They’re life-saving, if patients learn to use them. Here’s how.

You jam on the brakes. Tires squeal. You’ve barely avoided a collision. Now everything stops, except your racing heart.

Almost every adult has lived through this “adrenaline rush,” your body’s not-always-ideal way of helping you fight or flee danger. Adrenaline (the British name for what Americans call epinephrine) accelerates your heart rate, boosts its power, and jacks up your blood pressure — and, if you’ve got heart disease, puts you at greater risk.

Beta-blockers fight that risk by blocking epinephrine (and a related hormone called norepinephrine), putting the brakes on the adrenaline rush. Doctors have prescribed them for decades, says Gary S. Francis, M.D., at The Cleveland Clinic. Patients commonly…

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