Anxiety disorders
Anxiety disorders include generalized anxiety, social anxiety, and panic attacks: persistent worry, fear in social situations, or sudden episodes of intense fear that seem to come from nowhere.
Generalized anxiety brings near constant worry that is hard to switch off. Social anxiety turns everyday interactions into something dreaded. Panic attacks arrive suddenly with a racing heart, shortness of breath, and a sense of doom. All three are common, all three are real, and all three respond to treatment.
Care starts with careful diagnosis, since anxiety overlaps with depression, thyroid problems, and other conditions. Anxiety disorders involve an overactive threat alarm in the brain, and SSRIs and SNRIs gradually turn down the volume on that alarm by adjusting serotonin and norepinephrine signaling. That is why worry loosens its grip over weeks rather than hours. They are designed for steady daily use, not quick sedation. Treatment is individualized and often combines medication with therapy based approaches.
Research and further reading
A few key papers behind how this condition is understood and treated today. Links open the abstract on PubMed, a free public database from the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
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Craske et al. · The Lancet · 2016
Anxiety disorders are common and often persistent, but cognitive behavioral therapy and medications such as SSRIs and SNRIs are effective treatments.
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Efficacy of treatments for anxiety disorders: a meta analysis
Bandelow et al. · International Clinical Psychopharmacology · 2015
Across 234 randomized studies involving 37,333 patients with generalized anxiety, panic disorder, or social anxiety, both medication and individual cognitive behavioral therapy improved symptoms.
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Carpenter et al. · Depression and Anxiety · 2018
In trials comparing cognitive behavioral therapy to placebo, therapy produced meaningfully larger symptom reductions, with the strongest effects in obsessive compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety, and acute stress related conditions. Free full text.
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Goodman et al. · Journal of Affective Disorders · 2005
Across three trials with about 850 adults, escitalopram improved generalized anxiety symptoms more than placebo and was generally well tolerated.
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Baldwin et al. · British Journal of Psychiatry · 2006
In 681 adults, escitalopram at 10 and 20 mg per day reduced generalized anxiety symptoms more than placebo in a 12 week study.
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Hartford et al. · International Clinical Psychopharmacology · 2007
In 487 adults with generalized anxiety disorder, duloxetine 60 to 120 mg per day and venlafaxine XR 75 to 225 mg per day each reduced anxiety symptoms more than placebo over 10 weeks.
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Davidson et al. · European Neuropsychopharmacology · 2008
Adults with generalized anxiety disorder who responded to 26 weeks of duloxetine were randomized to continue duloxetine or switch to placebo; over 26 more weeks, relapse occurred in 13.7 percent on duloxetine versus 41.8 percent on placebo.
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Pharmacological treatment of anxiety in older adults: a systematic review and meta analysis
Neil-Sztramko et al. · Lancet Psychiatry · 2025
Across 19 trials with more than 2300 adults ages 60 and older, antidepressants reduced anxiety symptoms and raised response and remission rates compared with placebo, and SSRIs showed larger symptom reductions than SNRIs while both classes reached similar response and remission rates.
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Cardoner et al. · Front Pharmacol · 2025
Across 14 trials with more than 4800 people, pregabalin reduced anxiety scores, improved response rates, and led to fewer dropouts than placebo or first line medications, with fewer adverse events than SSRIs, SNRIs, and benzodiazepines.
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