15 Songs About Anxiety
Anxiety is your body’s natural response to stress and the feeling of fear or apprehension about what’s to come. Below is a list of songs to listen to if you want to dive into the topic of anxiety:
1. Ariana Grande – Breathin
During an interview with Vogue, Ariana revealed that she has always had anxiety and the events of the Manchester bombing added to that by giving her post-traumatic stress disorder. She stated, “I think a lot of people have anxiety, especially right now. My anxiety has anxiety… [but] I’ve never really spoken about it because I thought everyone had it, but when I got home from tour it was the most severe I think it’s ever been.”
2. Julia Michaels – Anxiety
Michaels sings about her personal experience living with anxiety, the sleepless nights she has had, and refusing to listen to her doctor’s advice to take medicine. She stated this about the song:
I basically was just like I kind of wanna talk about these sort of things that I deal with on a daily basis. Not just anxiety, but the fear of missing out and sort of wanting to do things but never actually having the ability to go through with anything that you want to do. It’s just a way into the mind of someone who has anxiety and has these struggles for someone who doesn’t understand it.
3. Ariana Grande – Get Well Soon
In the track, Ariana is spreading awareness about mental health and how maintaining it is essential to overall health, happiness and having a better life. She also sings about how common it is for people struggling with depression, anxiety or other mental illnesses to simply deny what they are going through.
4. Imagine Dragons – Demons
The track is about acknowledging and battling your insecurities and inner flaws characterized as your “demons”. This is the fourth single from Imagine Dragon’s debut album Night Visions.
5. Rihanna – Disturbia
In an interview Rihanna did, she stated that the song is about feelings of mental anguish, anxiety and confusion. She also added that she did the song because she felt her listeners would really relate to it.
6. Mabel – OK
Mabel decided to speak about her struggles with anxiety throughout her life and share with people what she has experienced so as to encourage people to be open too. She shared this in an interview with Apple Music:
My hardest song to write. I pride myself as an honest writer and felt I had a responsibility to be as honest about this side of me as I am with relationships and other things that happen in my life. I’ve experienced anxiety my whole life—that little voice in my head—and so it’s very, very, very important to talk about. It took me a long time to figure out how to write about it, because I had to understand how I really felt about it. I think I was so ashamed of it, and so it was embarrassing to talk about. It felt weak. Then, last year, after going through a bit of a hard time, I realized that (my anxiety) doesn’t reflect weakness and that instead of being embarrassed, I’m just going to tell people about what I experience, and maybe that’ll encourage others to be open too. Even on the day of the session, I woke up and thought I either get up, get dressed, put makeup on, and then struggle for eight hours or I just cancel the session. And then I realized that I did have a magical third option which I’d never thought about before: just go with my feelings and be honest.”
7. Royal & The Serpent – Overwhelmed
The inspiration behind the song was that the singer was having a really hard time with social anxiety and panic attacks. Everything was a sensory overload and she was struggling.
8. Metric – Help I’m Alive
The track is about being paralyzed by the expectations of other people and the anxiety those expectations bring on.
9. Bmike – Anxiety
The song goes into what people with anxiety feel on the inside but won’t tell anyone.
10. NF – Stress
NF goes ahead to use rap music as a means of venting out his feelings of discomfort due to his stressful life.
11. Kehlani – 24/7
In the track, Kehlani reflects on her recent struggles with depression and anxiety which got her admitted to hospital in late March 2016. She also reassures herself that it is part of being a human being. She was hospitalized because she attempted suicide following accusations of cheating on her then-boyfriend Kyrie Irving.
12. Logic – Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind
The song is from Logic’s sixth studio album and he uses it to vent feelings of insecurity that have been driven into his mind by living in the public eye.
13. Shawn Mendes – Why Why Why
The song is from the album “Shawn” and it references to his past relationship with Camila Cabello, the cancellation of his tour and his anxieties. Shawn had this to share in an interview with Apple Music:
”Why Why Why” was just one of those experiences where it kinda became a joke when we were making the album, if I started to experience some pretty heavy anxiety in the studio, everyone was sure a great song was gonna be coming after it because there was some sort of healing crisis, some sort of break through that was supposed to happen.
This one was a big one, it addresses a lot. I didn’t wanna have to make anyone have to work to hear me, I just wanted to say it as it was.
14. Chris Brown – Angel Numbers/Ten Toes
Chris Brown advises his listeners to embrace strength in the face of anxiety and urges them not to let the weight of pressure cloud their judgment or hinder their progress. They are encouraged to embrace challenges head-on and remain committed to facing life with unwavering determination.
15. Sleepy Hallow feat Doechii – Anxiety
Sleepy Hallow discusses his lifestyle and his anxiety surrounding the things he does.