Anxiety News and Research

Latest Anxiety News and Research

New digital system helps young cancer survivors manage late treatment effects

For a young person, completing cancer treatment can mark a long-awaited return to everyday life - education, work, relationships and plans for a family.

21 Sep 2026

Early life sugar exposure linked to higher adult anxiety risk

Exposure to sugar in the first 1,000 days of a child's life increases the risk of developing anxiety in adulthood, a new study from the University of Surrey reports.

21 Sep 2026

Clinicians' words hold power to heal or harm patients

Dr. Wendy Harpham was 36 years old and a successful physician who prided herself on her empathy. Then she was diagnosed with cancer.

21 Sep 2026

Psychological flexibility improves athlete performance and mental wellbeing

Psychological flexibility plays an important role in both performance and wellbeing. This is the conclusion of a doctoral thesis by Lis Johles, which examined the relationship between psychological flexibility, mindfulness, mental health and performance among competitive athletes.

21 Sep 2026

Mifepristone offers effective emergency contraception with fewer side effects

Emergency contraception containing mifepristone prevents more pregnancies with fewer side effects than some other common emergency contraceptive pills such as levonorgestrel, according to a new Cochrane review involving 87 trials.

20 Sep 2026

Machine learning predicts psychosocial resilience among healthcare workers

A team of researchers trained three machine learning models-Logistic Regression, Random Forest, and Support Vector Machine (SVM)-to classify healthcare workers according to their level of psychosocial resilience, using information collected during the COVID-19 pandemic.

18 Sep 2026

Social media posts misrepresent Alzheimer's blood test recommendations

Researchers have raised concerns about the promotion of Alzheimer's disease blood tests on social media, particularly posts making claims that do not align with current clinical recommendations.

17 Sep 2026

Study highlights drop in harmful medication use among adults with cognitive disorders

Adults 65 and older with cognitive disorders such as dementia, are more likely to suffer negative effects from drugs that treat central nervous system conditions including anxiety, sleep problems and psychosis.

17 Sep 2026

Women with hyperemesis gravidarum report major gaps in care

Medical assistance can help women suffering from severe nausea and vomiting during pregnancy, but insufficient recognition of Hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) means that many are not getting the help they need to overcome this severe and debilitating form of morning sickness.

17 Sep 2026

Genetic risk for PTSD varies across different types of trauma

A groundbreaking study reveals that your genes may make you more vulnerable to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from certain types of trauma-particularly childhood neglect-than from others.

17 Sep 2026

Study finds gender differences in active medical treatment

New research from the University of St Andrews has found that women are less like than men with the same medical condition to be offered active management such as surgery, a stent or a strong painkiller.

16 Sep 2026

Your walking pattern may reveal more about anxiety and depression than you think

Researchers used smartphone and wearable accelerometers to examine how everyday movement patterns relate to anxiety and depression symptoms in middle-aged adults. Phone-derived gait states differed with daily symptom scores, while lower wrist movement was linked to greater anxiety in a small subsample, supporting further study of passive movement sensing for mental health monitoring.

16 Sep 2026

Study finds widespread physical and sexual violence exposure in the U.S.

A new national study reveals the widespread reach of violence across the United States, finding that more than half of U.S. adults have experienced physical violence and nearly half have experienced sexual violence in their lifetimes.

16 Sep 2026

Cold plunges may boost your mood, but the evidence is still on thin ice

A Molecular Psychiatry review examined evidence linking cold exposure with mood and mental health outcomes, alongside proposed roles for catecholamines, the HPA axis, and immune-inflammatory pathways. Early studies report short-term mood improvements and physiological changes, but clinical evidence remains limited, and the proposed mechanisms have not been established as drivers of lasting psychiatric benefits.

16 Sep 2026

Promising AI tool to speed up endometriosis diagnosis

Less than a second. That’s how long it takes for an emerging AI tool to detect signs of endometriosis through one simple scan. It’s a much faster process than the current seven-year wait for surgery and less invasive.

16 Sep 2026

Vulnerable adolescents face sharp drop in mental health service access

Some of the most vulnerable children and young people are failing to get access to mental health support despite much higher levels of need, according to new research from the University of Cambridge.

16 Sep 2026

Natural anti-NMDAR1 antibody may protect the brain following traumatic brain injury

Every year, an estimated 20 million people worldwide sustain a concussion or other traumatic brain injury (TBI), which leads to a two- to four-fold increase in the risk of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

15 Sep 2026

Scientists discover brain spot that drives risk-taking decisions

Every day, your brain runs the same calculation: take a risk or play it safe? Your gas tank might be low, but there's just enough to make it to work on time.

15 Sep 2026

Add-on drug lumateperone boosts sexual function in patients with depression

Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and an inadequate response to standard antidepressants who received an add- on treatment with the drug lumateperone saw significantly improved sexual function, found a new study led by a University of Virginia School of Medicine researcher.

15 Sep 2026

New structural insights could improve treatments for neurological disorders

Metabotropic glutamate receptors, which are important but difficult drug targets, interact in surprisingly varied ways with their principal regulatory proteins, according to two new studies led by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators.

15 Sep 2026