38 I’m really anxious. Can I have some Valium?

‘AnxIeTy is just as serious as depression but in my view it’s harder to treat,’ says psychiatrist Dr Cosmo Hallstrom.

‘This is partly because there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to treatment, but also because people are frightened of doing the things they need to do to overcome it — confronting their fears and, for example, going out when they’re anxious about doing so.’

There are questionnaires online that can give you an idea of the severity of your anxiety. The Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) scale or the Beck scale are both widely used by doctors to assess patients.

you will be asked to rate your feelings, such as sadness, on a scale of 0 to 3.

In some cases, medication su such as Valium can be benefici beneficial. ‘However,’ says Dr Hallstro Hallstrom, ‘Valium can lead to dependency, dependen so if someone is going through a bad few days I might give it to them — but only if they were having an absolute crisis and then only for those few days.’

Guidelines say you should be on such drugs for no more than two to four weeks at a time.

The SSRI class of antidepressants can also help anxiety. Though not regarded as dependence forming, these shouldn’t be stopped abruptly as doing so can result in withdrawal symptoms such as jitteriness.

‘But SSRIs take time to work and can make it worse for the first day or so,’ says Dr Hallstrom. ‘you need to take them regularly for a month at least to see if they have an effect.’

He says people need to approach their treatment as a long-term solution, not a short-term fix — which means considering counselling as well as medication.