A Stoic’s Guide: How to Deal with Anxiety

Stoicism was a philosophy that flourished for some 400 years in ancient Greece and Rome, gaining widespread support among all classes of society. It had one very large and highly practical ambition: to teach people how to be calm and brave in the face of overwhelming anxiety and pain.

As it is easy to notice in the world today, there is anxiety all around. We experience it too. The fear, the apprehensions — so many things might happen. The standard way for people to cheer us up when we are mired in anxiety is to tell us that we will, after all, be OK. Stoics opposed such strategy. What did they say then? Let’s find out.

Stoics on anxiety

Stoics believed that anxiety flourishes in the gap between what we fear might, and what we hope could, happen. The larger the gap, the greater will be the disturbances of mood.

Anxiety panic attack art — Art: Panic Attack by Anthony Falbo

To regain calm, what we need to do is systematically and intelligently crush every last vestige of hope. Stoics proposed to stop appeasing ourselves with sunny tales. Instead, they suggested, it is better to courageously come to terms with the worst possibilities. When we look at our fears in the face, we stand to come to a crucial realisation: we will cope. We will cope even if we lost all our money. We will cope even if people left us. We will cope even if all that can go wrong does go wrong. We will cope.

We generally don’t dare do more than glimpse the horrible eventualities through clenched eyelids. Therefore, they maintain a constant sadistic grip on us. Instead, as Seneca (Roman Stoic philosopher) put it: To reduce your worry, you must assume that what you fear may happen is certainly going to happen.

The practice

Stoic philosopher art — Art: Morning with the Stoics by Nathan Casteel

The Stoics suggested we take time off to practise worst-case scenarios. We should, for example, mark out a week a year where we eat only stale bread and sleep on the kitchen floor with only one blanket. This way we will stop being so squeamish about being sacked or imprisoned.

We will then realise, as Marcus Aurelius says, “that very little is needed to make a happy life.”

Each morning, a good Stoic will undertake a praemeditatio: a premeditation on all the appalling things that might occur during the day. In Seneca’s words: Mortal have you been born, to mortals have you given birth. So you must reckon on everything, expect everything.

Stoicism, in other words, is nothing less than an elegant, intelligent dress rehearsal for catastrophe. Not bad, right?

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