Stoic tools for managing anxiety and worry

Executive overview

Anxiety often feels like something the world is doing to you. It isn't — it originates in your own opinions and projections about events, not the events themselves.

Marcus Aurelius corrected himself when he wrote "today I escaped anxiety" — he crossed it out and wrote "I discarded it," because the source was within him, not outside.

You are the common variable in every situation that makes you anxious — which means you can let it go.

Noticing before changing

• Start by observing how you spend free time and structure your day — no action required yet.
• Distinguish between what you want more of and what you want less of.
• Learn to recognise when it's anxiety talking versus your resting self.
• Cognitive distortions like black-and-white thinking and personalisation amplify anxiety beyond what evidence supports.

Questioning the anxiety

• Ask: what is the evidence for this? Most fear is projection.
• Ask: would that really be so bad? Vague existential dread rarely survives scrutiny.
• Get specific — identify three concrete actions you can take; doing your part removes the overwhelm.
• If you've done everything you can, that's the signal to stop torturing yourself.

The Stoic distinction: control and opinion

• Dichotomy of control — focus only on what is up to you; ruminating changes nothing about the outcome.
• It's not things that upset us, Epictetus said — it's our opinion about things.
• Worrying about something isn't the same as preparing for it; don't confuse emotional bandwidth with constructive action.
• Don't borrow suffering — anticipatory anxiety about a 50/50 outcome is optional, not inevitable.

Self-talk and imagination

• Cleanthes interrupted a man berating himself: "You're not talking to a bad person." Apply that to yourself.
• Your imagination is generating worst-case scenarios — you're never imagining things going well.
• That's a misuse of a powerful resource; deploy it toward solving problems instead.
• The same racing mind causing anxiety can be used to slow it down and untangle the knot.