Can Anxiety Be Cured?

Video Transcript

Can anxiety be cured?

Cure can be defined as: to solve or relieve a person of a condition.

In this sense, yes, unhealthy anxiety can be cured.

It’s important to make the distinction between healthy anxiety and unhealthy anxiety.

For instance, healthy anxiety can keep us safe from harm, such as warning us about a real danger, like a speeding car bearing down on us. It can also motivate us to act on important matters, like studying for an important exam or paying bills that can affect our financial independence.

However, worrying about irrational things or things we have no control over are examples of unhealthy anxiety.

Since anxiety, healthy and unhealthy, can take a toll on our physical, psychological, and emotional health, we want to eliminate the unhealthy anxiety if we want to remain healthy over the long term.

And since anxiety is caused by behavior, such as worry, we can learn healthy ways of coping with adversity, uncertainty, and risk that replace unhealthy, anxious ways of coping.

So, the goal isn’t to eliminate all anxiety but only the unhealthy anxiety.

Again, we can eliminate unhealthy anxiety through behavior modification.

The combination of good self-help information and working with an experienced anxiety disorder therapist is the most effective way to identify and address the unhealthy behaviors that create issues with unhealthy anxiety.

With the right help, support, and effort, we can “cure” unhealthy anxiety.

The road to recovery is well-known and well-traveled. No one needs to suffer needlessly. Help is available.

For more information, you can read the articles "Anxiety 101" and "Anxiety Recovery 101" on our website. The links are in the description.