"Stress Inoculation": how to protect yourself against anxiety and life shocks

"Is this the condition that I feared?”

This is what the Stoic philosopher Seneca said when he tested himself by living as a "poor man", in rough clothes and eating stale moldy bread.

I'm a big fan of Stoic philosophy, and I use it as guiding principle in my life.

I've read works by major Stoic philosophers, including the "founders": Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and "modern" ones including James Stockdale, Nassim Taleb, Ryan Holiday, and others.

Stoic philosophy is a way of life designed to "train you" to become mentally strong and be able to deal with major challenges in your life, which can include financial hardship, the loss of a loved one, and other potentially traumatic events.

One of the key principles in achieving that is to "rehearse" the worst case scenario in your life, and be mentally prepared to (i) have plans to deal with it, and (ii) be mentally prepared to accept it and not get destroyed by it.

These tools from Stoic philosophy have been adapted by modern science in the world of Psychotherapy into a mechanism called: "Stress Inoculation Therapy" (SIT).

SIT is a method used by therapists to help patients prepare themselves "in advance" to handle highly stressful and potentially traumatic events.

"Inoculation" is another word for "vaccination". So just like a vaccine exposes you to small doses of a disease, stress inoculation exposes you to gradually stronger and stronger levels of mental & physical stress, until your mind becomes strong enough to deal with "high levels of stress".

If you're keen on finding out more about SIT for mental health, you can read more here.

How do I personally adapt Stoic philosophy (stress inoculation) to my life? I do so using a variety of methods drawn from ancient and modern stoic philosophers:

- I expose myself to mentally challenging physical tests: I run ultramarathons, where I spend 10-15 or more hours cold, wet, in pain where the temptation to "give up" is constantly there.

- I "mentally rehearse" every worst case scenario in my life, and mentally prepare myself to "deal with it" or "accept it".

If you're interested in Stoic philosophy and don't know where to start, I would recommend starting with the following books:

- Letters from a Stoic by Seneca

- The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday

Whether you call it Stoic philosophy or Stress Inoculation: you have a powerful tool to train your mind to become resilient in the face of life's unavoidable pitfalls.