Adapted from the article: Chaos-Proof: Using Ancient Wisdom to Hack Modern Anxiety
“Why is everyone so anxious these days?” The word anxious meaning “greatly troubled by uncertainties” comes from an ancient word meaning “tight, painfully constricted.”
Recent health surveys show that more than 40 Million Americans suffer from disorders of anxiety. How MANY is 40 million? That is roughly the current population of the entire state of California. Really. It is about 10 million more people than the entire state of Texas! That is some 10 to 12% of the population of the USA.
It seems that the younger people in our country are particularly anxious and getting worse. A 2024 study found that new cases of anxiety disorders in those ranging from 10 to 24 years old rose by MORE than 50% worldwide. Young adults told researchers that they feel on edge, lonely, directionless, and that they worry about financial security. Many reported that they were achieving just to achieve, finding little meaning in what they were doing.
There are ways to hep manage your emotions instead of allowing your emotions to mange you. More than just “strong feelings” the word emotion indicates a motivator to action. Some emotions, like righteous indignation may motivate you to take an action to right a wrong, but some emotions like “the desire to activism”, taking action just to take action rather than achieving an objective, can contribute to the lonely, directionless feelings reported. Taking action without achieving a meaningful result is merely wasted action.
The ancient Stoics understood this and developed a practical philosophy aimed at cultivating inner stability and emotional discipline. Let’s look at a few of them.
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Worrying (being emotionally strangled) about things outside of your control is a sure way to find disharmony. There are far more many things that are outside of your ability to control, leading to overwhelm. That is why the ancient Stoics cautioned against is, and yet our modern social and news media addictions seem to FEED worries about the things that are outside of our direct ability to control. Yet there ARE things that we CAN do about things outside of our control. We can add them to our request list for resolution. This is a descriptor of what some might call a prayer list, a meditation list, or intercession list. More on this in a moment.
Worry about things outside of your control contributes to discord. An ancient Stoic wrote “Make the best use of what is IN your power, and take the rest as it happens.” This sounds simple, but it is not simple, for the human brain seems to desire to fret about things that are outside of our control. So removing uncontrollable things from our worry list is a discipline worth pursuing. Controlling one’s thoughts takes discipline, but it can be achieved.
Take all of the things that you have NO direct influence over and place them in one of two lists:
1. The things that you can NOT directly influence but which, after review, you find not worthy of expending your energy upon, trash them. Throw them away or file them somewhere where you don’t have to see them again unless you are looking for them. Forget them. You have taken an action (reviewed them) and deemed them not worthy of expending your energy. Now you can safely forget them.
2.The second list, what I describe as a request list for resolution you may call whatever your wish, but on this list place all of the things that you can NOT directly influence, BUT ARE important to you. Place these items on your request list for resolution and delegate them to the Divine to manage. Now you have also taken an action (reviewed them AND requested their resolution); you may safely put them out of your mind until you desire to review them and renew the request for resolution, or determine that they may be move to the trash, or you may file them away where you don’t have to see them unless you are looking for them.
Now you may safely forget these things that you cannot directly influence. You have taken action on the things you trashed AND on the things you requested resolutions for, and you have made a plan for the things you can directly influence. This step alone helps to reduce the uncertainty that contributes to anxiety.
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Cultivate Stillness and Eliminate Hurry
While boredom may trigger anxiety being overly busy can have the same effect. Rest, peace, quiet are also essential ingredients to healthy living. Making time for stillness is also vital for a healthy life. Ancient Christian thinker as well as many in the Eastern and Greco-Roman traditions viewed silence and solitude as essential to clarity. One philosopher stated “the key to a healthy spiritual life is to ‘ruthlessly eliminate hurry’ from your life”
Our current culture with their addictions to work, to smart phones, to computers, to connection, to “social one-up-manship” leaves little room for stillness. Silence to many is treated as something to be filled. Many believe an “empty cup” must be filled in order to be useful, but a full cup is “useless for holding more”. Taking time to empty the cup can reduce anxiety by relieving the pressure of feeling constricted by having no more room for productivity. Moment of quiet settles the mind and leaves anxiety little room for growth.
ANXIETY HACK: Schedule a daily “noise fast”. No phone, no podcasts, no TV, no news. Even 10 minutes of silence can recalibrate an overstimulated nervous system. Seek “the sound of silence” daily, taking time to empty your cup to allow for filling with more actions to address the things that you CAN directly influence.
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ANXIETY HACK: Begin your day with some repetitive “warm up” exercises like yoga, very light repetitive calisthenics, or other light activity that makes use of your body of a portion of an hour. Something as simple as repetitious movement for a measured time (dancing around) can serve to reduce anxiety.
Start off your routine with something that is very comfortable to do so that you can train yourself to enjoy the habit of “using your body”. Take a short nature walk every day. While there is a time and place for “going to the gym” recognize that this is a scheduled purposeful activity and not the same as your morning wake and warm up for your body and your mind.
Cleanliness is Next to Godliness
This ancient proverb indicates that physical cleanliness and order is a reflection of spiritual purity, a concept found in various ancient cultures.
Iron Age thinkers Plato and Confucius promoted that social harmony begins with personal order. All human action begins with individual action. Understanding that you have the power to shape your surroundings – to make it orderly or beautiful – is a reminder that you control your life. Be it making your bed before leaving the home, or putting away last nights dishes, taking an action that restores order and/or beauty to your home is a positive stress reducing action and contributes to reducing anxiety.
ANXIETY HACK: Plan to clean one small space every day. Be it cleaning up your desk, a kitchen counter, a backpack, restoring physical order reduces cognitive load and restores a sense of balance.
BONUS HACK: Have you ever noticed that “spring cleaning” and “holiday decorating” seem to be large chores. Have you ever noticed that there are 52 weeks in a year. What if you divided your “chores” and the restoration of physical order to your home into 52 tasks. Sure, some tasks will occur several times a week, but projects like spring cleaning the garage could be divided into smaller tasks each week allowing for a “restoration of balance in small doses rather than overwhelming projects.
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Stop Catastrophizing! Seneca warned that we suffer more in the imagination than in reality. Crisis and catastrophes sell news, that is why you see so much of it in your media. Because such news is so commonly presented to us we come to believe that crisis and catastrophes are the norm in life. But constantly assuming the worst is a failure of reason. Perspective matters and a brief look at history shows that humans have endure a lot! Humanity has endured catastrophes, crisis, crime and critical points in history and yet today we enjoy comforts and living standards that our ancestors could NOT even imagine.
Yes, wars and disasters will come and pass. Yes, one day you will most likely physically die, but this has always been the case and this world will continue to on its life path long after you are gone.
ANXIETY HACK: Ask yourself one question when you become of anxiety: Has the thing that you are anxious about actually happened? If it has not yet happened and it is outside of your direct control either “trash it” or add it to your request for resolution list and put it out of your mind.
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It seems that anxiety levels are at unprecedented levels, and in some ways they are, but chronic anxiety can be avoidable. The Stoics understood that humans have a remarkable capacity to control how we feel, and they offered practical tools for navigating life’s uncertainties with resilience.
Those accusing others of being judgmental have already made their judgement of “things in the world” and are just as judgmental as every other human. When we fear the labels in our heads and the uncertainties that we don’t take the time to investigate we feel tight, painfully constricted, and greatly troubled by uncertainties. We feel anxious.
The wisdom of the ancient peoples still works in reducing anxiety if one is willing to practice it.
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