To try to overcome my anxiety I have turned to many things. I’ve tried conventional techniques like prescription medication and even turned to religions like Buddhism.
Whilst I have found answers in many different areas, building myself a new philosophy has been key. I personally have found that peace from anxiety lies somewhere between psychology and philosophy.
If it’s endurable, endure it. Stop complaining.
Marcus Aurelius
I have uncovered many philosophies to try and understand why I feel the way I do and many have provided me with answers. Inside my anxious mind I have craved structure and meaning, trying to find anything that would make things make sense.
One such philosophy that has stood out is Stoicism. This philosophy has been practised for hundreds of years by all kinds of people and still holds a huge following today. It is about endurance and logic which is why I have found myself gravitating towards it when my mind becomes anxious. It has given me direction and a realistic way of thought, something that I had been longing for.
What Is Stoicism?
Stoicism is an ancient Hellenistic philosophy that was founded in Athens in the 3rd century BC. The idea is that those who follow stoicism face all that is difficult with little emotion or fear. It is essentially a way of living your life, accepting hardships and standing your ground.
A stoic is known for showing little emotion and accepting what is happening to them and around them. It is a way of reacting, or, not reacting at all.
A stoic believes that they have little control over external events, only their own behaviour. Stoicism is not a complicated philosophy and offers straightforward directions on how to live your life.
Because of its simplicity and structure, many artists, thinkers and even presidents like George Washington have adopted stoicism.
The bottom line is – stoics differentiate between that they can control and what they cannot.
How Can Stoicism Help With Anxiety?
If you asked me what generalised anxiety was like I’d tell you it’s a form of self-torture. Over-thinking, rumination and intrusive thoughts are all persistent and draining.
Perhaps like me, you have spent many days wasted worrying and trying to settle your mind. Although you know that worrying won’t help, you find yourself continuing, extending the pain.
This is where the core belief of stoicism can help. I reached a point with my anxiety where I was so exhausted that I decided that enough was enough. I realised that worrying was getting me nowhere so I thought I’d give in a say;
Do you know what? If it happens, it happens.
And so with that my journey with a new, stoic way of thinking had begun, even before I knew that what I was doing was stoic.
I have spent the last few years trying to simplify my thought process. Now, when I’m in an uncomfortable situation, I commit to accepting it and pushing through, rather than working my way up into a panic.
I do not adopt the idea of doing so with little emotion, I rather commit to having a higher sense of awareness, understanding the situation is difficult but remember that I can endure it.
For example, I have always felt shy and unsure of myself in a room full of new people. This situation has always been difficult for me. However, I have learned that this type of situation will always be difficult to some degree and so I commit to enduring it as I cannot change it.
When stoicism is practised, much of our rumination can be destroyed because we are accepting that we cannot control anything external, only our behaviour.
Stoicism can be especially useful in modern day life when it comes to anxiety. For example, anxiety and depression in teens have been linked to excessive social media use. Social media provides a perfect ground to compare and despair where we can spend hours looking at what other people have or what they are doing.
Everything we hear is opinion, not fact. Everything we see is perspective, not truth.
Marcus Aurelius
Stoic Exercises For Anxiety
Stoicism is the basic practise of enduring hardship but there are stoic exercises that can help with anxiety.
Journaling – Some of the great stoics of the past have all sworn by journaling. Journaling is also advised for those who are anxious. Journaling gives you a space to share and reflect on your thoughts.
Journaling or daily writing is helpful because it gives your day structure and allows you to see yourself from a third-person perspective. It is also a healthy and accessible habit that anyone who does it can benefit from. Having a place to lay your thoughts down is essential to remove the energy you have in your mind.
View from above – this is a super easy exercise that you can practise right now. When we become anxious it’s easy to get wrapped up in our thoughts. It’s almost as if we’re trying to preserve our sense of self-importance. Everything seems as if it’s happening to us as if the world is torturing us.
The view from above exercise exists to realign our perspective. Start by viewing yourself from above, imagine yourself from a view above your house. Now, keep zooming out so you can see your country, the world, space and finally the universe.
Using this technique remind us that our worry is but a spec of dust in an infinite universe. I myself use this technique when I find myself bubbling up with anxiety. I do not do so to rid myself of a sense of self-importance, rather, I use it to see my worry in the bigger scheme of things.
Negative Visualisation – this exercise is essentially thinking about the worst outcome if you’re worrying. This stoic exercise can help with anxiety because if we can remind ourselves we could deal with the worst outcome possible to arise, we can take away the fear if it happens because we already anticipated it.
This stoic exercise is also about gratitude – another essential exercise to deal with anxiety. Whilst gratitude is all about appreciating what you have in your life, negative visualisation is about thinking of what you may feel if you lost the things you love.
For example, you might consider how you’d feel if;
- you lost a loved one
- you lost your job
- you lost your friends
- you lost the place you live in
This exercise is not meant to bum you out, rather, it’s meant to instil greater gratitude and happiness.
Voluntary Discomfort – this exercise also provides gratitude. However, it’s essentially about changing your relationship with comfort. When we’re anxious, all we want to do is feel comfortable and safe. Sometimes, we have to face the discomfort in order to not only overcome it, but to also see it in a new light – as something that will help us grow.
Voluntary discomfort hardens us to the suffering of life. It allows us to train ourselves for pain and suffering. At some point, we will become anxious or in pain and we must have the resilience to push through or we will fall apart.
For example, being in a room full of strangers, I will force myself to start a conversation with somebody I don’t know. Whilst it is uncomfortable at first, I usually find myself getting into a rhythm after a while.
Self retreat – probably one of the best stoic exercises for anxiety. This exercise echoes what the religions have been saying since time began – you must learn to find peace from within, not from external events.
For example, I have known a few people that are always craving they’re next getaway. It seems to be the number one thing that they need as if they can only find solace on a beach somewhere. However, what if there is no true peace to be found anywhere you go?
Self retreat is about looking within. This can be done through silent reflection or meditation. If you can find peace from within then there will be little from the outside world that can rock you.
Love your fate – This exercise is all about accepting your fate for how it is. Whilst there are things we can change, our ultimate fate is not one of them. If you’re worrying about something, ask yourself;
Can I do something to change this or not?
If the answer is yes, you now what you need to do. If the answer is no, you can move on. This exercise provides a very simple way to look at things.
Much of my own suffering has been from wishing my reality was different instead of accepting my fate and moving on. We can wish for an eternity but we will only prolong the suffering.
Everything is borrowed from fortune – whilst it may seem as if everyone has a house and a car and you don’t, stoics understand that everything is borrowed from fortune. This goes back to the idea of compare and despair.
When we feel anxiety, we usually anticipating something bad happening, or so we think. Other times, we feel inadequate about ourselves because we see what others have, and maybe, we sometimes think that other people are ‘better’ than us.
Everything in the physical world is borrowed, our houses, our money, our bodies. The only thing we really own is our minds.
Much like Buddhists, stoics appreciate that we should not become so attached to things as everything is in a cycle of construction and destruction. The things we love can be taken away in a blink of an eye and so with this, we can arm ourselves with a higher degree of gratitude.
So whilst some may brag about what they have, none of us truly own anything outright, we simply borrow it.
Stoicism For Anxiety
Whilst some may think of stoicism as a rather blunt philosophy, I believe that if it was good enough for Marcus Aurelius, a highly regarded emperor of Rome, it’s good enough for me.
I do not adopt all of its beliefs but I certainly take on most of them. I believe that stoicism can help anyone suffering from anxiety because it provides a strong framework for how to live your life.
With a ruminating mind, nothing has helped me more than taking on a new philosophy as it has become the basis of my perspective.
Stoicism is logical and makes sense to me. It shares many of its beliefs with Buddhism, another great source of good teachings. Above all else, stoicism teaches us that we cannot control everything that happens so we should focus on how we react to things.
If something is going to hurt us, surely we can choose to let it hurt us or not.