A nagging anxiety over the trustworthiness of Vellocatus had robbed him of sleep the night before and his mind was dull with exhaustion.

Although Trivers, as a working parent, failed to heed his own advice, Hrdy was haunted by a "nagging anxiety lest Trivers was right."

He couldn't rid himself of a nagging anxiety.

This city, which prides itself on its imperturbability, which managed to hold itself together until last Friday, has slipped suddenly into a state of nagging anxiety.

Ordinarily, I don't run in the rain, but I hadn't slept well and I needed to clear away the dregs of nagging anxiety.

The problem, say the islanders who have turned down the cars, is not the cars' performance but their economics, and the nagging anxiety about running out of electricity.

The narrator's characterization of Meir's consciousness in fact bristles with terms like "nagging anxiety," "bitterness and humiliation," "impenetrable alienation," "unutterable weariness."

The confidence with which I looked forward to that week and its promise of change, if not release, was undermined by nagging anxiety over the move itself.

For some time now I was plagued by a nagging anxiety.

News that had left her prey to ancient longings added to the guilt, and a nagging anxiety that could not be relieved.