Anxiety

What anxiety can look like

• Generalized anxiety — persistent worry about everyday things, paired with physical tension, sleep problems, and feeling on edge.
• Panic — sudden waves of physical symptoms (racing heart, shortness of breath, chest tightness) that feel like something is very wrong.
• Social anxiety — intense self-consciousness in everyday social situations, often with avoidance.
• Specific phobias — flying, heights, needles, driving on highways, elevators.
• Adjustment-related anxiety — anxiety triggered by a specific stressor like a job change, illness, divorce, or loss.

How we treat it

Medication

SSRIs and SNRIs are first-line for most anxiety conditions. Common choices: sertraline (Zoloft), escitalopram (Lexapro), and venlafaxine (Effexor). Most people see meaningful change within 6–8 weeks at the right dose.

Benzodiazepines (Xanax, Klonopin, Ativan) have a role in select cases, but they’re not our default first-line approach because of dependence concerns and limited long-term effectiveness.

Therapy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is the gold standard for anxiety. For panic and phobias, exposure-based therapy is highly effective. For chronic worry, ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) helps shift your relationship with worry rather than just trying to suppress it.

Both together

For most patients, the strongest evidence supports medication and therapy together. They work through different paths and the combination usually outperforms either one alone.

Tracking your progress

We use a brief 7-question check-in at every visit (the GAD-7). Same idea as the depression questionnaire — it gives both of us a clear, week-over-week picture of how things are moving.