The Daily Stoic - Beat the Sunday Scaries | 12 Proven Stoic Strategies For Stress Relief

Episode Date: March 23, 2025

Learn 12 powerful Stoic techniques to conquer stress and turn anxiety into strength. Equip yourself with the strength and poise to handle life's obstacles calmly and confidently, no matter what comes your way.Read more here: https://dailystoic.com/stress-relief/💡 Slay Your Stress: A Daily Stoic 20 Day Challenge | dailystoic.com/stress🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast🎥 Watch top moments from The Daily Stoic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dailystoicpodcast✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us:  Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to the daily stoic early and ad free right now. Just join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. If you're looking for the perfect getaway, check out Airbnb for your next stay. From cozy cabins to luxurious villas, Airbnb offers the chance to live like a local, to actually see and experience what that place is like. Keep listening to hear more about the trip I'm planning this summer and why I'm staying in an Airbnb. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic podcast.

On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts, audio books that we like here, recommend here at Daily Stoic texts, audiobooks that we like here or recommend here at Daily Stoic, and other long-form wisdom that you can chew on on this relaxing weekend. We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy and most importantly, that you're able to apply it to your actual life. Thank you for listening. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another Sunday episode

of the Daily Stoke podcast. You know, sometimes they talk about the anxiety you feel like on a Sunday, in the morning, in the afternoon, you know work is coming, you know you got a busy couple of days ahead, you're worried about this or that, maybe you're catching up on emails.

They call this the Sunday scaries. You're intimidated about what is to come. You are almost stressed in advance. I feel that. It's like, I got lunches, oh, I got this. Oh, why did I sign up for that? It's tough, right? As you know, stress is a unavoidable fact of life.

It is stressful to be a person. It is stressful to live in a world that you do not control, where things do not go the way you want them to go, where you are subject to the whims and decisions and choices of other people. And that's what stoicism is really all about. Can't make that stress go away. We don't control that,

but we do control how we respond to it. That's what we're gonna talk about in today's episode. I was just interviewing someone for the Daily Stoke podcast. That will come out soon, but they were talking about the difference between ordinary stress and toxic stress. And the idea is to take that toxic stress

and be able to make it manageable, to be able to deal with it, process it, not be rendered incapacitated by it. And that's kind of what we're gonna talk about in this episode. We had a big piece over on the Daily Stoic about dealing with stress, basically proven strategies for stress relief

from the Stoics. This is narrated by Kat Pitrick, and there's a bunch here from the Stoics that I think is going to be very valuable to you. And you know, I think it's fitting because we live in stressful times. Not that ancient Greece and ancient Rome wouldn't have been stressful.

Of course it would have been. In many ways it would have been more stressful than today. Different sources of stress, but we're all trying to do the best we can. And by the way, if you want other stress strategies from the Stoics, you could check out our Slay Your Stress challenge that we did for Daily Stoic.

You can sign up for that at dailystoic.com slash stress, 20 day challenge with a bunch of awesome stoic lessons that will help you hopefully become a bit more resilient, a bit stronger and a bit better at, you know, transforming that stress into opportunities for growth and strength, which we all could use more of. I will link to that in today's show notes. In the meantime, let's get after it.

It's normal to feel pain in your hands and feet. If you're using your feet as feet and your hands as hands and for a human being to feel stress is normal if He's living a normal human life, and if it's normal, how can it be bad? Marcus Aurelius meditations 633 Stress is timeless because life has always been hard in the ancient world. They were parents There were bills to pay people got sick. They got tired. They had terrible bosses. They committed to too much. Some of them were overwhelmed by this stress, but others managed to find not only relief, but a formula for being improved by it.

In this article, we're going to give you 12 time-tested and timeless strategies for stress relief. Each strategy comes to us from the ancient Stoic philosophers, who developed, tested, and proved them in stressful circumstances, not unlike our own. This post is going to cover the high-level ideas. What Causes Stress? As we'll detail more below, the Stoics believed stress is optional. More recently, psychologists and neuroscientists have confirmed what the Stoics knew intuitively – stress isn't something that happens to you.

As Dr. Cynthia Ackrell, a leader in the field of stress mastery, has put it, "...we have this concept in our minds that stress is something that happens to us. And this is that way it's discussed in our world, the way we talk about stress in conversations quite often. Something is happening to us. But this is actually a myth. We say things like, our boss is making us stressed, the project is making us stressed, the stack of dirty dishes is making us stressed. But no one, nothing is making you stressed. Your boss, the project, the dirty dishes. Acro continues, that's a stressor. Your boss may be a stressor, somebody or something presenting a challenge to you.

What is the real cause of stress? Perception. Here's Acro once more. Stress is your physical and mental reaction to what you perceive is happening. And that's a really important part of the sentence. Your reaction to what you perceive is happening. And that's a really important part of the sentence. Your reaction to what you perceive is happening. The majority of stress really does depend on perception. Whenever our perception doesn't meet our expectations, we feel stressed. Since stress is caused by perception, stopping your stress is really a matter of training your perceptions,

or mastering the discipline of perception, as the Stoics would put it. your perceptions, or mastering the discipline of perception, as the Stoics would put it. You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this and you will find strength. The founder of Stoicism, Zeno, lost everything in a shipwreck. His successor, Kleanthes, arrived in Athens with empty pockets. The famous writer and power broker, Seneca, had health problems, was exiled, and then had to show up to work for years in Nero's court, walking on eggshells around an unstable man with a penchant for bloodlust. The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius' reign included a plague, health problems, wars,

flooding, bankruptcy, and family issues. Marcus' favorite philosopher Epictetus survived 30 years of slavery. That's the definition of stress. The friction of conflicting obligations. Hardship. Uncertainty. Pain. Failure. They say hell is other people. Well, who isn't surrounded by a lot of those? These were all inevitable parts of life, according to the Stoics. But suffering because of it? Actually being stressed because there was stress? No, those are not the same thing. One does not have to follow the other.

When Marcus Aurelius said that he could choose not to feel harmed and then he wouldn't be, that's what he meant. When he talked about discarding his stress and anxiety, that's what he meant. Stress was a fact of life. Being stressed, feeling stressed, that was a choice. It was up to him, as it is up to us. We don't have to stress. We don't have to dread.

We don't have to be overwhelmed. Indeed, you might argue that all of the Stoics teachings revolve around the idea of combating and avoiding the unnecessary pain of stress and anxiety and worry and frustration. The philosophy demanded the act of life. It demanded that we participate in politics, be social, contribute to the common good, fight for what's right. And so it was critical that Stoicism also teach us how to resist the temptation to succumb

to the stresses that follow those activities. And so it was critical that Stoicism also teaches us how to resist the temptation to succumb to the stresses that follow those activities. And so it was critical that Stoicism also teaches us how to resist the temptation to succumb to the stresses that follow those activities. That's why the pages of Marcus Aurelius' private journal are filled with notes to himself on how to escape anxiety and to not be controlled by his temper. That's why Epictetus talked to his students over and over again about focusing on what was in their control and nothing else. And Seneca's letters are constant reminders to not suffer before it is necessary. Not just reminders, but practical, actionable steps to overcoming both.

Inspired by that, we have assembled 12 proven strategies for stress relief, rooted in the best stoic wisdom. Divide and Conquer The chief task in life is simply this—to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own.

Epictetus The cognitive behavioral therapist Albert Ellis openly credited Epictetus for his development of rational emotive behavioral therapy, REBT, the foremost modality in counseling today. Ellis's central doctrine held that emotions are a product of our thoughts or cognitions. He categorized thoughts as rational and irrational. The start of stifling the emotion of stress is to make that distinction. The wonderful thing about the dichotomy of control, as the Stoics called it, about separating the things we can control from the things we can't, is the resource allocation it promotes. as the Is your stress from an overwhelming workload? Could you put a better system in place?

Could you do a better job prioritizing? Struggling with something? Could you ask someone for help? Could you talk to your boss and explain how you're feeling? Could you seek advice from a mentor? Stress becomes chronic and debilitating when it lingers and festers atop of inaction. We are creative, intelligent, and resourceful people, but we only have so many resources and so much creativity. We have to allocate and direct those forces properly.

Stoicism is a philosophy of action. Take action. Eliminate the unnecessary stress and the frivolous action. In essence, worrying about what is not up to you. And do exactly what Marcus Aurelius said he did. Today, I escaped my anxiety. Or no, I discarded it. Because it was within me, in my own perceptions, not outside. Dissect the Source. Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems. Epictetus. We must come to the realization,

Seneca said, that there are more things likely to frighten us than there are to crush us. We suffer more in imagination than in reality. We spend so much time worried about how bad things are going to be. We torture ourselves more than the thing we're worried about ever could, that is, if it happens at all. So, what I advise you to do is, Seneca continued, do not be unhappy before the crisis comes. We are in the habit of exaggerating or imagining or anticipating sorrow. We interviewed The Breakfast Club host Charlamagne the God a little while back to talk about Stoicism and his new book, Shook1, Anxiety Playing Tricks on Me.

His advice about stress and anxiety? You might think it the words of Seneca if we didn't tell you beforehand. What I would tell people who struggle with fear and anxiety is that it's natural. Just always try to be aware of the source of it. That's why I believe in rational anxiety and irrational anxiety. Rational is when you know why you're afraid and anxious. Irrational is when these thoughts just flood your mind and you don't know where they are coming from, so you're just scared and having a panic attack for no reason. Next time you're feeling stressed or anxious, in other words, let that be a clue. Let that be a command to stop and analyze. Where is this coming from? Am I bringing this on myself? The cure to stress is often simply in dissecting the source. It's natural for stress to creep in. Just don't let it stick around for

no good reason. Nip it. Don't help it grow. Use cognitive distancing. To live life in peace, immune to all compulsion, let them scream whatever they want. How would any of that stop you from keeping your mind calm, reliably sizing up what's around you, and ready to make good use of whatever happens, so that judgment can look the event in the eye and say, this is what you really are, regardless of what you may look like? Marcus Aurelius In his wonderful new book, How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, cognitive behavioral psychotherapist, historian, and stoic Donald Robertson, charts the fascinating philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, cognitive behavioral psychotherapist, historian, and Stoic,

Donald Robertson, charts the fascinating development of Marcus as a person over the course of his life. He artfully weaves in his insight as a working psychotherapist into how we can draw from both the life and writings of Marcus to improve our own lives. In our interview with Robertson, he talked about some of the 2000-year-old Stoic concepts that inspired many psychological strategies practiced in the modern world. The central psychological strategy that Stoics employed, Robertson said, was what is now called cognitive distancing, summed up by what Epictetus famously said, it's not things that upset us, but rather our opinions about things. In practice, therapists ask clients to imagine that they're

wearing colored spectacles. If you believe the world is actually rose-tinted or dark and gloomy because of the lenses before your eyes, that's like fusing your beliefs with reality. Realizing that the world isn't really that color, it's just the glasses, is like cognitive distancing. It's the difference between telling yourself, life sucks, and I'm just assuming that life sucks. The Stoics knew this over 2000 years ago, though. It took therapists decades to really wrap their heads around this idea. Marcus likes to refer to cognitive distancing as the separation of our judgments from external events. The goal of Stoicism is to suspend certain value judgments responsible for unhealthy passions in this way. Give this a try next time you feel stressed. Remember that you have the power to change

the lens in which you are looking through. You choose what glasses you look at things through. You don't have to let it stress you out or give you anxiety. It's just the glasses. Practice the worst-case scenario. You will understand that a man's peace of mind does not depend upon fortune, for even when angry, she grants enough for our needs. Seneca. Seneca, who enjoyed great wealth as the advisor of Nero, must have been afraid of losing his job.

He stressed about whether or not he'd be able to provide for his family. He stressed about the welfare of his family's estates. He stressed about fortune's inherent unpredictability. He knew that everything could be snatched away by the spear thrusts of fortune. He also realized that underlying all these fears and anxieties was actually just one fear. He was afraid of poverty. He was scared of what he imagined life would be like without the comforts and luxuries he'd come to enjoy. With that realization, Seneca stopped

imagining. He established business relations with poverty. He devised this practice to slay his stress about his job and his wealth. 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? When we interviewed Tim Ferriss, we asked him what tactical advice or practices he'd recommend to our readers who want to beat stress. The first would be practicing poverty, Tim said

before mentioning the above quote and adding, that is what I repeat to myself over and over again. The more you schedule and practice discomfort deliberately, the less unplanned discomfort will throw off your life and control your life. It's important to remember that this is an exercise and not a rhetorical device. Seneca didn't say to think about the worst-case scenario. He said to practice it, to live it. Because things like stress and anxiety and fear all have their roots in uncertainty and rarely in experience.

The solution is to do something about that ignorance. Make yourself familiar with the things, the worst-case scenarios, that you're stressed about or afraid of. Practice what you fear in real life. You'll find yourself asking yourself what Seneca did. This is what I feared? This is what I was stressed about? Get active. If you have nothing to stir you up and rouse you to action, nothing which will test

your resolution by its threats and hostilities. If you recline in unshaken comfort, it is not tranquility. It is merely a flat calm. Seneca. As we mentioned above, Epictetus said that our chief task in life is discerning what's inside our control and what isn't, then focusing our energy on making the right choices in regards to what's ours to decide. The process can seem distinctly mental, something we must sit down, get inside our heads, deliberate over, and direct our mind's eyes full attention to. When we interviewed philosophical writer, performing musician, and Epictetus translator

Sharon LeBell a little while back, we asked if she had any great strategies to help with that chief task Epictetus spoke of so often. Interestingly, her advice was actually to do something physical. I get out of my head and into my body. I love Stoicism because it values logos, the reason, the discerning mind. But I think our minds are often the wisest when we can settle them down to allow new unsought answers in. I trust the answers that surface during or as a result of my daily yoga practice.

I think any daily practice that helps a person withdraw from the noise of everyday life so that wisdom's voice can be heard is valuable. It's different for different people. Philosophers of yesteryear were known for walking as much as reading, writing, or even talking. Aristotle, for example, conducted his lectures while walking around his school in Athens as his students followed him. Nietzsche reportedly walked up to eight hours a day.

Charles Darwin took three 45-minute walks per day. They all knew the benefit of getting out of their heads and into their bodies. In a beautiful letter to his sister-in-law, who struggled with depression, the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard captured it perfectly. Above all, he told her in 1847, do not lose your desire to walk. Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. Walking, wrestling, boxing, swimming, running, yoga, all of this is a way to move into a

better headspace, into a better state of well-being. Find a Hobby You will see that the most powerful men, the ones who have reached a position of eminence, make chance remarks in which they long for leisure and praise it, preferring it to all their blessings. Seneca Winston Churchill was a man with so many responsibilities that, on a piece of notepaper, he once sketched himself a pig, loaded down with a 20,000 pound weight.

Still, he'd not only survived the workload of two wars, five kids, ten million written words and live into his 80s, but he did so without ever losing his trademark joie de vivre. How did Churchill manage? How did he not burn out and die early? The answer is simple. The restorative power of a good hobby. At the age of 40, following the massive failures of several military campaigns, Winston Churchill was demoted and then he resigned from government. Stripped of power and consumed by stress and anxiety, he took up an unexpected new hobby,

painting. His process was simple. Go out in nature, take it all in, go back and paint from memory. Painting came to my rescue in a most trying time, Churchill would later write in essays that would become a small book, Painting as a Pastime. He further explained that, the cultivation of a hobby and new forms of interest is a policy of first importance to a public man. To be really happy and really safe,

one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real. A few centuries before Churchill, Seneca, himself a busy political advisor and writer, wrote on the tranquility of the mind, a letter to his friend Serenis with advice on curing his stress and anxiety. It is, Seneca writes, the best course by far to mix leisure with employment. Like the great orator Asinius Polio, putting a hard stop on his workday two hours before sunset, Seneca advises,

we should show kindness to the mind and from time to time granted the leisure that serves it for sustenance and strength." As Ryan Holiday writes about in Stillness is the Key, elite performance is best when balanced out with hobbies and leisure. As Churchill found solace in painting, William Gladstone, Prime Minister of England in the generation before Churchill, found it in chopping down trees. For Seneca, it was writing philosophical letters to friends and family members. For Epictetus, we can infer it was lifting weights. For Marcus Aurelius, it was hunting and possibly wrestling.

For John Cage, it was mushroom hunting. For David Sedaris, it's walking back roads and picking up trash. For Herbert Hoover, it was fishing. What do all of those things have in common? What marks a good stress-relieving hobby? It's a pursuit that simultaneously challenges and relaxes us. That simultaneously busies the body and opens the mind. Engaged in a good hobby, we are present.

We are in control. No one is making us do this. No deadlines have to be met. No money is on the line. No validation or rewards are either. Painting, reading, boxing, puzzles, coding, collecting stamps, whatever it is, you need to have something, some hobby, that takes your mind off the stresses of work. Start Journaling When the light has been removed and my wife hobby that takes your mind off the stresses of work. Start journaling.

When the light has been removed and my wife has fallen silent, aware of this habit that's now mine, I examine my entire day and go back over what I've done and said, hiding nothing from myself, passing nothing by. Seneca. Instead of letting racing thoughts and outsized fears swirl around in your heads, Seneca said, you should write whatever enters your head. You should get all of those thoughts down on paper. You should cage the monkey mind in a journal. Seneca's evening review was essential to calming down. It was essential to self-improvement and personal growth. This is how to deal with one's

own ills," he said. This brings peace and freedom. Seneca was not the only Stoic who was a big fan of journaling. Marcus Aurelius' Meditations consists of a collection of personal self-help notes, which he never intended to see the light of day. Epictetus encouraged his students to write down their thoughts and reflect upon their actions every day. The Stoic keeps watch over himself as over an enemy lying in ambush, he said. But it's not just an ancient philosophy like Stoicism that has recognized the fruits

of journaling. Modern science has shown that there are a host of benefits from journaling. A study by Cambridge University found journaling helps improve well-being after traumatic and stressful events. Participants asked to write about such events for 15 to 20 minutes resulted in improvements in both physical and psychological health. And a study by the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships found that writing focused on positive outcomes and negative situations decreases emotional distress.

People tend to intimidate themselves about journaling. What's the best way to do it? What's the best journal? What time do you do it? For how long? Forget all that. There's no right way to do it. Just do it.

You can use the Daily Stoic Journal, or the 5-Minute Journal, or the Bullet Journal, or Austin Kleon's Deal Like an Artist Journal, or the one line a day journal, or a blank notebook, or an Evernote file, or an email on your phone, or use a combination of these things. It doesn't matter. Just start. We are planning a family trip to Greece this summer. I want to see some of the sites that I've talked about in my books. I want to do some research.

And as we were looking at different hotels, I thought, you know what, let's just stay in an Airbnb. Let's pick a bunch of different Airbnbs to stay in. We'll drive from one to the other. We'll get a sense of what it is actually like to be and live there. And we don't all want to be on top of each other, two double beds in a hotel room or God forbid you have to buy some super expensive suite. So we're really excited

to do that and that's how we do most of our vacations because from cozy cabins to luxurious villas Airbnb offers the chance to live like a local, to actually see and experience what that place is like, what it has to offer. And sometimes you meet cool hosts, sometimes you meet your neighbors. So if you're planning a trip and the idea of staying in a hotel doesn't sound like exciting, authentic experience, give living like a local a try and check out Airbnb. local a try and check out Airbnb. Read a book. And reading, I hold, is indispensable. Reading nourishes the mind and refreshes it when it is wearied.

Seneca. One of the best cures for stress is cheap if not free. Reading. The great William Osler, founder of Johns Hopkins University and a fan of the Stoics, told his medical students it was important that they turn to literature as a way to nourish and relax their minds. When chemistry distresses your soul, he said, seek peace in the great pacifier, Shakespeare. Ten minutes with Montaigne will lighten the burden. We know that

Seneca and Marcus were big readers. Their works are filled with quotes and allusions to plays and poets and the stories of history. They read to relax and to be at leisure. It kept their minds strong and clear. How could you not do the same? Why do you instead turn to the TV or to Twitter? Let us follow Osler's advice. Start at once a bedside library and spend the last half hour of the day in communion

with the saints of humanity. There are great lessons to be learned from Job and from David, from Isaiah and St. Paul. Taught by Shakespeare, and you may take your intellectual and moral measure with singular precision. Learn to love Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. Should you be so fortunate as to be born a Plutonist, Joet will introduce you to the great master through whom alone we can think in certain levels and whose perpetual modernist startles and delights. Montaigne will teach you

moderation in all things, and to be sealed of his tribe is a special privilege. Reading is not just something you should do on vacation or when you have free time. It should be, like all important things in your life, a daily practice. Seneca called it an indispensable part of one's daily routine, particularly early in the day, because reading nourishes the mind and refreshes it. He's right. Who doesn't feel better after they've read? So next time you're stressed, try slowing down, being deliberate, and finding the wisdom you need. Stop caring about what other people think. There is also this not inconsiderable cause

of anxieties, namely, if you should wordly assume a pose and not show yourself to any men frankly, like the many whose lives are a sham, made up for display. For it is a torment to be watching oneself all the time, afraid of being detected outside one's usual role. Seneca. In Book 12, as meditations is wrapping up, Marcus writes, It never ceases to amaze me. We all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.

In another section, he writes, ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do. Sanity means tying it to your own actions. The point is, your happiness and peace of mind is too important to be placed on somebody else's whim. Life is too short to submit it to other people's opinions. Embrace who you really are. Embrace what makes you unique.

Let your freak flag fly. Because chances are, it's special. And it's easier, and therefore less stressful, than trying to be someone or something you're not. Take a cold shower. The body should be treated more rigorously, that it may not be disobedient to the mind. Seneca. Cold exposure is a hot trend.

Silicon Valley swears by starting the morning with cold showers for its effects on mitigating stress levels and boosting mental fortitude. Anti-aging researchers call it the secret weapon and most cost-effective biohack in the pursuit of ageless vitality. But this is no groundbreaking innovation. Indeed, hydrotherapy is an ancient practice. The benefits of cold and ice were first realized thousands of years ago when the Egyptians treated inflammation and injuries with isolated cold application. In fact, papyrus scrolls have been found documenting the application of ice on a number of patients. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, also prescribed cold baths and bathing in spring

water to allay lassitude for many of his sick patients. The Romans built bathhouses where health-conscious citizens would sit in a hot room for as long as it took to sweat, then dive into a frigidarium, an ice-cold swimming pool. And Seneca, in one of his letters, writes that he started every year by taking a cold plunge. He describes himself as the cold water enthusiast, who used to celebrate the New Year by taking a plunge into the canal, who, just as naturally as I would set out to do some reading or writing, or to compose a speech, used to inaugurate the first of the year with a plunge into the Virgo aqueduct, present-day Trevi Fountain.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that this ancient stress relief strategy is backed by some modern research. Short-term whole-body cold exposure has been shown to promote tolerance to stress and drastically reduce the chance of disease. It does this by lowering levels of uric acid in the body during and after exposure to the cold water, along with boosting levels of the important antioxidant, glutathione, in the blood. The Department of Radiation Oncology at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine

proved that exposure to cold activates the sympathetic nervous system and increases the blood level of beta endorphin and noradrenaline and to increase synaptic release of noradrenaline in the brain. Additionally, due to the high density of cold receptors in the skin, a cold shower is expected to send an overwhelming amount of electrical impulses from peripheral nerve endings to the brain, which results in an antidepressive effect. Laughter is the best medicine. He who laughs has joy. The very soul must be happy and confident, lifted above every circumstance.

Seneca. One of the most influential and famous Stoics, Chrysippus, died laughing. Literally, he died from belly laughing at the sight of a donkey eating figs in his garden. The Stoics were of the mind that a donkey eating figs in his garden. The Stoics were of the mind that a sense of humor was necessary in a world often marked by pain and suffering and overwhelming emotions. As Seneca observes, all things are cause for either laughter or weeping. And since that is the case, Heraclitus would shed tears whenever he went out in public.

Democritus laughed. One saw the whole as a parade of miseries, the other of follies. And so we should take a lighter view of things and bear them with an easy spirit, for it is more human to laugh at life than to lament it. On his podcast, comedian Pete Holmes talks about how laughing is something he consciously practices every day. On an episode with Dr. Joel Fuhrman, the two talked about a kind of fake it till you make it approach to laughter. Holmes said, people tease me because I laugh a lot,

and I say, no, I'm happier than you and I'm working at it. It's a choice. You think I can't not laugh at a joke? Of course I can, but it's better for everyone to laugh. Furman confirmed, I tell people that laughing makes you live longer, even if the joke doesn't work. If the joke isn't funny but you laugh anyway, it still makes you live longer. Eventually, you'll see too that what they say about laughter is true. It is indeed the best and cheapest medicine. It may be obvious that laughter reduces stress, but the reason? Laughter and humor trigger the brain's emotional and reward centers through the release of endorphins.

That feeling of euphoria you get after a great long run? That's from the release of endorphins. The brain's chemical response is exactly the same when you have a good laugh. Stressful experiences in everyday life, even from the simplest most mundane situations like car troubles, suppress the immune system, which increases the risk of infectious illness and heart disease. A good laugh can help prevent stress from accumulating and thus affecting the immune system, protecting you from disease.

Try next time you're stressed. Dial up one of your favorite funny movies that you haven't watched in a while. Binge watch that series people have been telling you about. Search YouTube for classic bits from some of the great stand-up comics like Jerry Seinfeld, Steve Martin, Sarah Silverman, Pete Holmes, Ellen DeGeneres, Dave Chappelle, or Robin Williams. When life feels really stressful, when the world makes you want to weep in despair or rage, consider what the Stoic said, you always have the choice to laugh about it. Meditate on your mortality.

Stop whatever you're doing for a moment, and ask yourself, am I afraid of death because I won't be able to do this anymore? More than a few people push back on momentum ori as morbid or dark. But those people miss the point. It's not about making you anxious about how few days you have left. Its purpose is the opposite. It's to free making you anxious about how few days you have left. Its purpose is the opposite. It's to free you. To inspire you. It is the key to happiness that unlocks empowerment, gratitude, charity, and a bonus round attitude every moment of the day. Memento

Mori is the jolt that keeps us in the present moment. Marcus Aurelius said, who on earth would think that thought? That they could have only a few minutes left on earth and go, yeah, I should spend that time being upset or afraid or depressed. When you're complaining over some tweet or some endlessly frustrating and incompetent coworker, Memento Mori snaps you out of it. When you're scrolling and swiping, Memento Mori makes you consider if you could make better use of your time. When you're stressed before giving that big talk or making that big phone call, Memento Mori gives you some perspective and asks, that's what you're stressed about?

The phrase gets thrown around a lot. Live today like it's your last day on earth. The problem with that approach for many people is that they use it to promote and excuse reckless behavior. Seneca put it differently. Live today like it's your whole life. He said he balanced the books of life each day, meaning he lived fully every 24 hours. Either stressed or indolent, deferring nothing and doing nothing superfluous or unnecessary either, he was taking it day by day.

And so we must do the same. Today is the most valuable thing that you own. It is the only thing you have. Don't waste a second of it stressed or anxious. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and would really help the show. We appreciate it. I'll see you next episode. If you like the daily stoic and thanks for listening, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music.

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