There’s a wide range of evidence-based treatments for anxiety conditions. Some treatments work better for certain types of anxiety conditions.
You can work with your mental health professional to find the most effective treatments for you. You might need to try a few different ones before you find one or more which work for you.
CBT is a structured psychological treatment which recognises that the way we think (cognition) and act (behaviour) affects the way we feel.
Unhelpful thoughts and behaviours can make you more anxious. They can stop you from getting better when you’re experiencing anxiety. A therapist will work with you to identify unhelpful thought and behaviour patterns, and help you replace unhelpful thoughts and behaviours with new ones that reduce your anxiety.
Behaviour therapy is used in CBT. It focuses on encouraging activities that ar e rewarding, pleasant or give a sense of satisfaction. This helps to reverse the patterns of avoidance and worry that make anxiety worse.
Behaviour therapy for anxiety relies mainly on a treatment called 'graded exposure'.
If you avoid situations that make you anxious you don’t get a chance to face your fear and prove to yourself you can manage it.
Your therapist will use evidence-based techniques to help you gradually face your fears in a safe
environment.
EMDR is a recommended treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). There isn’t enough evidence at the moment to say whether it works for other types of anxiety.
It involves recalling these life experiences for short periods (15-30 seconds) while also moving the eyes back and forth. Sometimes another task, such as hand tapping or listening to tones, is used instead of eye movements.
There are two theories about how EMDR works:
If you have mild or moderate anxiety, online therapies can be just as effective as face-to-face services. They’re sometimes known as e-therapies or computer-aided psychological therapy.
Most online therapies follow the same principles as CBT or behaviour therapy.
You work through the program by yourself, usually with some support from a therapist. The therapist will help you apply what you’ve learned to your own life. You might talk to them on the phone, by email, text, or instant messaging.
Online therapies are easy to access and can be done from home from anywhere in Australia. Usually you don’t need a referral from a GP.
Find a range of online programs at the Australian Government's Head to Health website.
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.
Benzodiazepines are sometimes called minor tranquillisers or sleeping pills. They’re a class of drug commonly prescribed in the short term to help manage anxiety conditions.
Benzodiazepines promote relaxation and reduce tension, but are not recommended for long-term use. They can reduce alertness, affect coordination, and can be addictive.
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You may be feeling unsure about whether you should seek support.
Our anonymous Anxiety and Depression Test (K10) can help you understand whether your anxious feelings are the kind of worries that will go away on their own, or whether it’s time to get more support to help you feel better.
It’s an evidence-based test that asks 10 questions about how you've been feeling over the past 4 weeks. Australian doctors and mental health professionals use this test, known as the K10. They sometimes ask you to take the K10 and talk about it with you.
