Emma Stone is one of many celebrities these days who's bravely opened up about their mental health difficulties, and we're ever in admiration of her for it.
In a recent interview with the American radio station NPR, the Poor Things actress has let us in on her experience of anxiety as a child.
"I started in therapy, I think around age 8, because it was getting really hard for me to leave the house to go to school," Emma said (via People). "I sort of lived in fear of these panic attacks."
She continued: "it's a hard age to be able to reason with yourself, at 7 or 8, and tell yourself these things aren't true. ... It was very hard to convince myself otherwise."
But her career as an actress has been an unexpected blessing for her anxiety, or vice-versa, Emma shared.
When she acts, "all of my big feelings are productive, and presence is required," she explained.
"I've told a lot of younger people that struggle with anxiety, that in many ways I see it as kind of a superpower," she said. "Just because we might have a funny thing going on in our amygdala, and our fight-or-flight response is maybe a little bit out of whack in comparison to many people's brain chemistry, it doesn't make it wrong. It doesn't make it bad."
She also added that anxiety feels like a motivator for creating art and committing to her passions.
"Anxiety is like rocket fuel because you can't help but get out of bed and do things, do things, do things because you've got all of this energy within you. And that's really a gift," she said.
Emma has opened up about her anxiety at various points in the past including as part of a charity initiative in 2020, when she shared tips for dealing with anxiety in a video for the Child Mind Institute.
At the time, as reported by Shape, Emma shared that some of her favourite healthy ways to cope were meditation, reading, and dancing around her house. VERY relatable.
