Carly Simon abandoned the stage for seven years after collapsing from nerves before a concert in Pittsburgh in 1981. When she resumed performing, she would sometimes ask members of her band to spank her before she went onstage, to distract her from her anxiety.
I always feel like the hammer’s going down right around the corner, and I think that level of constant anxiety is what keeps us from getting too lazy.
I was a pretty sensitive kid and quite neurotic, filled with a lot of anxiety, which all would have been very familiar to my pop, you know? Except it was a part of himself he was trying to reject, so I got caught in the middle of it, I think.
In my other books, things do happen, but they are kind of bookends to the real action, which for me was an exploration of consciousness. Not that I don’t get into the consciousness of the people in ‘The Surrendered,’ but you could say there’s not as much anxiety about it.
I have anxiety a lot of the time. Maybe it’s not anxiety, maybe it’s an adrenaline thing.
With the coming of radio as a mass medium, suddenly the world changed. It became about, ‘Can this leader project emotional connection through the way he speaks on the radio?’ And the anxiety about whether he could do that, we’ve inherited.
When I was competing at Oklahoma in college, I remember always getting a lot of anxiety before wrestling matches. Almost to the point where, ‘Oh my gosh, man, this is a lot.’
Donald Trump’s candidacy has been a source of anxiety for many reasons, but one stands out: the ability of the president to launch nuclear weapons. When it comes to starting a nuclear war, the president has more freedom than he or she does in, say, ordering the use of torture.
I did have friends who have suffered from schizophrenia and mild dissociative identity disorder, as well as more extreme cases of social anxiety disorder.
I had a dog named Oliver with severe separation anxiety. He couldn’t be alone… so I had to bring him wherever I went.
For as long as I can remember I had suffered from anxiety, nervousness, the big black cloud, stress, low moods, sadness.
I remember the general anxiety of teenager, and I remember establishing some sort of appearance based on what my peers would think. And cliques, oh my God, the worst. The worst!
A lot of my close friends are musicians and are consumed by the idea of death; their heads are like a torture chamber. I’m not like that – I don’t have death anxiety and I don’t think about it all the time.
I had some social anxiety when I was younger because I wasn’t surrounded by many people in my life.
I battle with things like depression in my life, I battle with things like anxiety, I battle with things like attention deficit disorder, and I ignored them all.
There are temptations around you all the time. The trick is to work your way through anxiety or your tiredness or whatever, and not let yourself get so hungry that you’re going and stopping for the burgers, and you don’t view it as reward. You’re doing better for yourself is eating better food.
For many women – myself included – pregnancy brings on tremendous anxiety and confusion, along with the joy.
Aware that his disappointment has its source in a defective education, he looks with anxiety on his other daughters, whose minds, like lovely buds, are beginning to open. Where shall he find a genial soil in which he may place them to expand?
I hold onto the Scripture that says, ‘Be anxious for nothing, but in all things give thanks.’ I’m not saying I don’t have problems or that I don’t worry, but I try not to be stressed. I manage my anxiety through prayer. Worry shows up on your face, and I don’t want that!
I don’t have stage or camera fright but there is a little anxiety while performing in-front of a lot of people.
Underneath our nice, friendly facades there is great unease. If I were to scratch below the surface of anyone I would find fear, pain, and anxiety running amok. We all have ways to cover them up. We overeat, over-drink, overwork; we watch too much television.
There’s so much anxiety about being understood – and being understood through what you wear.
I really hate misunderstandings – to a degree that it’s hard for me to watch sitcoms, or any kind of funny movie where there’s, like, this big mishap, or miscommunication. It gives me such anxiety that I almost can’t make it through the movie.
OCD is an anxiety disorder, one that brings conscious intrusive thoughts and compulsions – ‘Touch the bannister. Pick up that rock. You’d better do it, or something terrible will happen.’
When we’re anxious we tend to shrink into a defeatist position, curving our shoulders or backs. Learning to stand straight, take a breath and speak slowly helps to project a sense of confidence, relieving some of that anxiety.
I am not defined by somebody’s comments or an article or somebody’s angst about me or their anxiety about me or what is being said about me on social media.
When I get high anxiety, I vomit. My mom was so stressed out. Then I found out I was staying in John Mayer’s old dorm room, and I had a nice roommate. That completely brought me down. I was completely comfortable at Berklee.
I think about moving across the country, barely having the money to do it, it gives me so much anxiety. I think there’s something to be said for just not knowing, being a little naive, and just flying by the seat of your pants, because it is a big thing, it’s really stressful.
I hope to capture the public’s imagination, but I can’t live in the anxiety of that.
Concentration is a fine antidote to anxiety.
I struggled tremendously with anxiety and depression related in part to my sexuality and growing up in a time when to be gay felt to me like a death sentence.
The act of birth is the first experience of anxiety, and thus the source and prototype of the affect of anxiety.
This business – the auditions, the anxiety – it’s all so, aaah, crazy! But I can always call my mom in Cuba to be reminded of what real life is.
I have done Botox before. I just don’t love doing it. It gives me so much anxiety!
As an actor and a writer, the anxiety about doing TV is that you start to feel like you get married to one tone or one kind of idea and you feel like you want to be able to express a lot of different things.
Anxiety is love’s greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.
When people suffer from depression or anxiety or any sort of pain/mental anguish combo, being able to take the power out of it through laughter is a pretty powerful tool.
It’s a whole different kind of anxiety. But the great thing about doing a theatre job is that once the ball starts rolling you just have to go with it, it’s inexorable.
As a producer, it’s not unusual to find yourself on the field, backstage, often with a camera crew and living with constant anxiety of accidentally ending up in the shot.
The excitement does not change. After 40 years in the business, I still find the show to be a magical moment – the performance anxiety, the litmus test.
I would say I locked into my persona pretty early; I wouldn’t say it’s how I am naturally, but it’s how I am naturally when I’m on a stage in front of people. That anxiety makes me be the character that I am.
I had gone through a really rough patch in my life, struggling with anxiety and depression for the first time ever, and it was totally new to me. I really had no idea what was going on, and it was all I could think about, so it was all I could write about.
But wealth is a great means of refinement; and it is a security for gentleness, since it removes disturbing anxieties.
Ironically, it is when we identify with our spirits rather than our bodies that we are most powerful on the material plane. Our overidentification with the world does not give us power within the world so much as it diminishes our power here. It makes us frightened and nervous and full of anxiety.
It was about this time that I began experiencing the beginnings of my battles with an anxiety disorder. We were touring a lot and there were some developing personal problems within the band.
My mother’s suicide attempts were a way to release anxiety and get attention. Some of the attempts were drug reactions she didn’t even remember later on.
Like so many new moms, I felt anxiety over the impending birth of my daughter. However, most of the anxiety I felt was around the idea of raising a child. I wasn’t focused on potential risks to my health or hers that could occur during the actual birth.
All anxiety is fear-based.
Long before I was a writer, when I was just a haphazard reader and a dreamer of stories, I learnt about an influential book by Harold Bloom. ‘The Anxiety of Influence’, published in 1973 when I was five years old, is taken up with the terrifying influence of poets on each other.
I suffer from anxiety, moments of depression. I’m in my head so much, and I’m thinking so much, I’m playing a tug-of-war within my mind.
For many comedians, two common anxiety triggers include performing in front of family members and doing brand new material.
I constantly have anxiety about being the lead of the show. I don’t talk about it because it scares me. But I’ve always wanted to be part of something where I could work on a character in such a big manner, and you get offered that with all the trappings of being the lead of the show.
