Ancient Strategies For Managing Stress And Anxiety | Ryan Holiday

1. Focus on What’s Controllable

Recognize that you don’t control external events, but you do control your response to them. This shift in focus allows you to concentrate energy on what is within your power, reducing unnecessary suffering and anxiety.

2. Practice Premeditatio Malorum

Actively contemplate potential negative outcomes or ’evils’ that could occur. By thinking about what could go wrong in advance, you strip these possibilities of their power and can better prepare for them.

3. Embrace Your Fate (Amor Fati)

Don’t just accept the difficult things that happen to you, but embrace them as uniquely suited to your purpose. View adversity as an opportunity to grow and transform challenges into turning points you wouldn’t trade away.

4. Engage in Daily Journaling

Make journaling a central practice for self-reflection and conversation with yourself. Use it to process thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and to debrief on your actions and learning.

5. Practice Memento Mori

Regularly reflect on your own mortality and the fleeting nature of life. This awareness should motivate you to prioritize present actions, cherish relationships, and avoid procrastination, rather than inducing dread.

6. Cultivate Self-Discipline

Develop self-discipline by persisting through difficult tasks and resisting temptations that are not good for you. This builds character and helps you achieve your goals, as summarized by ‘persist and resist’.

7. Evaluate Worry’s Utility

Before succumbing to worry, ask yourself if it’s prompting any practical action or if you’re simply emoting about a problem. If it’s not leading to constructive steps, try to discard it, recognizing anxiety is an internal state.

8. Take Responsibility for Emotions

Understand that your emotions are your own responsibility, not caused by others. Recognize that external events are objective, and your emotional response is something you provide internally.

9. Use Stress as Change Prompt

When you feel stressed, use it as an instructive signal to examine your life and make necessary changes. Journaling about your worries can help identify areas where you need to stop, unload, or alter your actions.

10. Prioritize Inner State in Adversity

When facing challenging situations like travel delays, focus on maintaining your inner peace and avoiding misery. Plan strategies and make decisions that support your desired internal state, even if external circumstances are difficult.

11. Build Supportive Structures

Recognize that discipline isn’t just brute willpower; it’s also about creating an environment and routines that make desired actions easier. For example, getting enough sleep the night before reduces the discipline needed to wake up early.

12. Practice Moderation (Temperance)

Instead of aiming for total abstinence from certain pleasures, practice moderation. The ancient symbol of temperance was watering down wine, suggesting a balanced approach rather than complete denial.

13. Cultivate Humility to Learn

Approach new information and experiences with humility, recognizing that ‘it’s impossible to learn that which you think you already know.’ This openness allows for continuous growth and understanding.

14. Observe Thoughts Without Identification

Create space between your thoughts and your sense of self. See yourself as a person having thoughts, rather than being those thoughts, allowing you to let them pass without necessarily agreeing with or accepting them.

15. Expand Circle of Concern

Consciously work to pull your ‘outer rings’ of concern inward, extending your empathy and obligation beyond immediate family and community to include all humanity. This counters inherent self-interest and prejudice.

16. Get Involved in Issues

Don’t remain a detached philosopher; actively participate in the issues and debates of your time. Disengaging means someone else will step up, and you risk complicity if you could have influenced things for the better.

17. Take Long, Wandering Walks

Regularly take long, aimless walks to relax your mind. This practice helps prevent mental overload and allows for mental decompression.

18. Use Physical Reminders

Carry physical objects, like coins, as tangible reminders of Stoic virtues and concepts. These can serve as prompts for reflection throughout your day.

19. Reparent Your Inner Child

When you feel your ego acting out, view it as an ‘inner child’ seeking protection. Instead of suppressing it, practice ‘reparenting’ that part of yourself with warmth and understanding.