Why It's So Easy to Confuse Anxiety and ADHD

Anxiety vs ADHD are easily confused because they both can cause issues related to focus, emotional regulation, and day-to-day living that can look very similar. Restlessness, difficulty concentrating, and sleep problems are often seen in both conditions. To add to the confusion, ADHD and anxiety can co-occur, meaning both conditions can exist together.

It is so easy to feel overwhelmed and wonder if you have ADHD, anxiety, or even both. Understanding the key similarities and differences between anxiety vs ADHD is the first step to getting the support you need for your mental health.

The Symptoms That Look the Same

Anxiety vs ADHD can look the same, as there are some very similar symptoms between both conditions. Some overlapping symptoms that you can experience from both anxiety and ADHD include:

• Difficulty concentrating
• Procrastination
• Sleep issues
• Irritability and mood changes
• Easily frustrated
• Impulsivity
• Restlessness and feeling "edgy"
• Difficulty with organization
• Racing thoughts
• Overthinking and over-analyzing

These issues may show up at work, in school, or in everyday household chores. Symptoms can occur simultaneously, but they differ in frequency and cause. Because so much ADHD anxiety overlap exists, they are sometimes misdiagnosed or co-occurring.

Why So Many People Have Both Conditions

Anxiety is the most common co-occurring mental health disorder with ADHD, affecting roughly 25-50% of people with ADHD. So some people have anxiety and ADHD together.

Living with undiagnosed ADHD can lead to anxiety over time. You might struggle to keep up with work, misplace important items, forget appointments, and manage household chores, all of which can be overwhelming.

However, if you don't understand the reason for the difficulties, you may start to feel anxiety washing over you. Frequent challenges can increase stress and worry, worsening both conditions. You may start to feel flawed, but the good news is that these conditions often co-occur and can be successfully treated.

What ADHD Actually Feels Like

Let's look at what it feels like to have ADHD.

A typical day in the life of a person with ADHD can start as soon as you wake up. It may be hard to get up. After all, you woke up a few different times in the middle of the night, wondering about what you were going to wear tomorrow, what to make for dinner, and why you didn't get napkins at the store.

You are late for work because you couldn't find your keys or your work bag, even though they have designated spots, but they were in the kitchen with yesterday's mail. Once you get to work, you can't seem to focus because your co-worker's pen-clicking is too distracting. 

Then you get an ad email from Amazon suggesting new books you should try, so you order two. After you get home, you start dinner and burn the noodles in the pan because you got sidetracked in another room. By the end of the night, you feel overwhelmed, yet you can't seem to quiet your mind enough to sleep.

The Core Signs of ADHD in Adults

Some core signs of ADHD in adults may look like:

• Holding attention: you struggle to focus on things, even on activities you care about or want to finish.
• Racing thoughts: No matter what you are working on, your brain is all over the place, and you're constantly trying to reign it in on the task at hand.
• Impulsivity: You make rash decisions, maybe it's spending money on unnecessary items or taking an unplanned day trip.
• Time management: Even with a schedule, you still can't seem to get everything done and feel overwhelmed.
• Organization: You constantly lose or misplace things, and nothing stays organized for very long.
• Forgetfulness: You forget important dates, such as anniversaries and doctor appointments, details from conversations, and other important information.
• Emotional overreactions: Sometimes you explode onto those you love over things that, looking back, were not that significant.
• Chore overwhelm: Laundry, dishes, or even a messy countertop always seem piled up and overwhelm you.
• Hyperfocus: You lose track of time on a new hobby, spending hours with it, even staying up way too late at night, like trying out a new gadget or tool.

ADHD is typically present from childhood but can sometimes go undiagnosed into adulthood.

How ADHD Affects Your Daily Life

Do you work hard to keep relationships in your life? You find yourself writing down important discussions to remember their words, as they have previously accused you of not caring.

At work, does it feel like you are always struggling to keep up with all of your tasks? Or you are cool at work, and it looks like nothing really upsets you, only to get home and every emotion that you have held in just seems to seep out while you're making dinner? Speaking of dinner, just trying to decide what to make for dinner can overwhelm you. Then, the kitchen cleanup seems like such a big task that you put it off until the kids go to bed, because you know by then you'll get your second wind and can tackle it with more vigor.

All of these struggles make you feel like you are not living to your fullest potential and cause serious feelings of inadequacy. Why can't I just function throughout my day like everyone else does without having to try so much harder?

What Anxiety Actually Feels Like

Anxiety feels a bit different than ADHD. You wake up in the morning and need to get to work for a meeting, but today, you have the added responsibility of training a new employee. You are worried you might not be able to train them effectively, and you're concerned this could impact your job security because of your perceived lack of training skills.

Your heart begins to pound so hard, and your hands are so sweaty that you actually don't want to drive until the feeling passes. You try some deep breathing first, then drive to work, but you may be late, which makes you worry more. 

 Anxiety involves both the mental racing thoughts and the physical symptoms, such as heart racing or sweaty hands. Normal worry is when this type of scenario happens once every few months, when you face a new experience. Chronic worry and fear that sound like this scenario may point to an anxiety disorder.

The Core Signs of Anxiety Disorders

Some core signs of anxiety may look like:

• Always playing out the worst-case scenarios: When you need to go anywhere, your mind runs through all the possible bad things that could happen before you even get out the door.
• Fear of others' opinions: Are you often worried that people may not like you because of your clothes or the way that you walk, or how loud your voice is?
• Physical symptoms: Your worry is also accompanied by sweatiness, racing heart, digestive pain or diarrhea, shallow breathing, jitteriness, muscle tension, or uncontrollable hand shaking.
• Withdrawing: Constant worry or fear causes you to stop going out or going to many stores, because it's just safer to be home. (Amazon will deliver it to your door anyway)
• Decision paralysis: You agonize over choosing between two different office chairs, so you end up getting neither or both to ease the tension.
• Replaying conversations: You replay recent conversations for a few days, thinking about what you said and afraid you might have hurt their feelings.
• Sleep loss: Overthinking and racing thoughts about the day, or even about tomorrow, often keep you awake at night.
• Panic: Taking a trip to the grocery store can lead to panic. If you get caught in traffic, you may get sweaty or even dizzy while driving.

Basically, if you constantly feel like you are on edge and relaxing takes tons of effort, you could be experiencing anxiety. Anxiety is stress-related, and you may not experience it all the time.

How Anxiety Affects Your Daily Life

Are you always trying to outperform everyone else at work and doing more than your share because you are worried about getting fired? You could eat lunch alone in your car so you don't have to be around everyone else, because it stresses you out.

Or you could shut down when you get home from work, and your significant other feels like they can't talk to you.

Because you tend to overthink and see the worst-case scenarios, you haven't taken the family to the beach in over two years. Every day, little household chores like going to the grocery store can feel so overwhelming. When fear causes you to avoid social situations or doing important activities, then it may be an anxiety disorder.

The Key Differences Between ADHD and Anxiety

ADHD and anxiety are different, and while they may have similar overlapping symptoms, the reasons behind the symptoms are different.

Let's look at some of the key differences between ADHD and anxiety so you can learn more.

What's Happening in Your Brain

 First, let’s compare what happens in the brain with anxiety vs ADHD.

ADHD

ADHD involves dysfunction in the prefrontal cortex that affects focus, attention, and impulse control. ADHD is linked to lower levels of dopamine in the brain. With ADHD, your brain feels understimulated and is constantly looking for stimulation, which will boost levels of dopamine.

Anxiety

Anxiety involves a stress response to perceived threats in the amygdala and the fear center of the brain. Anxiety is linked to lower levels of the neurotransmitter GABA, which leads to additional fear and worry. With anxiety, your brain is more "overstimulated" and is constantly perceiving stressful situations and danger.

When Symptoms Show Up

We’ll look at the differences between ADHD vs anxiety symptoms.

ADHD

ADHD symptoms are fairly consistent and start during childhood and last throughout adulthood in most cases. Even if you are calm or passionate about something, you may still find it challenging to focus or follow through. For example, you may love cooking and learning about it, but when you get out the book to read more, your mind starts racing, and you start thinking about other things.

Anxiety

Anxiety symptoms are usually triggered by perceived threats or stress. Spending all day home alone may prevent you from experiencing symptoms, leading to withdrawal as a way to escape fear and stress. You may find it hard to focus on an upcoming presentation at work because you are afraid that no one will listen to what you have to say.

With ADHD, issues will be constant, but with anxiety, they tend to be stress-related and may come and go.

How You Respond to Challenges

With anxiety vs ADHD, you will respond to challenges differently. For example, with ADHD, when faced with a challenge, you may react impulsively and tend to worry about the consequences later on. But with anxiety, you will be more prone to overthinking and even avoiding stressors.

So, for example, let's say you are caught off guard by your boss assigning you an additional task to finish over the weekend.

A typical ADHD response would be to wing the project and cancel your trip to your parents' this weekend so that you can get it done. If you have anxiety, you might worry about both your trip to visit your parents and your project. This could lead to overthinking, causing you to miss the trip and fail to complete the project by Monday.

In both situations, you can see that struggle is real, but it's how you react to it that differs.

The Type of Thoughts You Experience

When comparing anxiety vs ADHD thought processes, there are some key differences. ADHD thoughts are often unrelated and scattered between multiple topics and would probably not make much linear sense to other people. 

Anxiety-related thoughts would be focused on fear, worry, and anticipating future timelines. The person with ADHD maynot be able to focus on one topic clearly, and the person with anxiety is overfocused on one thing.

When ADHD and Anxiety Happen Together

You may have both anxiety and ADHD. As stated earlier, anxiety is the most common co-occurring mental health disorder with ADHD. Let's go over what having both might look like.

How ADHD Can Lead to Anxiety

Living with untreated ADHD can actually trigger anxiety. Living with the stressors of constantly forgetting or misplacing things and other frustrating symptoms can lead to a fear of failure, which then triggers the anxiety. 

Repeatedly failing to do things correctly or always feeling like you're falling behind in day-to-day activities can lead to constant worry. If you are aware of some of your challenges, but you don't really understand the "why" behind them, it can fuel anxiety more. 

This type of anxiety can be managed once you receive a diagnosis and treatment for your ADHD. As your ADHD symptoms improve, the constant fear and worry about whether you are doing enough will improve as well.

What It Feels Like to Have Both

Can you have ADHD and anxiety? Yes, you can have both. It feels like overthinking, coupled with the inability to focus. ADHD can make anxiety worse and vice versa. You may experience a vicious cycle, and having both can be very exhausting. 

You finally stop overthinking about something, only to procrastinate until it's so late that then you start overthinking and worrying all over again. While this type of chaos can be stressful, there are successful ways to treat both conditions.

How to Know Which One You Might Have

Ultimately, you want to have a clinician determine whether you have ADHD, anxiety, or both, but let's look at some practical ways that you may be able to tell which one you are experiencing.

Questions to Ask Yourself

To get started, you can ask yourself some of the following questions to see if it's anxiety vs ADHD.

• Do these racing thoughts happen most days or only when I am stressed out?
• Am I procrastinating because I am afraid I will fail, or because I work more quickly under a deadline?
• Am I pacing or unable to sit still because of tension or "nerves," or is it because I feel calmer whenever I move or pace?
• Are my racing thoughts consistently about fear or "what ifs?" or are they thoughts about a lot of things?
• When I need to go to the grocery store, is it stressful at all? If so, do I worry about what people will think of me, or am I afraid that I'll spend too much money?
• Have these issues been affecting my whole life, or are they more or less day-to-day, stress-related?

Once you have answers to some of these questions, write them down, and then you can use them for reference when you do speak to a healthcare provider about your symptoms.

Why Professional Evaluation Matters

Even though you can get a good starting point by digging into some of your symptoms yourself, you really need a clinician to provide a diagnosis of anxiety vs ADHD accurately. Because the symptoms can overlap so much, it is best to have a comprehensive evaluation. 

An ADHD evaluation will include a clinical interview, symptom assessments, and rule out other conditions that also mimic ADHD and anxiety. Having an accurate ADHD diagnosis can be the starting point to a better way of life.

Getting the Right Help for Your Situation

Effective treatment options are available for both anxiety and ADHD.

Treatment Options for ADHD

Most ADHD treatment involves behavioral therapy and medication. ADHD medication helps to regulate your impulse control and focus, while therapy can help you change your behaviors and activities to suit your condition better.

ADHD coaching, using organizational systems, and routine-building are all effective strategies to help you gain control over your ADHD. ADHD treatment is highly individualized, so what works for you may not be the same as what works for the next person, but your clinician will help you find a treatment plan that fits your life and needs.

Treatment Options for Anxiety

Anxiety treatment often includes therapy, medication, or both. Therapy helps you change harmful thought patterns that worsen your symptoms. Anxiety medication is often geared toward reducing the physical symptoms and regulating worry and fear, allowing you to live a life with less stress and fear.

There are many relaxation techniques, such as breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation, mindfulness, and exercise, to help you become more relaxed.

When You Need Treatment for Both

There are times when treating ADHD may help your anxiety or vice versa, but often both conditions need to be addressed. Most clinicians will address ADHD first. 

Therapy and medication can both be tailored to treat both conditions. Rest assured, it is not too complicated to treat both conditions simultaneously. 

The hardest part is reaching out for help, not the actual treatment itself. You want to work with a licensed clinician so you can get anxiety and ADHD properly managed and start living life with fewer symptoms.

Taking the First Step Toward Clarity

Reaching out for help is the biggest and most important step in your healing journey. Getting a proper ADHD evaluation is a positive step toward better understanding yourself.

ADHD Advisor offers same-day virtual ADHD evaluations. One of our clinicians can determine if you have ADHD and create a unique treatment plan that can include therapy, medication, or both. 

Don't wait and let your symptoms continue spiraling out of control. Take our short quiz and see if you qualify for an evaluation and get to the bottom of your ADHD or anxiety symptoms today. 

Understanding whether you have anxiety, ADHD, or both can provide peace of mind by offering a clear game plan and an explanation for your symptoms. You are no longer guessing, and that's a feeling of empowerment!

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between anxiety and ADHD?

ADHD is a neurodivergent disorder, and anxiety is a mood disorder. They have overlapping symptoms and often coexist.

Can you have ADHD and anxiety at the same time?

Yes, ADHD and anxiety are common co-occurring mental health conditions.

How do I tell if it's anxiety or ADHD in adults?

To determine if you have ADHD or anxiety as an adult, identify the root cause of your issues: are they chronic (ADHD) or stress-induced (anxiety)?

What are the overlapping symptoms between ADHD and anxiety?

Some major overlapping symptoms between ADHD and anxiety include: restlessness, impulsivity, difficulty focusing, and emotional regulation.

Can ADHD cause anxiety or does anxiety cause ADHD?

ADHD can cause anxiety issues to worsen, but anxiety can not cause ADHD.

Is ADHD often misdiagnosed as anxiety?

Yes, ADHD is often misdiagnosed as anxiety, especially in women.

What are the differences between anxiety and ADHD symptoms in children?

While symptoms of ADHD and anxiety in children overlap, those with ADHD will have chronic symptoms, and anxiety will be more situational.

How does ADHD lead to secondary anxiety?

Because ADHD can cause people to have to work harder to do regular day-to-day activities, it can lead to secondary anxiety due to frustration and overwhelm.

What are the treatment options when you have both anxiety and ADHD?

Typically, when you have both ADHD and anxiety, clinicians will focus on the disorder causing the most problems first. Treatment for both can include therapy and medication for both disorders.

Does anxiety make ADHD symptoms worse?

Anxiety can exacerbate ADHD symptoms and vice versa, creating an intense cycle of symptoms.