Ultimate Stoic Routine: Anxiety Relief Daily

Build the ultimate Stoic daily routine from morning gratitude to sleep, relieving anxiety throughout. Keywords: Stoic routine, daily anxiety relief, morning gratitude, sleep calm, mindfulness habits. Full-day guide; premium for extensions.

Transcript

A question that I get asked a lot is,

What would be the ultimate daily stoic routine?

You know,

I like stoicism.

I enjoy reading about the stoics.

I like your newsletter and your podcast,

But how do I actually structure my day to embody these stoic techniques?

There are many ways to go about this,

Depending on what specifically you want to work on.

So if you want to work on courage,

You want to overcome your anxiety,

Then that would require a specific type of routine compared to one where you want to work on temperance,

In which case you'd develop discipline.

You might do active voluntary hardship.

Alternatively,

You could be working on justice.

Justice is probably the incorrect way to describe that virtue.

Donald Robertson says the more accurate translation of justice would be a kind of fair kindness.

I think of this as a parental compassion.

You know,

You want the best for your child,

But that doesn't mean that you let them get away with anything.

You know,

You still have boundaries and limits.

But I want to walk you through an example stoic daily routine just to give you some ideas about the different things you could do when you wake up in the morning.

Your mind is fresh and it's a good time to just infuse it with some stoic wisdom.

So having a quote nearby,

Either on your phone or on your wall,

Here where you sleep,

That you can anchor your mind to and set your intention for the day.

Here's a quote by Marcus Aurelius that would serve this use well.

He says,

At dawn,

When you have trouble getting out of bed,

Tell yourself,

I have to go to work.

As a human being,

What do I have to complain of?

If I'm going to do what I was born for,

The things I was brought into the world to do,

Or is this what I was created for?

To huddle under the blankets and stay warm.

So you were born to feel nice instead of doing things and experiencing them.

Don't you see the plants,

The birds,

The ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks,

Putting the world in order as best they can,

And you're not willing to do your job as a human being.

Why aren't you running to do what your nature demands?

You don't love yourself enough or you love your nature too and what it demands of you.

Here,

Marcus is giving himself a bit of a stern warning,

A wake up call of sorts in a figurative and literal sense.

He's reminding himself that he has a certain nature.

He is a human being and should go about doing what human beings need to do.

After reading a quote like this,

You can just sit with it and ask yourself,

How does this inspire me today?

What am I going to do based on this reading?

And then set a little intention.

You can do this even before you get out of bed.

When you do get out of bed,

A good instant habit,

And you could actually do this from within bed if you wanted to,

Or you could get up and sit on a chair or on a meditation cushion,

And you could just do a morning reflection,

A contemplation.

I have dozens of free stoic meditations available online.

Wherever you're listening to this,

You're probably also going to find a collection of meditations available.

You could do something like the view from above meditation or premeditation of adversity.

You also have the option of doing one of my premium meditation courses.

You could also just sit in silence.

There's a lot of flexibility here,

But just doing a contemplative stillness practice for 10,

15,

20 minutes when you first get out of bed will have a lot of benefit for how you behave and deal with the events that come up throughout the rest of the day.

So far,

This whole routine has only taken up about 11 minutes of your time if you meditated for 10 minutes.

So let's say that we still have some time before we have to get about and do our things,

Or even better,

We've made time for ourselves by getting up a little bit earlier than usual.

The next thing we can do is just read for 20 minutes.

Seneca says,

Quote,

Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty,

Against death,

Indeed against other misfortunes as well.

And after you have run over many thoughts,

Select one to be thoroughly digested that day.

This is my own custom.

From the many things which I have read,

I claim some one part of myself.

There are many fantastic stoicism books out.

You can also go back to the ancient texts and just reread them,

Finding new insights as you go.

And also there's a lot of newsletters and online articles that emphasize stoic practice.

After your reading,

Like Seneca suggests,

Choose one concept that you're going to work on or digest for the day ahead.

So that's a 30 minute start to the day.

And you don't even have to leave your bed to do that.

Typically,

We get out of bed and then we go to the bathroom and we take a shower.

You could take a normal shower.

Nothing wrong with that.

You could also take a cold shower.

If you want to go hardcore,

You can take nothing but a cold shower.

But if you just want to dip your toes in the practice of voluntary hardship,

You could just end your shower with 30 seconds,

A minute,

Two minutes of cold water.

I have found cold showers personally to be a very good tool for building resilience.

Stanford neurobiologist Andrew Huberman talks about this too.

Cold showers stress the system,

Which then actually helps you adapt to deal with more life stress.

Cold showers actually,

Interestingly,

Too,

Increase your dopamine levels by about 200%,

Which is equivalent to eating chocolate or cocaine.

So cold showers can build your resilience and also just increase your general mood.

It can make you feel really good.

I'm also a big believer in this idea of transferable discipline.

If you're unable to have a cold shower,

If you're unable to meditate,

If you're unable to do these practices that you set your mind to doing,

How on earth will you ever be able to take on the bigger challenges in life?

After we've showered,

We typically look in the mirror,

Brush our teeth,

And we can use the mirror as another Stoic training device.

Donald Robertson wrote in How to Think Like a Roman Emperor,

Quote,

Alone in his room,

As he listens to the sound of his own wheezing,

He doesn't feel much like an emperor anymore,

Just a feeble old man,

Sick and dying.

He turns his head to one side and catches a glimpse of his reflection on the polished surface of the goddess Fortuna's golden statuette by his bedside.

His Stoic tutors advised him to practice a mental exercise when he noticed his own image.

It's a way of building emotional resilience by training yourself to come to terms with your own mortality.

Focusing his eyes weakly on his reflection,

He tries to imagine one of the long dead Roman emperors who preceded him,

Gazing back.

First he pictures Antoninus,

His adoptive father,

And then his adoptive grandfather,

The emperor Hadrian.

He even imagines his reflection slowly assuming the features depicted in paintings and sculptures of Augustus,

Who founded the empire two centuries earlier.

As he does so,

Marcus silently asks himself,

Where are they now?

And whispers the answer,

Nowhere,

Or at least nowhere of which we can speak,

End quote.

That is from the book How to Think Like a Roman Emperor.

So as you look into the mirror,

You can contemplate your ancestors,

The ones who came before you.

They too looked into a mirror,

And now they can't.

Now there is no trace of them to look into a mirror.

Calmly realize that death will come for you,

As it has for every single living thing that has come before you.

When it comes time to get undressed,

Now you don't have to do this,

But it might be a good idea to do this now and again,

You can put on the kinds of clothes that you would wear if you lived on earth alone.

William B.

Irvine has this thought experiment,

You know,

What would you do?

What would you value?

What would you desire?

How would you dress?

What car would you drive?

If you were literally the only person left on earth?

A lot of what we do is in reaction to what others might think of us.

We don't just dress wearing the clothes we want to wear,

We dress putting on the clothes we want other people to see us wear.

Seneca also used his dress occasionally to practice poverty saying,

Set aside a certain number of days during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare,

With coarse and rough dress,

Saying to yourself the while,

Is this the condition that I feared?

If you value freedom,

You must also learn to become free of other people's opinions of you.

You must unhook from the need to get other people's validation from you.

Many of us are addicted to validation.

We live our lives just to get more and more of it.

We use social media to get more validation,

To get more likes.

Our whole existence becomes this rollercoaster ride of being validated,

Being unvalidated and our emotions go along for the ride.

Let's practice being our own witness and not needing validation.

We can start small and we can build up.

A good exercise for you to do is to take a look at your wardrobe and ask yourself,

You know,

What do I really want to wear on a daily basis?

What would feel good for me to wear?

And as you look through the different pieces of clothing,

Ask yourself,

Which of these pieces did I get because I want validation versus which of these pieces did I get because I just like them myself?

Now we've gotten ourself ready and we're ready to now start working.

But before we dive into work,

Let's do a little pre-work contemplation.

Seneca writes,

If one does not know to which port one is sailing,

No wind is favorable.

So before we begin work,

Let's clear our mind for a few moments and create an intention.

Make this intention internal and based on an area you can improve,

An area within your control.

Think of this as a performance statement.

Here's an example.

Every time I get distracted,

I will make a note of the distraction,

Then return my attention to the task at hand.

One of the mistakes people make when it comes to meditation is they just dive into it.

It's always a good idea to prepare your mind before you meditate.

You can just ask yourself,

What do I want to get out of this session?

What is my goal for this session?

What is my motivation for practicing?

Same with work.

Don't just dive into it.

Ask yourself,

What do I actually want to get done?

What do I want to work on?

What virtues do I want to cultivate?

So before you begin work,

Get clear on this intention and imagine yourself using it during the work.

When it comes time to getting to work,

Marcus Aurelius says,

Quote,

If you seek tranquility,

Do less,

Or more accurately,

Do what's essential.

Do less,

Better.

Because most of what we do or say is not essential.

If you can eliminate it,

You'll have more tranquility.

But to eliminate the necessary actions,

We need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well.

So whatever you do at work,

Do it with complete care and attention.

If you serve coffee,

Work as if the coffeehouse belongs to you.

Try to put love and warmth into every action.

Focus only on the tasks that matter most.

Every time you feel resistance,

Go into the resistance.

Feel the sensations.

Something that I like to bring to mind is this idea that if I were enlightened right now,

I wouldn't need the contents of consciousness to be any different.

Enlightenment is the ability to find deep peace right here in an ordinary moment,

Whether that's working,

Serving coffee,

Going into a stressful situation.

And so I look for that and I ask myself,

Where is the problem right now in this moment?

And you'll often not find any problem.

Remaining focused.

So when you find yourself getting distracted,

Take a few breaths and recite your intention from your pre-work contemplation.

Stay with it.

Say it with meaning,

Like a kind of affirmation,

But it's really more about remembering.

One of the coolest things about life,

About consciousness,

Is that each moment presents us with the opportunity to start again.

There is an incredible power to this idea.

You can just begin again.

You get distracted in work,

It's okay.

Let everything that's happened so far go.

Begin again,

As if this were the very first moment.

Sometimes I like to generate motivation from within.

I don't become too attached to this,

But it's sort of like a game I play with myself.

So David Goggins,

He wrote a book called Can't Hurt Me,

And he has this mental game that he plays called Taking Souls.

The aim is that you work so hard and so diligently,

With so much focus,

You take the souls of those who watch,

Because they can't believe,

They can't fathom how hard you're willing to work.

This is a fun description,

Similar to like a video game vibe.

It's not meant to be morbid.

For example,

If you work as a bricklayer,

When you go to work,

You do such a good,

Efficient job that all the other bricklayers and work people are shocked and feel like underperformers in comparison.

David Goggins used this exercise,

Taking Souls,

When he was doing his Navy Seal Buds training.

The instructors wanted to break the participants of the training,

And David Goggins instead decided to try and break the instructors mentally by showing them that they couldn't break him.

It's a complete reversal.

A lot of people who don't like the jobs that they work probably don't like them because of the people that they work with.

Maybe there's a gossiping atmosphere,

Maybe there's tension,

Maybe there's unpleasantries,

Or their boss is a tyrant.

Marcus Aurelius,

The emperor of Rome,

Was no stranger to working alongside difficult people,

And he said to himself the following,

Begin each day by telling yourself,

Today I shall meet with interference,

Ingratitude,

Insolence,

Disloyalty,

Ill will,

And selfishness,

All of them due to the offender's ignorance of what is good or evil.

But for my part,

I have long perceived the nature of good and its nobility,

The nature of evil and its meanness,

And also the nature of the culprit himself,

Who is my brother,

Not in the physical sense,

But as a fellow creature similarly endowed with reason and a share of the divine.

Therefore none of those things can injure me,

For nobody can implicate me in what is degrading.

Neither can I be angry with my brother or fall foul of him,

For he and I were born to work together like a man's two hands,

Feet,

Or eyelids,

Or the upper and lower rows of his teeth.

To obstruct each other is against nature's law.

And what is irritation or aversion but a form of obstruction.

" Before you work with anyone,

Keep a realistic perspective as Marcus Aurelius did.

You will meet with people who rub you the wrong way.

This is an unavoidable part of life.

But even so,

Try to practice talking with everyone you encounter with empathy,

Assertiveness,

And respect.

E-A-R.

That's the acronym.

Empathy,

Assertiveness,

And respect.

If you encounter difficult people,

See it as a great opportunity to practice virtue.

If you get insulted,

Look for some truth in what they say.

Zoom into this.

And if you can't do this,

Maybe your ego is controlling you.

If you genuinely try but cannot find any truth,

Then is there even reason for you to be upset?

I've actually created a 10-day relationships course called the Stoic Survival Guide for Navigating Troubled Relationships and Toxic People,

Where I go really in-depth into the stoic and psychological tactics to deal with toxic people and also to improve our communication skills.

When you finish work,

Think of three things you did well and feel genuinely happy with yourself as you think about them.

Many of us have negativity bias.

We get caught up on a lot of the things we do wrong.

But one of the best ways to get better at something is to zoom in on all of the things you did well.

This keeps you inspired in the long run.

Many faults just auto-correct over time.

I train Brazilian jiu-jitsu and sometimes you can go to training and you might have a bad session.

Nothing goes well.

You can zoom in on this or you can think,

Well,

What did I try?

What did I attempt?

What new areas did I lean into?

And focus on that.

Focus on the positive to maintain the motivation to keep moving forward.

You can also have days where you have an amazing session.

You do everything well,

But maybe you have one bad moment and your mind zooms in on this.

I like the Alan Watts phrase,

When you hear the message,

Hang up the phone.

A lot of negative emotions are like that.

You feel a bit of fear.

You feel a bit of anger,

Frustration.

Okay,

Message received.

Let's hang up the phone.

Sustaining the message,

Replaying it over and over and over and over again.

That's what anger is when it doesn't go away in two minutes.

You're just replaying the message.

So going back to work,

What did you learn?

What did you do well?

Focus on this and keep building on it tomorrow.

After work,

A lot of us go home to our family or friends,

Which can be amazing,

Meaningful,

Serene,

But also can be tricky.

There's a meme by,

I don't know who said it,

But it was something like,

If you want to see a level of enlightenment,

Go and spend a week with your family.

Relationships in families can be tough because it's years and years of previous experiences and conversations and emotions and fallouts and traumas folded up into the relationship you have with them.

Have you ever had that feeling where there's just this tension in a relationship?

Like one of you is walking on thin ice,

One wrong word,

And the other person might get triggered,

An argument ensues.

The argument didn't start today.

It might've started years ago,

Months ago,

But all of that unresolved anger and tension erupts like a volcano that is building in pressure today.

So while you might argue about the events of that day,

Someone did something wrong,

Someone didn't do something,

Make no mistake,

That was a long time in the making.

The question is,

Is this the way to go about things?

Is showing up in your relationships this way going to help them?

It's not,

Right?

And so let's begin again with our relationships.

Let's try to let go as best as we can of our old grievances and start today as a new day.

Marcus Aurelius said we should instruct people or put up with them.

Complaining and being passive aggressive is futile if you desire tranquility.

Either endure the situation and accept them and find things to like about them,

Or try and teach them.

Be assertive,

Tell them how you feel,

But don't be stuck in this in-between phase of wanting someone to change,

Complaining about them,

But not really doing anything about it.

That's a miserable place to be.

Also,

When you look around the dining table at your family or wherever you are with your friends,

Bring to mind things you've learned from these great people.

Marcus Aurelius started meditations with sentiments like the following.

From my grandfather Verus I learned good morals and the government of my temper.

From the reputation and remembrance of my father,

Modesty and a manly character.

From my mother,

Piety and beneficence,

And abstinence not only from evil deeds but even from evil thoughts,

And further,

Simplicity in my way of living,

Far removed from the habits of the rich.

From my great-grandfather not to have frequented public schools and to have good teachers at home,

And to know that on such things a man should spend liberally.

So even though Marcus Aurelius was the emperor of Rome and a masterful Stoic practitioner,

He still saw himself as a student.

He would still attend Stoic lectures into middle age.

And how beautiful are the passages that I just read where he's sharing the things he learned from his family.

Many of us like to complain about the traits of our closest family members and friends because we've been lumped with them.

But Marcus saw each person as a mentor,

Possessing magical traits which he would do well to learn from.

You can do the same.

All you have to do is decide to do the same.

So decide to do the same.

With your own family always be on the lookout for what they can teach you,

For how they can improve your character.

Make a note of things in their words or actions that you respect.

You will be shocked at how much better your relationships will become when you take the frame of what can I learn from this person versus how can I complain about this person.

This is a form of radical gratitude.

If you can find a reason to be grateful,

Even with troubled relationships,

It's like a shortcut to happiness and tranquility.

This is why the second Stoic meditation course I made after my anxiety melting meditation course was all about radical gratitude.

Not just,

Oh,

List five things you can feel grateful for each day,

But no,

How can we feel deep gratitude for all aspects of life,

Every part of our existence,

From our relationships to our appearance,

To our life circumstances,

To our challenges,

To our shortcomings?

How can we feel gratitude or radical gratitude towards all of it?

And when we do,

Suddenly life becomes way more joyous.

Tranquility just spontaneously arises.

If you have to say goodbye to any of your family members,

Maybe they have to leave.

A very precious thought you can bring to mind is this idea of the memento mori.

Epictetus says,

As you kiss your son goodnight,

Whisper to yourself,

He may be dead in the morning.

Sounds morbid,

But he's just reminding you that life is very precious.

Do not take things for granted.

Fortune is unpredictable.

You don't know what's going to happen to you.

One of the things I do when I hear about accidents happening,

And they happen a lot,

You know,

People getting their leg broke or falling or,

You know,

Being rushed to hospital,

I think to myself,

What was this person thinking an hour before this happened?

They had no idea this was about to happen.

No idea.

They were probably planning optimistic,

Joyous moments far into the future.

And so they should.

Okay,

So they should.

We should all look to the future with positivity and optimism.

But let's not forget that so much of our existence is outside of our control.

So when you leave a family member,

Remember that our time here is limited and precious.

You or they may not be around in a year,

And they might not even be around tomorrow.

So imagine every goodbye is your last goodbye.

And I promise you,

Every goodbye will mean so much more.

And when you see them again,

Your love will be a little bit brighter.

In the evening,

Something that a lot of people don't do,

I don't know if it's a confidence issue,

But people don't write their own book.

I mean,

I bet even me saying that to you might sound a bit bizarre.

What do you mean write your own book?

Well,

You're used to reading other people's wise words.

You're listening to this lesson that I'm saying to you,

And it's probably giving you some consolation,

Giving you some good ideas,

But you already have millions of good ideas inside of you right now.

You have fantastic advice for yourself right now,

But do you give it to yourself?

And more importantly,

Do you follow it?

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius were not meant to be published.

It was sort of like a written form of stoic tutoring to himself.

Can you be your own coach?

Can you guide yourself every day?

Can you instruct yourself on the right path forward?

There's immense value in having an actual tutor,

An actual coach,

And Marcus did have one until he died.

But we can still do a great deal to guide ourselves on a daily basis with a journaling practice.

But I wouldn't even call it a journaling practice.

I would say you're writing your own self-improvement book.

I promise you,

If you write yourself a 300-page self-improvement book,

It will be a lot better than anyone you could read on a bookshelf.

To wind down physically as well,

You might want to do something like yoga,

Which has a lot of research behind it,

According to Bessel van der Kolk,

Who wrote the book The Body Keeps the Score,

For helping you overcome trauma.

It can also increase your longevity.

A lot of health benefits to yoga.

But yoga is also a fantastic meditative and stoic practice.

William B.

Irvine wrote in A Guide to the Good Life,

Quote,

Yoga has improved my balance and flexibility,

Reminded me of the importance of play,

And made me acutely aware of how little control I have over the contents of my mind.

But besides conferring these and other benefits on me,

Yoga has been a wonderful source of voluntary discomfort.

While doing yoga,

I twist myself into poses that are uncomfortable or that in some cases border on being painful.

I will,

For example,

Bend my legs until they are at the very edge of a cramp and then back off a bit.

My yoga teacher,

Though,

Never talks about pain.

Instead,

She talks about poses giving rise to too much sensation.

She has taught me how to breathe into the place that hurts,

Which of course is physiologically impossible,

If what I am experiencing is,

Say,

A leg cramp.

And yet the technique undeniably works.

End quote.

Socrates also encouraged his students to stay both physically and mentally fit.

He recognised that if you have a sick body,

You're unlikely to have a healthy mind.

Yoga is a great exercise that can increase mindfulness,

Flexibility and strength.

It can be done anywhere and you can do it for free.

And it's also a form of voluntary discomfort,

As William B.

Irvine describes.

So if you have had an active day,

You can do some simple stretching yoga.

If you've had a sedentary day,

You can do a slightly more intense yoga flow.

As you retire to bed,

You can do an evening contemplation.

I have a few of them online.

And the idea here is you bring to mind things you did well,

Mistakes you made and ways you can improve moving forward.

You try to keep this focused on your behaviour or your character.

You think about your levels of discipline and compassion,

Decision making,

Practical wisdom and courage.

And that might be an example of how you structure your day.

That might sound overwhelming,

Like,

Whoa,

You know,

Like I don't want to do that many things.

And to that,

I would say,

Well,

Don't pick one or two.

Try them out.

Try the morning meditation and morning quote reading and the evening philosophical journaling.

Now and again,

You can throw in the mirror meditation or some voluntary hardship or a cold shower here and there.

You can also set yourself 30 day challenges where you focus on certain elements more than others.

I just wouldn't recommend you overthink it.

I would say just get stuck in,

Get practicing,

Try some things out.

So I hope you enjoyed this example daily routine.

I'd love to hear how you get on with it and I will speak to you soon if fortune allows.

Reviews

Great ideas. Paused the recording to jot things down as so much content in here. Will look to implement at least some of it. Thank you Jon

My takeaway: It could be the last time. Do it for yourself rather than validation. Yoga is a type of willful hardship. Contemplate what contents would be in your own book. ...The delivery speed is fast I wish IT had a feature to slow down tracks. Yes it's enthusiastic but some of us need to take a beat to digest it, especially ESL speakers. :) KEY: 5*Insightful 4*Interesting 3*Okay 2*Not For Me 1*Irritating

Lots of great advice, in fact all of it fantastic wisdom to live by - Thank you

Thank you, John. This is a fantastic reminder of how to insert small daily practices of mindful meditation and stoicism into my day. I will definitely use these and bookmark this.

Thanks for those Stoic reminders, just what I needed today

Reaffirming to many stoic practices I have but often lack the daily discipline. This was very heartfelt. Thank you.

Ty - I have my routine. You just reinforced my thinking. I have so mulch to work on me, so what do I care about what others think.

🙏🏼

Great insights, I didn't know Marcus Aurelius was such a wise and kind person.
I'll definitely come back to this.
Thank you 🙏

I really liked listening to this. Many good tips here and I will begin by honing the discipline to regularly practice one or some of them! Thanks 😊

This was so full of really great information. Easy to begin. I already do many of these daily but great ideas to add on. Thank you 🙏🏻💕

Great ideas, as always. Thank you. I’m happy to learn you have a podcast and newsletter, too.