Duas for Anxiety, Stress and a Troubled Heart
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The supplications below are narrated, and they are what the Prophet said and taught for distress. Before them, one thing has to be said plainly, because this page will be read by people who are unwell: dua is not a substitute for treatment. Clinical depression and anxiety disorders are illnesses, and the same tradition that records these supplications also records the Prophet saying that Allah has not sent down a disease without sending down a cure for it. Seeking treatment is part of the religion, not a failure of faith.
With that established, here is what is narrated.
The Supplication of Distress
The Prophet said: no one is afflicted by worry and grief and says — O Allah, I am Your servant, son of Your servant, son of Your maidservant. My forelock is in Your hand. Your judgement of me is binding and Your decree upon me is just. I ask You by every name that is Yours, by which You have named Yourself, or revealed in Your Book, or taught to any of Your creation, or kept hidden with Yourself in the knowledge of the unseen — that You make the Quran the spring of my heart, the light of my chest, the removal of my sorrow and the departure of my anxiety — except that Allah removes his worry and grief and replaces it with relief.
Narrated by Ahmad and graded authentic. The companions asked whether they should learn it, and he said: yes, whoever hears it should learn it.
The Supplication of Yunus
There is no god but You. Glory be to You. Indeed, I was among the wrongdoers.
Said from inside the whale, and the Quran comments on what followed: so We responded to him and saved him from the distress. And thus do We save the believers.
The Prophet said: no Muslim supplicates with it for anything except that Allah answers him. Narrated by al-Tirmidhi.
The Short Ones
Hasbunallahu wa ni'mal wakil — Allah is sufficient for us and He is the best Disposer of affairs. This is what Ibrahim said when thrown into the fire, and what the believers said when told an army had gathered against them.
Ya Hayyu ya Qayyum, bi rahmatika astaghith — O Ever-Living, O Sustainer, by Your mercy I seek help. The Prophet taught this to Fatimah for times of anxiety.
Allahumma inni a'udhu bika minal-hammi wal-hazan — O Allah, I seek refuge in You from worry and grief, from incapacity and laziness, from miserliness and cowardice, from the burden of debt and from being overpowered by men. In al-Bukhari, and it names the ordinary sources of a heavy heart with unusual precision.
Why the Wording Matters
Read the supplication of distress again and notice its structure. It spends its first half establishing who is being addressed and the speaker's position, and only then makes a request — and the request is not that the circumstance change. It asks for the Quran to become the light of the chest and the removal of the sorrow.
That is a request about the person's interior rather than about their situation. The tradition treats a settled heart in a hard circumstance as an answered prayer, which is worth knowing before deciding a supplication went unanswered.
What Else Is Prescribed
Prayer. The Prophet, when something troubled him, would hasten to prayer, and he told Bilal to call the iqamah saying: give us rest with it.
Company. Isolation is what worry does to a person, and the congregation, the family and a friend who will listen are all treated in the sources as goods rather than distractions.
Not despairing. The Quran states it directly: do not despair of the mercy of Allah.
And Again, Plainly
If you have lost the ability to work, sleep, eat, or care about anything for weeks, that is a medical condition and it responds to medical treatment. Praying while ill is right; praying instead of getting treated is not what any of the above asks of you. Ibn al-Qayyim, writing centuries before modern medicine, treated the physician and the supplication as belonging together, and that is still the correct arrangement.