About us

About us

Hi, Anna & Tai here - the co-founders of Subtly Anxious, both born and raised in Queensland. We're both working professionals navigating parenthood and advocating for supports and accommodations for our Dinosaur and Lego obsessed autistic and ADHD 4 year old. 

The story behind Subtly Anxious®

Ever wonder why fidgeting helps? It's all in the brain—fidgeting activates dopamine pathways, easing anxiety and boosting focus (neuroscience fact!).

Subtly anxious is anxiety meeting elegance.

We know that fidgeting is beneficial for maintaining focus. Fidget toys are popular for children, especially with anxiety and/or ADHD as fidgeting is a way to redirect anxious behaviours. There was a lack of hypoallergenic fidget rings without looking tacky or having your skin react and turning green. This started with a conversation about inclusion - why can't beautifully designed rings also be a sensory product for someone for example who may have ADHD or autism (or both) and needs something to stim or fidget with? 

Our Story

We went on the search for high quality sterling silver spinner anxiety rings in Australia and quickly found that there weren't any spinner rings or fidget rings for anxiety that were hypoallergenic, subtle, stylish and functional. The rings needed to be high quality and adjustable so that they could fit both adults and kids.

The only way we could incorporate hypoallergenic and long lasting materials was to use s925 sterling silver. This is how Subtly Anxious® came to life - we are the only Australian business that sells only 925 sterling silver rings and design our own rings. You know that our rings are unique as they are specially engraved with our brand, "Subtly Anxious.®" 

Empower yourself. Embrace your thoughts.®

The rings are designed as a tool used to empower yourself to manage any symptoms of anxiety. It is one of many tools and strategies that you can use to deregulate and reduce stress. When you feel like your anxiety is approaching, you don't ignore those thoughts - embrace your thoughts and let them pass like a wave through your mind. Empower yourself. Embrace your thoughts.® It's a reminder to yourself on how to manage your anxiety. 

Our mission

Our mission started by raising awareness about and supporting those touched by anxiety, ADHD, Autism or OCD - diagnosed or not. As we continued to learn more in our journey, our mission evolved as autism advocates because we saw the importance of ensuring developmental delays and autism spectrum disorder is not only understood better in the early years of parenthood but to also advocate for better inclusion and accommodations for the autism community. The more we advocate, the more we are able to increase the understanding of others, which in turn may mean better supports and accommodations. 

Our community

As a small business in our first year of business, we were able to donate $850 to Beyond Blue. 

This year, we've donated to community Kindy fundraisers, young people at risk of mental health crisis through the Salvation Army and provided free resources to families navigating their anxiety journey. 

Watch this space

Whilst navigating our son’s neurodivergence and ensuring that he is ready for school, we saw an underwhelming amount of (free) neurodivergent focused resources available in the community so we started creating our own.

When we first created a simple social story for use as a template, we didn’t realise how far it would go to help thousands of families struggling with daycare and kindy. You can find more of our free anxiety resources including our beautiful social story template here. 

We are giving back into the community that helped us navigate parenthood and creating more free resources for neurodivergent families.