Life is testing us all the time. Anybody can experience stress because of financial issues, disagreements, exams, or health concerns. For times like these, ancient Stoic philosophy was developed: the ability to react calmly instead of panicking, and not suppress your emotions or acting as if you don’t care.
Stoic thinkers created instruments to help people stay cool in the face of adversity. And using these five traditional Stoic principles, you might be able to control your anxious moments too.
1. What you can and cannot control
You own your ideas, your work, your decisions, and your perspective on the world are things you can control. But, the weather, the economy, the opinions of others, and many outcomes are not.
Combining these two groups can cause a lot of stress. Even if you put in a lot of study time, you still have no control over your final grade. You can show respect, but you have no control over the actions of others. An already difficult situation becomes even more frustrating when you try to control things that are beyond your control.
Putting your energy into your side of the situation is the stoic solution: be well-prepared, behave according to your values, and then acknowledge that the rest might not be in your control. Which doesn’t imply that you are no longer concerned. But, it means that you stop resisting reality and that your thoughts become more peaceful.
2. Training your mind for challenges
Negative visualization is one traditional technique. This means momentarily picturing a scenario in which something goes wrong, like a trip being put off, a plan failing, or you losing something important.
It is less shocking when a problem happens if you have already visualized it. Because this type of scene is familiar to your mind, you are less likely to freeze or overreact.
Refocusing on the here and now is another Stoic habit. Replaying the past or worrying about the future causes a lot of anxiety. People were reminded by the Stoics that now is the only moment to take action. The future is not yet here, and there are no time-machines that can take us back to the past yet.
You can practice this by kindly returning your focus to what you are doing at the moment, like your breathing, your work, or a conversation. You can still learn from the past and plan for the future though. When this practice becomes a habit, it keeps you calm under difficult situations.
3. Turning problems into practice
No matter what you do, tough times will come. You can either use them to grow your patience, bravery, and resilience, or you can spend your energy wishing they didn’t exist.
It’s actually likely that some of your strengths already came from difficult situations. This doesn’t mean suffering is enjoyable or no problem really matters. However, stoicism suggests that if you have to deal with difficulties anyhow, you might as well learn something worthwhile from them. Every issue gives an opportunity to practice keeping composure, choosing your course of action, and acting in line with your moral principles.
Small, voluntary discomforts were another way that the Stoics trained themselves. This could be a hard workout, a colder shower, or temporarily sacrificing some comforts. Self-punishment is not the goal. But you can convince yourself that you are capable of handling more than you may have imagined.
Calm as a daily practice
Staying calm in hard situations is a skill you have to train—just like the Stoics did. If you focus on what you can control, prepare mentally for difficulties, and return to the present, you can teach your mind a new way to react.