Quotes for Stressful Times

March 19, 2022

This post was adapted from another article.

Stress is an unavoidable part of the human experience, but learning how to manage our stress can ensure that we don’t get swept away regularly in a current of anxiety. In medical circles, stress has been linked to harmful physical conditions such as high blood pressure, increased heart rate, high blood sugar levels, and mental health issues such as anger, depression, and anxiety. In short, managing our stress is the sort of critical life skill that only gets more necessary over time.

Stress can feel overwhelming when you’re in the middle of it, trying to juggle too many things at work or attempting to care for others while disregarding your own needs. This is why it is so important to have reminders that this, too, shall pass and that whatever worries you is temporary, while your own resilience and grit are what stay. One significant way to combat stress is to choose not to engage with it. As motivational speaker Mark Black said, “Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is relax.” Below are quotes that may be helpful to refer to in times of tension and strain, offering up reassurances that no matter how stressful a moment is, the next may just bring calm and certainty.

This is my favorite because I have followed it many times and will continue to do so.  Helping others keeps my mind off of worry and I get the opportunity to make someone else feel good.  "A good way to overcome stress is to help others out of theirs."  It is a quote from Dada J. P. Vaswani, Indian spiritual leader. 



Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.

— Anne Lamott, writer

The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule but to schedule your priorities.

         — Stephen Covey, author

Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.
-   Kahlil Gibran, writer

When one door closes, another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.
           - Alexander Graham Bell

A good way to overcome stress is to help others out of theirs.

          — Dada J. P. Vaswani, Indian spiritual leader

Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.

— Mary Oliver, poet

All the suffering, stress, and addiction comes from not realizing you already are what you are looking for.

     — Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of MBSR (mindfulness-based stress reduction)

Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.
          — Oprah Winfrey

-  Rule number one is, don’t sweat the small stuff. Rule number two is, it’s all small stuff.

— Robert Eliot, writer

 

I think that we have to realize that times of stress are also times that are signals for growth, and if we use adversity properly, we can grow through adversity.
— Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski

 

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
— Albert Einstein

 

These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.
— Najwa Zebian, writer and activist

 

Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness. Not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.
— Aristotle

 

Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.
— Thích Nhất Hạnh, Buddhist monk

 

If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.
— Amit Ray, spiritual teacher