If you live with ADHD, there’s a good chance you also experience anxiety — and vice versa. The two conditions overlap far more often than most people realise, and understanding that connection is key to getting the right support. Treating one without recognising the other can lead to incomplete improvement and ongoing frustration.
How Common Is the Overlap?
Research consistently shows that anxiety disorders are significantly more common in people with ADHD than in the general population. Up to half of adults with ADHD will experience an anxiety condition at some point in their lives. The reverse is also true — among people seeking help for anxiety, a meaningful proportion have undiagnosed ADHD.
This isn’t a coincidence. The two conditions are linked in several ways, and understanding those links can help make sense of what you’re experiencing.
Why ADHD and Anxiety Co-Occur
There are several reasons why ADHD and anxiety so often appear together:
- Shared biology — both conditions involve differences in how the brain regulates attention, arousal, and the stress response. There is overlap in the brain networks and neurotransmitter systems involved.
- Secondary anxiety — living with untreated ADHD can be stressful. Forgetting things, running late, struggling to complete tasks, and feeling like you’re constantly falling short can create a persistent background of anxiety that builds over years.
- Rejection sensitivity — many people with ADHD describe an intense emotional response to perceived criticism or rejection. This isn’t a separate condition but is tied to ADHD’s emotional regulation differences, and it can feel a lot like anxiety.
- Overlapping symptoms — restlessness, difficulty concentrating, and irritability are symptoms of both conditions, which can make it hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.
Telling the Difference
While the overlap is real, there are clues that can help distinguish ADHD-related experiences from anxiety. Anxiety typically involves worry — a sense of apprehension about something that might happen. The physical experience includes muscle tension, a racing heart, and a feeling of dread. The worry drives the restlessness and difficulty concentrating.
ADHD, on the other hand, involves difficulty regulating attention and activity regardless of mood. The restlessness and inattention are present even when the person is calm and happy. A person with ADHD might fidget, lose track of conversations, or start tasks and not finish them — not because they’re worried, but because their brain struggles to sustain focus and regulate impulses.
Of course, many people experience both. The person with ADHD who has spent years falling short of expectations may develop genuine, persistent anxiety on top of their attention difficulties. In these cases, both conditions need to be addressed.
When Anxiety Masks ADHD
One of the most common patterns in clinical practice is anxiety being diagnosed while ADHD goes unrecognised. This can happen because anxiety is more familiar to GPs, more readily discussed, and more obvious in its presentation. The person describes worry, tension, and difficulty sleeping — and anxiety treatment begins. But if the underlying ADHD isn’t addressed, the anxiety may keep returning, because the daily stresses of living with untreated ADHD continue to fuel it.
Some people only discover they have ADHD after years of treatment for anxiety or depression that never fully resolved. This is why a comprehensive assessment — one that looks at the full picture, not just the most obvious symptoms — can be so valuable.
The Impact of Untreated Overlap
When ADHD and anxiety co-occur and only one is treated, several things can happen. If anxiety is treated but ADHD is not, the person may feel calmer but continue to struggle with attention, organisation, and follow-through — which can erode the gains made in anxiety treatment. If ADHD is treated but anxiety is not, the person may find it easier to focus but still feel weighed down by persistent worry.
Untreated ADHD can also make anxiety harder to manage. Psychological strategies for anxiety often require consistent practice — but ADHD can make it difficult to establish and maintain routines, undermining the very strategies that would help.
Assessment and Diagnosis
If you suspect you may have both ADHD and anxiety, a thorough psychiatric assessment is the right next step. An experienced psychiatrist will take a detailed history — including your childhood, education, work, relationships, and the pattern of your symptoms over time — to determine whether you meet the criteria for ADHD, an anxiety condition, or both.
You can learn more about what’s involved on our ADHD psychiatrist page, or explore the range of anxiety conditions that can co-occur with ADHD.
Treatment Approaches
When ADHD and anxiety co-occur, treatment needs to be carefully coordinated. The good news is that effectively treating ADHD can sometimes reduce secondary anxiety significantly — when the daily struggles of untreated ADHD ease, the anxiety they fuelled may ease as well. However, in other cases, anxiety requires its own targeted treatment alongside ADHD management.
Treatment might include a combination of psychological therapy, practical strategies for managing attention and organisation, and medication where clinically appropriate. The specific approach depends on the individual — there is no one-size-fits-all plan. What matters is that both conditions are recognised and addressed together, rather than in isolation.
If you’re ready to explore support, talk to your GP about a referral, then get in touch to arrange a telehealth consultation.
Related: ADHD Psychiatrist · Anxiety Disorders · How to Get an ADHD Diagnosis