Understanding Adderall and Teen Anxiety
What Is Adderall Used For?
Adderall is commonly prescribed to alleviate symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Specifically, Adderall targets the neurotransmitters in the brain that are associated with impulse control, focus, and attention.
Does Adderall Help With Anxiety in Teens?
Adderall can decrease anxiety in your teen by increasing their ability to complete daily tasks and exert impulse control.
In turn, this boosts confidence and self-esteem, alleviating anxiety that stemmed from stress due to poor performance.
Why Can Adderall Make Anxiety Worse for Some Teens?
Your teen may find their anxiety worsened by Adderall if they have a pre-existing anxiety disorder, including social anxiety or generalized anxiety disorder.
This is because Adderall targets norepinephrine levels in the brain. Norepinephrine is a neurotransmitter that gives your teen’s brain cues about stress. Its increase can mean more stress signals, exacerbating feelings of anxiousness.
How Adderall Affects the Brain and Anxiety Symptoms
How Does Adderall Work in the Brain?
By increasing dopamine and norepinephrine levels, Adderall can reduce impulsivity and improve focus for your teen.
Dopamine is the brain’s “feel-good” chemical, associated with motivation, pleasure, and reward. It also plays a role in the regulation of movement, learning, and attention.
Adderall works by stimulating the release of dopamine that already exists in the brain, not by increasing it. The medication then prevents your teen’s neurons from reuptaking that dopamine, increasing the dopamine presence in the brain.
Why Do Stimulants Sometimes Increase Anxiety?
Because stimulants, such as Adderall, boost norepinephrine levels in the brain, the delicate balance can be shifted in a way that increases arousal and attention in relation to stress, resulting in higher levels of anxiety.
What’s the Connection Between ADHD Symptoms and Anxiety Symptoms?
Many symptoms of ADHD and anxiety may overlap, such as restlessness, poor focus, and emotional dysregulation.
Many teens experiencing ADHD also experience other mental health conditions and disorders, such as anxiety. Symptoms that overlap, such as poor focus, can stem from either executive dysfunction or excessive worry, making it imperative to treat both struggles.
Teens with ADHD may struggle with focus and impulse control, causing them to miss deadlines or react inappropriately. Reducing these symptoms may allow your teen to perform better on daily tasks, increasing confidence and self-esteem, and decreasing anxiety.
When Anxiety Gets Worse After Taking Adderall
What Are Common Side Effects That Feel Like Anxiety?
Adderall has several potential side effects that can cause anxiety, including restlessness, nervousness, or a “crash” when the medication wears off, which increases irritability.
How Can Parents Tell If Adderall Is Causing Anxiety?
If your teen is showing increased agitation, nervousness, or reports of anxious feelings, Adderall may be causing them anxiety.
When starting any new medication, review the side effects and check in with your teen about how they are feeling. While they may experience some side effects, they may decrease over time.
When Should You Contact Your Teen’s Healthcare Provider?
Increased heart rate, high blood pressure, panic attacks, and a decreased sense of well-being are potential long and short-term side effects of Adderall that mean you should contact a healthcare provider.
Additionally, your teen may experience anxiety that seems unmanageable due to nervousness or restlessness. There are also signs that you should contact your teen’s healthcare provider.
Adderall, ADHD, and Co-Occurring Anxiety Disorders
Can a Teen Have Both ADHD and an Anxiety Disorder?
Your teen can have both ADHD and an anxiety disorder.
Additionally, these disorders can impact one another. Since Adderall can increase anxiety symptoms, it or other stimulants may not be your healthcare provider’s first course of action.
How Do Healthcare Providers Treat ADHD When Anxiety Is Also Present?
Your teen’s healthcare provider may choose to prescribe a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI) instead of stimulants when they know a co-occurring anxiety disorder exists.
Other classes of drugs also avoid or differently target norepinephrine, such as Serotonin-Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors (SNRIs) and Norepinephrine and Dopamine Reuptake Inhibitors (NDRIs). Your Mind Works provider will carefully review your teen’s health history and assessment results before prescribing any anxiety medication.
What If Anxiety Started After Beginning ADHD Medication?
If your teen experiences anxiety after beginning their prescribed ADHD medication, contact their healthcare provider to discuss their symptoms and determine whether their anxiety is external or a side effect of treatment.
Do not stop medication without first discussing it with your healthcare provider.
Evidence-Based Alternatives When Adderall Isn’t the Best Fit
What Non-Stimulant ADHD Medications Can Help Teens With Anxiety?
Various medications, such as SSRIs or SNRIs, are non-stimulant options for teens with both ADHD and anxiety.
Several classes of FDA-approved non-stimulant medications can help your teen if they have co-occurring ADHD and anxiety. Like stimulants, these medications impact the central nervous system.
SSRIs support serotonin regulation. SNRIs help regulate norepinephrine. Additionally, NDRIs and other classes of antidepressants are shown to support improved neural function without exacerbating symptoms of anxiety.
How Can Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Support Teens With ADHD and Anxiety?
CBT will support your teen in understanding and changing their thought patterns to improve their mental health
CBT is a form of therapy that is structured and goal-oriented. Your teen’s therapist will take a compassionate approach, guiding your teen to make connections between their thoughts, feelings, and actions, and to learn coping strategies to deal with stress.
CBT can help your teen learn to identify impulses or unhelpful thoughts and choose how to respond instead of responding impulsively, building self-esteem and reducing anxiety in the process.
What Other Treatment Options Improve Teen Anxiety and Inattention?
Mind Works offers advanced therapy techniques like dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) in addition to CBT to improve anxiety and inattention.
Your teen can receive comprehensive, compassionate, and expert care in one accessible place. This ensures every step of your child’s mental health journey is covered, helping them build resilience, master coping skills, regulate emotions, and transform behaviors.
Supporting Your Teen’s Mental Health at Home
How Can Parents Talk to Their Teen About Anxiety From Medication?
Being present, open, and honest can help you talk to your teen about their anxiety caused by medication use.
Check in with your teen regularly about their medication experience. Help them track mental and physical symptoms, improvements, and side effects. Having a log of their medication journey will help them understand how their medication is influencing or creating anxiety. If anxiety is new or worse, schedule a conversation with their therapist to help them set goals to address their needs.
Additionally, having a team ready to work with you as you support your teen in the home makes a difference.
Mind Works understands that sometimes more help is needed. We are here to support your teen’s behavioral health journey with comprehensive teen counseling services, including goal-setting and boundaries that can help your teen develop coping mechanisms and a deeper understanding of their feelings and behaviors.
What Daily Habits Help Reduce Anxiety Symptoms?
Healthy eating habits and regular physical activity can significantly impact your teen’s mood and energy levels.
Additionally, reducing screen time or establishing limits, especially before bed, can also have a positive effect.
These shifts can help improve their sleep quality. A consistent sleep routine is crucial for managing anxiety, as is fostering an environment that emphasizes your teen’s strengths and interests and supports their overall well-being.
How Can Parents Track Patterns to Support the Treatment Plan?
Supporting your teen’s anxiety treatment at home involves a holistic approach that touches on various aspects of their daily life.
By integrating the following habits into your family’s lifestyle, you can offer invaluable support that complements professional treatment and helps your child manage anxiety more effectively:
- Healthy eating
- Physical activity
- Sleep hygiene/bedtime
- Screen time limits
When to Consider a Medication Re-Evaluation
What Signs Suggest the Current Medication Isn’t Working?
If your teen is not seeing benefits from their prescription medication, their medication may not be the right fit.
Your teen’s healthcare provider will set a trial period for the medication to take effect. Observe your teen during this trial period. Talk with them regularly about their experience, and bring any concerns or wins to their healthcare provider. Document any changes in their behavior when new medications are started.
Medication side effects such as high blood pressure, jitteriness, and increased nervousness are also signs that a medication re-evaluation is necessary.
Can Dosage Adjustments Reduce Anxiety?
Yes, sometimes all that is needed to reduce anxiety is an adjustment to the dose of a medication already being taken.
Finding the just right dosage for your teen is a science. For example, if a stimulant is working to address ADHD but increasing anxiety, your teen’s healthcare provider may choose to lower the dosage.
Mind Works’ healthcare providers are invested in properly assessing your teen. We are also continuously following up on their care to ensure they receive the most effective medication dosage for their body and needs.
How Do Providers Safely Transition Teens to a Different Medication?
If your teen needs to switch medications, your provider will use a research-based approach to select the appropriate new medication.
When necessary, your teen will titrate off the old medication, sometimes while beginning the new one. Considerations your provider will make include:
- Reasons the old medication was ineffective
- Dosage
- Type
- Management of any potential withdrawal symptoms
How Mind Works Supports Teens With ADHD and Anxiety
How Mind Works Evaluates ADHD and Anxiety in Teens
Mind Works utilizes a three-step process when evaluating your teen.
It begins once you contact us to share your concerns about your teen’s well-being. From there, we have you complete our intake process, which includes an in-depth questionnaire. You will tell us about your teen’s history and needs. Once we better understand your concerns and discover key details about your teen’s behavioral health needs, we will set treatment goals.
Finally, a Mind Works provider will tailor your child’s specific outpatient treatment plan. A possible path might look like starting assessments, beginning therapy, and/or prescribing medication to support your child’s behavioral health needs.
How Our Therapists Support Teens Through Session-Based Care
Our therapists at Mind Works walk your teen through every step of the journey, from intake to graduation.
Our therapy model is a 12-session process:
- Your teen will be assessed, and the foundation for their care laid (Sessions 1-3).
- Their provider will work with them through any barriers or resistance (Sessions 4-8)
- They will start to develop coping skills as they figure out healthier ways to manage behavior, express emotions, and heal (Sessions 9-12).
Your teen’s therapist will use evidence-based therapeutic models such as CBT, DBT, EMDR, and trauma-informed CBT to create goals. During one-hour sessions, your teen will learn newfound skills to take into their adulthood. Mind Works’ therapists will celebrate their journey into independence.
How Our Medication Management Team Creates Safe, Thoughtful Treatment Plans
Our team is trained in a blend of evidence-based and specialized therapeutic techniques to ensure every teen receives the highest standard of care.
At Mind Works, our integrated psychotherapy services mean your family can find all the necessary support under one roof. Our integrated team of pediatric healthcare professionals brings valuable insight to the table. We work together with all members of your teen’s care team to establish a thoughtful, compassionate, and comprehensive treatment plan.
Additionally, we address the biological, psychological, and social needs of your child.
Mind Works offers a seamless continuum of care for your teen’s mental health, from initial assessments to therapy and medication management.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Adderall help with teen anxiety?
Yes. The use of Adderall can help with teen anxiety by increasing impulse control, focus, and the ability to pay attention.
Teens with greater self-control can experience greater self-esteem because they can keep up with and complete daily tasks.
Can Adderall make anxiety worse?
Yes. Adderall can make anxiety worse by increasing norepinephrine levels in the brain.
Norepinephrine is a neurotransmitter responsible for the stress response. Its increase can result in nervousness and/or restlessness, contributing to a greater sense of anxious dis-ease.
Is it safe for teens with anxiety disorders to take stimulants?
Yes. It is safe for your teen, even if they have an anxiety disorder.
However, the decision for your teen to take stimulants is one our healthcare providers will make only after reviewing your teen’s full medical history.
Are non-stimulant medications better for teens with anxiety?
Not necessarily. Some teens with anxiety may respond better to non-stimulant medications over stimulant medications.
The determination is one you will make with your teen and their provider. It will take variables such as tolerance of potential side effects into account.
Can therapy replace medication for ADHD or anxiety?
No. While therapy can be a beneficial component of ADHD and anxiety treatment, it cannot always completely replace medication for ADHD or anxiety in your teen.
Many parents believe their child will grow out of their ADHD or anxiety. However, waiting it out isn’t the best option. Untreated anxiety and ADHD can often lead to lowered self-esteem or more serious avoidance behavior problems later in life. They can also increase depressive symptoms in your teen. It’s estimated that 31.9% of teens have an anxiety disorder.
Combining medication and therapy for ADHD or anxiety can ease symptoms. This makes it easier for your teen to learn coping skills that will be useful well into adulthood.
Is it normal for teens to feel jittery when starting Adderall?
Yes. It may take time for your teen’s body to adjust to Adderall.
Feeling jittery is a side effect that may wear off. If it does not wear off, contact your healthcare provider. They may prescribe a dosage adjustment or medication change.
Why does my teen feel calm on Adderall if they have ADHD?
Teens with ADHD who take Adderall can experience startling results.
They may develop a greater capacity to organize their thoughts and plan. This creates a sense of calmness. They were previously unable to access due to competing disorganized thoughts and impulses when unmedicated.
Can stopping Adderall cause withdrawal symptoms related to anxiety?
Yes. Adderall withdrawal symptoms can last several days and cause increased irritability and escalating anxiety.
Your teen’s symptom strength and length will depend on several factors, including how long they used Adderall, their dosage, and whether their prescription was for immediate-release or extended-release. Therapy may help mitigate withdrawal symptoms.
How does Mind Works treat teens with both ADHD and anxiety?
Mind Works in Texas utilizes a range of evidence-based therapy modalities to help your teen navigate challenges, build resilience, and prepare for emerging adulthood.
We also offer medication management, working in collaboration with you and your teen to find the best solution for both anxiety and ADHD treatment.