Stoava / Guides / Stoicism for anxiety

Stoicism for anxiety

Anxiety is mostly the mind living in a future that has not happened. The Stoics noticed this two thousand years ago, long before modern psychology gave it a name. Seneca, writing to his friend Lucilius, put it plainly: we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

Stoicism does not promise a life without fear. It offers a method for separating what is actually in front of you from the stories you tell about it, and for acting well inside the part of life that is yours to govern.

The Stoic diagnosis

Epictetus taught that people are disturbed not by things themselves but by the judgments they form about them. The meeting, the test result or the argument is an event. The dread attached to it is a judgment, and judgments can be examined.

Marcus Aurelius made the same point in his private notebook: if something external pains you, it is not the thing itself that disturbs you but your judgment about it, and it is in your power to wipe that judgment out now.

Three exercises to try tonight

1. Sort it. Write down what is worrying you, then split the list in two: what is up to me (my effort, my preparation, my next action) and what is not (other people's reactions, the outcome, the past). Only the first column deserves your energy.
2. Rehearse the worst, calmly. Seneca recommended thinking through the feared outcome in advance, not to invite it but to see that you could face it. Ask what you would actually do, step by step. The vague terror usually shrinks into a manageable plan.
3. Name the judgment. Replace "this is a disaster" with "I am having the thought that this is a disaster". The Stoics called this withholding assent: you notice an impression without automatically agreeing with it.

A note on modern psychology

Cognitive behavioural therapy grew partly from Stoic ideas; its founders, including Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck, cited Epictetus as an influence. Stoicism is a philosophy, not a treatment. If anxiety is affecting your sleep, work or health, please speak to a doctor or qualified therapist as well.

In their own words

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 13 (Gummere translation)

“If thou art pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs thee, but thy own judgement about it.”

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.47 (George Long translation)

Frequently asked questions

Keep reading

• The dichotomy of control
• Seneca and his Letters
• A Stoic morning and evening routine