Anxiety Awareness Month – May 1, 2027

History of Anxiety Awareness Month

Anxiety Awareness Month is celebrated together with Mental Health Awareness Month — both of which fall in May. Anxiety is such a significant issue that a week of Mental Health Awareness Month is dedicated to discussing, raising awareness about, and providing guidance on how to best manage it. Since 1949, Mental Health America, an organization concerned with mental health in the U.S. has been observing May as mental health month. Part of their activities in the month is to inform and enlighten the public on various aspects of mental health, of which anxiety stands out.

Anxiety, and its extension, anxiety disorder, has been said to be an illness rarely known before the 19th century. In contrast, anxiety has been identified as a negative effect and disorder by Greco-Roman philosophers and physicians. For example, Plato recorded a case of acute anxiety in women in one of his books (or books attributed to him.) This makes anxiety a lingering problem right from antiquity. Further evidence lies in the fact that philosophers in the far past suggested treatments for the mental imbalance that are not too detached from the cognitive ones available today.

Although it has been known, anxiety was not considered a separate illness, but rather a symptom of melancholy a few centuries back. Robert Burton’s treatise, “The Anatomy of Melancholy” published in 1621 confirms this. In the late 19th and 20th centuries, however, anxiety began to be recognized as a distinct entity. Sigmund Freud for example, coined many of the terms used today for various anxiety disorders, a sign that the illness was being studied independently.