grounds for concluding that they're all junkies. Far from it. And with regard to this, in relation to a move to healthier living, it was recently reported that eminent American musicians like David Sanborn, Mike Brecker and Mike Stern had all taken various forms of drug cure.

So there you have it. Perhaps musicians are just as healthy — or as unhealthy — as the public at large. Certainly, some of them smoke, drink, and take drugs, but so do other people. And there's undoubtedly a swing towards getting into sports and exercise. Perhaps it's time to think twice before concluding that, for musicians, excess equals success.