Let’s look at the range of medication available for anxiety symptoms. But before we do that, we should remind ourselves that taking medication for anxiety just treats the symptoms temporarily and does not effect the cause or provide any kind of long term solution (unless of course you take the medication long term).
Plenty of people do find the current anti-anxiety medication effective. Doctors normally turn to SSRI’s to fight anxiety. The have both pros and cons. In their favour they tend to work reasonably well with most patients managing to cope with their symptoms much better.
On the downside the side-effect profile is rather bad. Many people suffer from an increase in symptoms in the first instance and also nightmares, sweating, mood swings and lethargy or fatigue. And long-term there is the issue of weight gain, which can also be a big problem.
Also read this post on Anxiety Medication Over The Counter.
There are also benzodiazepine tranquillizers such as Xanax and Valium. These are very effective short-term remedies but they may leave you too “stoned” to function properly. Worse still, if you take them long then addiction and habit formation is a big problem. Read this post on rebound anxiety for more.
There are other drugs like Buspirone which promised much and takes the centre ground between SSRI’s and benzodiazepine tranquillisers. In reality it is not much better than the others but might be worth a try if you really want long-term medication but can’t take the SSRI’s.
It is much better to find other ways to tackle anxiety though, as ultimately medication doesn’t achieve lasting change alone.
