This practice draws on Seneca’s writing about imagined suffering, Marcus Aurelius’s attention to the present, and Epictetus’s distinction between what depends on us and what does not.
Stoicism for anxiety: a nighttime practice in 7 steps
Choose a small window before bed and take out paper.
Set aside 10 to 15 minutes, ideally after you have finished practical preparation for the night. Sit somewhere ordinary, perhaps at the kitchen table or beside your bed, with your phone facedown or in another room. This is a short appointment with your mind, not an invitation to keep thinking indefinitely.
Write the one worry that is loudest tonight.
Use one plain sentence. For example, write that you are worried about a meeting, a bill, a conversation, or news you are waiting for. Keep it specific enough to see clearly. If several worries arrive, write them in a short column, then circle the one that is making it hardest to rest.
Separate the event from the story your mind adds.
Under the worry, make two headings: “What I know” and “What I am imagining.” Put only facts in the first section, such as the meeting’s time or the amount due. Put predictions in the second section, including the scenes of failure, rejection, or disaster your mind keeps supplying. Seneca’s work is useful here because it asks you to notice when fear has moved beyond the event itself.
Mark what is yours to do before tomorrow begins.
Look at the factual part of the page and ask what action belongs to you tonight. It may be sending one email, setting out documents, choosing clothes, writing down a question, or deciding when you will leave. Write one action that takes under 15 minutes. If no useful action can happen tonight, write that down too, so you stop treating waiting as a task.
Name what remains outside your command.
Make a final section called “Not mine to settle tonight.” Include other people’s reactions, the exact outcome, delays, and events you cannot direct. This follows Epictetus’s practical divide between your choices and the wider world. You are not approving of an unwanted outcome by placing it there. You are declining to spend the evening pretending you can control it.
Close the page with a present-tense check-in.
Write three brief facts about this moment: where you are, what your body is doing, and what the next small part of the evening requires. It might be that you are in bed, your shoulders are tight, and your next task is to wash your face. Marcus Aurelius returned to the resources available in the present because tomorrow will be met when it arrives, with the judgment and character you can bring then.
Put the paper away and follow one quiet routine.
Fold the page, close the notebook, and place it somewhere you will not reopen from bed. Then do one familiar thing such as brushing your teeth, making tea, or reading a few pages. If the worry returns, remind yourself that it has been written down and that you have identified tonight’s next action. You can repeat the practice tomorrow evening without trying to force a different feeling tonight.