Kurt Kroenke, M.D., describes reliable options for reducing anxiety.
Transcript:
Many times, anxiety can be situational — due to situations — or it may last a few weeks and go away. So sometimes tincture of time. If it doesn’t go away, or if it’s a high level that’s causing a lot of concern or a lot of distress, there are two types of treatments. One is medications, and others are what we call behavioral treatments, and they’re both equally effective.
There are classes of medicines that are effective for anxiety, particularly if it’s chronic anxiety. And again, that’s no different than taking a medicine for blood pressure. People have high blood pressure. We have a medicine that can lower their blood pressure. People have high anxiety. We have medicines that are effective in lowering anxiety.
But another very effective treatment — and some people even say this should be a first-line treatment — would be behavioral or psychotherapeutic treatments, and there are several. Cognitive behavioral therapy, which is what we’re using in a current trial, works on people’s thoughts about their symptoms and behaviors that they have towards their symptoms. This can be very effective in reducing anxiety, and this is often administered by mental health professionals, psychologists and counselors.
Sometimes one may work better than the other in a patient, and sometimes people benefit from both. So the good news is, we have several effective types of treatment for people with anxiety. It’s just as treatable as blood pressure.
