Some types of antidepressant medication can help manage anxiety, even if you don't have depression. When you have an anxiety condition your brain's chemicals can become unbalanced, including serotonin, noradrenaline and dopamine. Antidepressant medication can fix these chemical imbalances.
So do antidepressants work as a permanent cure for depression? No, they do not, and the reason for this lies in how they work. While they cause changes in brain chemistry, this effect is only temporary. When you stop taking the antidepressant, your brain chemistry will return to its previous state.
Agitation, restlessness, anxiety
Agitation, restlessness or anxiety can result from the stimulating effect of certain antidepressants. Although having more energy can be a good thing, it may mean you can't relax or sit still even if you want to.
Anxiety can't be cured because a person's likelihood of having anxiety is part of their genetic makeup. And this is something no treatment can change. That's why we say that anxiety can't be completely cured.
Recovery is possible with appropriate treatment such as exposure therapy, attention training, and a range of anxiety management techniques that can help you manage your symptoms. You can learn the following strategies yourself (using books or taking courses, for example) or you can consult with a trained professional.
Fortunately, anxiety is highly treatable. Self-help strategies to overcome anxiety can be helpful, but it is also important to talk to your doctor about your treatment options. By taking steps to get better, you can help ensure that your anxiety isn't keeping you from achieving the things you want to do.
Around 60% of people respond by about two months to the drugs with about a 50% reduction in their symptoms - an improvement in mood, better sleep and so on. But, he said, “about 80% of people stop antidepressants within a month”.
It's usually recommended that a course of antidepressants continues for at least 6 months after you feel better, to prevent your condition recurring when you stop. Some people with recurrent illness are advised to carry on taking medicine indefinitely.
High anxiety sensitivity and lower functioning increase this risk, but their predictive value for clinical practice is limited. Patients who have successfully responded to antidepressants have an increased risk for relapse when discontinuing the antidepressant.
If you have anxiety, medication can help because the medicines used for anxiety alter the chemicals in your body and brain, reducing symptoms, and often helping you calm down and focus on other things.
An anxiety disorder can last anywhere from a few months to many years. It will go away completely for some, and for others, it may be a lifelong condition to treat.
And luckily, as long as the benefits of the medication outweigh the potential side effects, there's no strong evidence that long-term use of SSRIs poses any major problems. “These medications have been around for decades,” says Dr. Jin Hee Yoon-Hudman, a psychiatrist and medical advisor at Minded.
Typical anxiety can last for days, or at least until you've dealt with whatever is making you anxious, but anxiety disorders can persist for months or years without relief. Often, the only way to control anxiety is through professional treatment.
Success of treatment varies, but most people with an anxiety disorder can be helped with professional care. Benefits of CBT are usually seen in 12 to 16 weeks. Medication may be a short-term or long-term treatment option, depending on severity of symptoms, other medical conditions and individual circumstances.
Who should take them? If you have chronic anxiety requiring ongoing treatment, you could consider SSRIs. They are not appropriate if you experience occasional anxiety as a natural stress response.
Benzodiazepines (also known as tranquilizers) are the most widely prescribed type of medication for anxiety. Drugs such as Xanax (alprazolam), Klonopin (clonazepam), Valium (diazepam), and Ativan (lorazepam) work quickly, typically bringing relief within 30 minutes to an hour.
Does anxiety get better with age? Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. Although there are reasons we might expect a senior to have less anxiety, such as being retired and no longer living with the stress of the workaday world, for many older adults anxiety may not necessarily improve.
Yes, you can fully recover from anxiety recovery just as thousands of patients have done. For years, little was known about the factors responsible for recovery from anxiety.
Typically, a combination of treatment approaches may be used for GAD. Recovery from generalized anxiety disorder is possible. The recovery rate is around 57 percent with a psychotherapy approach according to Psychology Today.
As long as you are containing well, aren't creating anxiety by unidentified and unaddressed underlying factors, and erring on the side of deep relaxation, rest, and good sleep, your body will pull out of this recovery phase and will move toward normal energy and health. That's typically how this last stage works.