7. Emma Stone
The Academy Award-nominated actress has suffered from anxiety and panic attacks since she was a kid. “The first time I had a panic attack I was sitting in my friend’s house, and I thought the house was burning down,” she told the Wall Street Journal. “I called my mom and she brought me home, and for the next three years it just would not stop.”
So what has helped her deal with panic disorder? In one word, acting, which helped Stone focus her mind so that she wasn’t able to dwell on her feelings of anxiety. “There’s something about the immediacy of acting,” she said. “You can’t afford to think about a million other things. You have to think about the task at hand. Acting forces me to sort of be like a Zen master: What is happening right in this moment?” Mindfulness can be an important tool in fighting anxiety: In fact, it’s been suggested that regular meditation can make us more compassionate and resistant to stress.
To this day, she says she still has panic attacks, but seeing a therapist, meditating, and reaching out to people instead of staying isolated helps her cope.