ADHD symptoms vs anxiety?
Quick answer: ADHD is a long‑standing pattern that affects attention and executive skills across settings. Anxiety drives concentration problems that rise and fall with worry and stress. Many adults have both. A clinician separates primary drivers by reviewing onset, triggers, sleep, and impact in at least two settings.
Both can impact focus. With ADHD the pattern is longstanding and present in multiple areas of life. Anxiety‑driven concentration issues often rise and fall with specific stressors or worry content.
Comorbidity is common: anxiety occurs in roughly 40 to 60% of adults with ADHD across studies. Treating both patterns improves outcomes.
How to separate: review onset, patterns across settings, and triggers (task difficulty vs worry spikes), and check sleep quality. Screening helps organize examples for discussion with a clinician.