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Tag: Emma Stone

  • Emma Stone Is Doing Her Part To Shatter Mental Health Stigma

    Emma Stone Is Doing Her Part To Shatter Mental Health Stigma

    The actress has joined the board of an organization dedicated to helping children with mental health and learning disorders.

    Actress Emma Stone, who has spoken publicly about her struggles with anxiety, is joining the board of directors at The Child Mind Institute, a non-profit organization that supports children with learning and mental health disorders. 

    “I’m honored to join the board of The Child Mind Institute. This is a stigma-shattering organization I am deeply passionate about, and I’m looking forward to helping the Child Mind Institute continue to advance its critically important work,”  Stone, 30, said in a statement to PEOPLE.

    Stone has dealt with anxiety since she was a teenager, but has said that acting — and therapy — have helped her keep her anxiety under control. She works to let others, especially young people, know that they can have a fulfilling life despite anxiety. 

    “Emma’s courage in openly discussing her story with anxiety is inspirational,” said Dr. Harold S Koplewicz, president of The Child Mind Institute. “It offers hope to millions of kids that it is possible to overcome their own challenges and thrive.”

    In 2017, Stone recorded a video as part of the institute’s awareness campaign that asked people to share what they would like to tell their younger selves. 

    “What I could tell kids who are going through anxiety, which I have, is that you’re so normal it’s crazy,” she said. “It’s so normal, everyone experiences a version of anxiety or worry in their lives and maybe we go through it in a different or more intense way, or for longer periods of time, but there’s nothing wrong with you.”

    Stone talked about the often over-looked flip-side to anxiety.  

    “To be a sensitive person that cares a lot, that takes things in in a deeper way, is actually part of what makes you amazing and is one of the greatest gifts in life: you think a lot, you feel a lot, and it’s the best,” Stone said. “I wouldn’t trade it for the world even when there are really hard times.”

    She said that over time she has learned how to manage her anxiety and what things are likely to set it off.  

    “There are so many tools you can use to help yourself in those [bad] time, and it does get better and easier as life goes on and you get to know yourself more and what will trigger certain instances of anxiety, and where you feel comfortable and safe.” 

    Overall, experiencing anxiety is very common, she said. 

    “Don’t ever feel like you’re a weirdo for it because we’re all weirdos.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Emma Stone Talks Anxiety, Panic Attacks

    Emma Stone Talks Anxiety, Panic Attacks

    “You don’t have to be actor to overcome anxiety. You just have to find that thing within you that you are drawn to.”

    Emma Stone can vividly remember her first panic attack at age seven. 

    “I was sitting at a friend’s house and all of a sudden I was absolutely convinced that the house was on fire,” Stone recalled. “I was just sitting in her bedroom and obviously the house wasn’t on fire but there was nothing in me that didn’t think I was going to die.”

    On Monday, October 1, the actress sat down with Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz for a 30-minute conversation at the Child Mind Institute in New York City. She discussed her history of anxiety, beginning with the panic attack. Stone went on to describe how she would visit the nurse daily during second grade, where she would then call her mom. 

    “I had deep separation anxiety,” she told Koplewicz.

    Stone’s mother decided to take her to therapy and was informed her daughter had generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder, ABC News reports. However, she chose not to tell her daughter, which is something Stone says she has appreciated. 

    “I am very grateful I didn’t know that I had a disorder,” Stone said. “I wanted to be an actor and there weren’t a lot of actors who spoke about having panic attacks.”

    Stone described how in therapy, she came up with a book called, I Am Bigger Than My Anxiety. She says she drew photos inside of “a little green monster that sits on my shoulder.” In the book, the monster — her anxiety — would increase in size if she listened and decrease if she didn’t.

    A few years after her first panic attack, at age 11, Stone says she began acting in improv and realized “my feelings could be productive.”

    She says she also kept involved in the local children’s theater which was helpful in managing anxiety.

    “I believe the people who have anxiety and depression are very, very sensitive and very, very smart,” she said. “Because the world is hard and scary and there’s a lot that goes on and if you’re very attuned to it, it can be crippling. But if you don’t let it cripple you and use it for something productive, it’s like a superpower.”

    Today, Stone says, she manages her anxiety disorder through therapy, medication, the company of others and staying busy. She also avoids social media. 

    “That would send me into a spin,” she said. “I don’t need to be getting constant feedback on who I am.”

    For anyone battling anxiety, Stone says the key is finding somewhere else to shift your focus. 

    “You don’t have to be actor to overcome anxiety, you don’t have to be a writer to overcome it,” she told Koplewicz. “You just have to find that thing within you that you are drawn to.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Emma Stone Talks To Jennifer Lawrence About Her Anxiety Struggles

    Emma Stone Talks To Jennifer Lawrence About Her Anxiety Struggles

    In an interview for Elle magazine, Emma Stone spoke candidly about mental health to her close friend Jennifer Lawrence.

    Emma Stone has been very open about her struggles with anxiety, which she’s had since she was a child. Now, Stone and fellow actress Jennifer Lawrence have interviewed each other for Elle magazine, in which the Hollywood BFFs spoke about struggling with anxiety and how acting can be a release.

    In the interview, Lawrence asked Stone, “What do you think caused your anxiety? Do you think you were born like that, or do you think something happened that made you extremely sensitive, or do you think that you’re naturally pathetic?”

    Stone, who has battled anxiety since she was seven years old, replied, “I think your wiring is just kind of what you are. 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.”

    Stone has reached out to Lawrence on the phone, on what Lawrence calls Emma’s “frequent sleepless nights.” Stone’s racing thoughts have also been kicking up lately because she’ll soon be turning 30.

    Stone is currently taking a break from Hollywood. “I haven’t shot anything for six months, which has been amazing because there’s been more time to be with friends or travel.”

    Lawrence also pointed out that Stone doesn’t have a “big social media presence,” to which Stone replied, “I think it wouldn’t be a positive thing for me. If people can handle that sort of output and input in the social media sphere, power to them.”

    While Lawrence didn’t talk about her own anxiety in her conversation with Stone, the Hunger Games star did talk about her mental health struggles to Esperanza. Like Stone, Lawrence used acting as an escape and as a way of healing her self-image.

    Growing up, Lawrence felt like she was “a weirdo… I’ve always had this weird anxiety. I hated recess. Parties really stressed me out. I was having trouble at school and I had a lot of social anxieties.”

    Lawrence’s parents also took her to a therapist, and like Stone, she realized performing “was the one that that [made] anxiety go away. I didn’t feel good about myself until I discovered acting and how happy it made me feel.”

    View the original article at thefix.com