“I stopped the Xanax after, like, nine days. I went, ‘This isn’t helping.’ So I just suffered through it,” Colbert shared in an interview with Rolling Stone published in August 2018. “I’d sometimes hold the bottle, to go like, ‘I could stop this feeling if I wanted, but I’m not going to. Because I know if I stop the feeling, somehow I’m not working through it, like I have got to go through the tunnel with the spiders in it.’”
He continued: “And then one morning I woke up and my skin wasn’t on fire, and it took me a while to figure out what it was. I wake up the next morning, I’m perfectly fine, to the point where my body’s still humming. I’m a bell that’s been rung so hard that I can still feel myself vibrating. But the actual sound was gone [because] I was starting rehearsal that day to create a new show. And then I went, ‘Oh, my God, I can never stop performing.’ Creating something is what helped me from just spinning apart like an unweighted flywheel. And I haven’t stopped since. Even when I was a writer I always had to be in front of a camera a little bit. I have to perform.”
Keep scrolling to find out what methods stars use to help relax their emotions and combat their uneasiness:
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Stars With Anxiety: Celebs Open Up About Their Struggles and the Methods That Help
“I stopped the Xanax after, like, nine days. I went, ‘This isn’t helping.’ So I just suffered through it,” Colbert shared in an interview with Rolling Stone published in August 2018. “I’d sometimes hold the bottle, to go like, ‘I could stop this feeling if I wanted, but I’m not going to. Because I know if I stop the feeling, somehow I’m not working through it, like I have got to go through the tunnel with the spiders in it.’”
He continued: “And then one morning I woke up and my skin wasn’t on fire, and it took me a while to figure out what it was. I wake up the next morning, I’m perfectly fine, to the point where my body’s still humming. I’m a bell that’s been rung so hard that I can still feel myself vibrating. But the actual sound was gone [because] I was starting rehearsal that day to create a new show. And then I went, ‘Oh, my God, I can never stop performing.’ Creating something is what helped me from just spinning apart like an unweighted flywheel. And I haven’t stopped since. Even when I was a writer I always had to be in front of a camera a little bit. I have to perform.”
Keep scrolling to find out what methods stars use to help relax their emotions and combat their uneasiness:
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Ryan Reynolds
The Deadpool star opened up about his struggles with anxiety and how he copes by using meditation and mindfulness. “I tend to pave over anxiety with work and, to a lesser extent, achievement,” he explained during an interview with CBS’ Sunday Morning in February 2022. “You want to tick boxes sometimes. So these days, my goal is to be as present as I can and not just tick a box just to do it. I’m fully embracing and living that right now. It’s been amazing.”
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Jonah Hill
The actor shared that press tours and public appearances triggered his anxiety and as a result, he would not be promoting any movies anymore. “You won’t see me out there promoting this film [Sputz], or any of my upcoming films, while I take this important step to protect myself,” the Superbad star actor explained in a letter he wrote that was published by Deadline in August 2022. “If I made myself sicker by going out there and promoting it, I wouldn’t be acting true to myself or to the film.”
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Camila Cabello
In April 2022, the singer revealed she was going to therapy to help treat her anxiety. “There was a time where my anxiety felt so bad, I was like, ‘I don’t feel like I can go in the studio. I don’t feel like I can work,’” she told E! News. “And so, the only way for me to go to work every day was to be honest and be myself. And if I didn’t go to work and was just waiting for myself to feel better before I did that … it’s just a paralyzing feeling.”
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Lizzo
The “About Damn Time” singer shared how she copes with her stress and anxiety by working out. “Sometimes, the stress that you’re feeling, you’ve got to match that stress with something that’s good for you to get it out of your body,” the rapper told Yahoo! Life in February 2022. “Because I know that’s what I deal with way more than anything these days, is stress and anxiety.”
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Millie Bobby Brown
The Stranger Things star shared what helps her on the days she feels the most anxious. “I have learned to manage it [anxiety] in ways that a lot of people learn to manage things like breathing exercises or distracting your mind and my hobbies help distract me from being anxious,” she said to Glamour UK in August 2020. “I have to give myself love because that’s important. Everyone has to empower themselves.”
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Nina Agdal
The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue model admitted to Us Weekly in September 2019 that her otherwise sunny life has been peppered with a mental health struggle. “I’ve been dealing with severe anxiety for a very long time,” she shared. The number one thing that’s helped her? Not hiding it. “Ever since I started speaking up about it, the response I’ve gotten and the amount of people that were just like, ‘Thank you so much for speaking up about it,’ and reaching out about their personal stories [has been incredible],” Agdal said. “There’s so many people who deal with mental health issues. And if I can help anyone, even if it’s a message on Instagram and I can say what works for me, then that’s very important to me.” The Denmark native also told Us that therapy has helped her immensely. “The one thing I would always recommend for anyone is if you can afford therapy or if you have an insurance that will cover it, it works,” she said. “I highly recommend going to just talk about it.”
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Chelsea Houska
TheTeen Mom 2 star opened up in May 2019 about her struggles with “severe anxiety attacks” following the birth of her third child, Layne, and a robbery at her home. “Around six months postpartum, I started experiencing some — I would say — pretty severe anxiety attacks,” she told E! News. “This seemed different from the others. … I think it’s really common and it’s not something a lot of women talk about. I thought it was important to bring it up on the show.”
Houska added that she is “definitely feeling better.”
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Kyle Richards
After what many viewers deemed was an insensitive reaction during the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Season 9 premiere that aired on February 12, Richards apologized on Twitter the next day, revealing that she had been “dealing with crippling anxiety & had to start taking medication for it” at the time. Besides medication, the actress told Us that working out helps her the most when she’s struggling. “For me, if I want to feel good and, you know, if I’m stressed, it’s exercise, exercise, exercise,” she said at the premiere party. “So I did my boxing class today, got out all my anxiety. Yesterday was SoulCycle. Tomorrow I’ll be in SoulCycle again.”
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Anne Hathaway
In the February 2019 issue of Town & Country, the Oscar winner revealed that stress and anxiety used to get her down. But now, she’s found a fiery ritual — literally! — that helps her. “Set a timer on your phone [for 12 minutes], have a candle nearby and write it all down,” the star explained. “You spew it all out. You do not read it. The timer goes off, you tear it out of the book and you light it on fire… literally on fire. All this energy, this angst, this rage — everything is smoke.”
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Kendall Jenner
“Anxiety is all mental, so you have to try and find your ways around it,” the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star said after she opened up about suffering from the condition in an episode of her family’s reality show. Some of the methods she’s tried: acupuncture, meditation and sound baths. In January 2019, she also revealed she started using Proactive — and became a brand spokesperson — to help her with the anxiety her acne has caused her.
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Amanda Stanton
“I struggle so bad with anxiety,” the Bachelor in Paradise alum admitted in an Instagram Story in November 2018, adding, “this year was especially hard for me.” She’s a big proponent of not keeping her emotions bottled up. “Being open to the people close to you is so important so they can help you through it,” she wrote. “Talking about it in general helps. Sure meditation, essential oils, medication or exercise etc can def help but honestly just talking through it with someone helps me more than anything.”
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Chloe Grace Moretz
In October 2018 at 21 years old, the star shared with The Hollywood Reporter that anxiety was the biggest personal struggle she’d overcome in her life to that point. The next month she told Us Weekly how she’s learned to control the condition: “I think it’s always important to check in with yourself and keep an open dialogue with your heart and mind,” she said, adding, “Meditation is really wonderful. Therapy is really wonderful. Working out is great. I have crystals too. I feel like whatever works for you and don’t overthink it.”
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Stephen Colbert
The Late Show With Stephen Colbert host revealed to Rolling Stone in August 2018 that he began suffering from crippling anxiety in 1993. “I had a bit of a nervous breakdown after I got married — kind of panic attacks,” he said. “My wife would go off to work and she’d come home…and I’d be walking around the couch. And she’s like, ‘How was your day?’ And I’d say, ‘You’re looking at it.’ Just tight circles around the couch.” Though he tried Xanax and liked it at first, he stopped after “like, nine days,” he said. Eventually, he discovered that performing in front of an audience and starting his own show saved him. “Creating something is what helped me from just spinning apart like an unweighted flywheel,” he noted. “And I haven’t stopped since.”
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Emma Stone
In August 2018, the Oscar winner revealed to Jennifer Lawrence in Elle that she started having panic attacks when she was 7. “I think your wiring is just kind of what you are,” she said. “My mom always says that I was born with my nerves outside of my body. But I’m lucky for the anxiety, because it also makes me high-energy.” Therapy and improv acting helped Stone manage the condition, she noted at an October 2018 panel. As did the “very healing” act of talking about it, which helped her “own it and realize that this is something that is part of me, but it’s not who I am.”
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Lili Reinhart
In Seventeen’s April 2018 issue, the Riverdale star shared that she’s introverted because of her nerves. “I’ve had social anxiety forever — I don’t thrive in social or party settings,” she said. But she’s OK with it. “I’d rather stay home and read a book,” Reinhart added.
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Lena Dunham
The Girls creator has always been an open book, and the same principle applies for mental health. Part of the reason she talks about her struggles with anxiety and depression, she told Vogue in 2017, is to destigmatize the conditions. It’s her way of helping to create a world where we’re “teaching kids from a young age that it’s as OK to say ‘I’m anxious’ as it is to say ‘I hit my knee,’” she noted.
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Khloe Kardashian
After her ex-husband, Lamar Odom, nearly died of an overdose in October 2015, the reality star posted a video to her app about her troubles. “Lord knows I’ve had stress and anxiety lately,” she told fans. Kardashian added that having a fitness routine offers her relief. “I promise you, the gym has taken away so much of my stress,” she noted. “It has helped calm me down. When I’m fidgety and I just feel like everything is closing in, I go to the gym. You’re building endorphins and feeling good about yourself. It saved me.”