Life
5 Quotes About Anxiety To Remember When Times Get Tough
Not a day goes by that we aren't bombarded with information on how to make our lives better, and that goes double for how you deal with stress and anxiety. But if you have your routine down pat already, it doesn't hurt to add new ideas to the arsenal. These quotes about anxiety can help you manage stress during moments where you need a mantra to guide you (but maybe not a mantra-mantra).
A poll by the American Psychiatric Association found that nearly 40 percent of Americans were more anxious in 2018 than they were at the same time in the previous year, and 32 percent of American adults said the same thing in 2019. Luckily, the past few years have also featured countless books about coping with stress, an endless array of podcasts dedicated to self-care, and tons of celebrities who’ve used their platforms to discuss mental health through open letters and social media.
It's important to remember that it's OK if you don't take comfort in the things that help others to cope. That doesn't make you broken.
If you're in need of a little support when you're stressed out, here are 12 empowering quotes to remember when you're feeling especially anxious:
“In truth, you gain confidence by doing things before you're ready, while you're still scared. Go through the motions and your confidence will catch up. If you wait until you are ready to do the things that scare you because you feel like you aren't ready, you will never get around to doing them. We gain comfort and confidence through being uncomfortable.”
— from How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety by Ellen Hendriksen
"I speak into the silence. I toss the stone of my story into a vast crevice; measure the emptiness by its small sound."
— from In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
"I’m wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there: not seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of an aching heart: but really with it, and in it."
— from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
"She felt red at the bone — like there was something inside of her undone and bleeding."
— from Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
"I now know that my anxiety doesn't have to be caused by anything particularly fear-inducing. After more than three decades of it coursing through my veins, anxiety is sometimes simply in my bones."
— from First, We Make The Beast Beautiful by Sarah Wilson
"They noticed the continuous departures of kindness and sloughed their skins to wear their hearts on their sleeves as reminders. They always noticed, with relief, prodigal kindness making its inevitable return."
— from Temporary by Hilary Leichter
"Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined."
— from On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
"The last few years have taught me to suspend my desire for a conclusion, to assume that nothing is static and that renegotiation will be perpetual, to hope primarily that little truths will keep emerging in time."
— from Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino
"When the earth is cracking behind your feet and it feels like the whole world is going to swallow you up, you put one foot in front of the other and you keep going. You go forward. And do you know what happens if you don’t? No. Ha! Neither do I, angel. Neither do I."
— from Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A True (As Told to Me) Story by Bess Kalb
"I take it as a sign that it is all right to be alive as I am, just as I am, and to keep trying."
— from Little Weirds by Jenny Slate
"We are just specks of dust in this world, glimmering for a moment in the sunlight, and then disappearing into nothing. You have to learn to make your peace with that."
— from Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara
"Finding darkness in another story is so much less lonely than fearing the darkness is yours alone."
— from Make It Scream, Make It Burn by Leslie Jamison
Hopefully, remembering these quotes and their underlying messages (in conjunction with professional help and therapies) can assist in offering some peace throughout times of anxiety.
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