COURSE

7 Stoic Practices To Ease Anxiety & Quiet Overthinking

Spend a week uprooting the source of your worry and doubt with 7 potent audio recordings that will shower your soul in tranquility and clarity. Each lesson features a core Stoicism technique that can be used specifically to ease anxiety.

Anxiety Fear Resilience Secular Mindfulness Mindfulness Meditation Stress Stress & Anxiety Health & Happiness Secular Mindfulness

Meet your Teacher

Jon Brooks

Cardiff, United Kingdom

Jon Brooks is a passionate teacher and practitioner of Stoicism. He uses his martial arts background in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to innovate new methods to learn and master this ancient philosophical blueprint for the good life.

7 Days

7.2k students

4.8 stars

11 min / day

Anxiety

English

Lesson 1

"What If Technique" To Uncover The Source Of Your Anxiety

The first meditation will help you bring into light the source of your anxiety as you improve your ability to see the irrational thoughts contributing to the anxious pattern. The “What If Technique” allows us to pinpoint the root anxiety rather than the surface-level narratives we tell ourselves. We do this by asking the question “If this anxiety came true, what would that mean? What would be the worst thing that would happen?” By repeatedly asking this question, we will have a solid foundation for working with our anxiety.

Lesson 2

Maxim Creation To Cut Through The Chaos & Return To Peace

The second meditation will arm you with a unique tool specific to your situation that you can use in real time when the worry and doubt flares up, so you can more easily weather the storm. The Stoics were big fans of maxims—short statements that can be used when things get chaotic (for example, when ill Stoics might say, “This is a problem for the body, not my mind”). Now that we’ve located our root anxiety, here we set about creating a specific maxim that we can repeat to ourselves whenever we experience an anxiety trigger.

Lesson 3

Mindfulness Of Sensations To Shift Anxiety From Enemy To Ally

The third meditation will help you cultivate the skill of observing your feelings without judgment to resolve emotional negative feedback loops and reduce the intensity of the anxiety. A vital step in working with our anxiety is recognizing that anxiety is not our enemy. In fact, it is our friend—it is there to try and keep us safe. When we can become comfortable with the physical sensations of anxiety and welcome there, the mind will begin to open up, and all future Stoic techniques will become much more effective.

Lesson 4

View From Above To Gain Perspective & Reframe The Narrative

The fourth meditation will help reframe despair and hopelessness by placing our anxiety in a broader context, creating a pathway for greater peace. One of the most famous Stoic techniques is “The View From Above”, and this works by helping us create cognitive distance between ourselves and the triggering event. In this meditation, we zoom out from our current situation and try to view our worries and anxieties from a cosmic perspective. This technique can immediately bring ease to situations that feel very intense and personal.

Lesson 5

Premeditation Of Adversity To Build Resilience & Heal Anxiety

The fifth meditation will guide you through a visualization exercise to confront your anxiety in a safe space, so it begins to lose its hold on you as you generate the confidence to face it in reality. “Premeditation of Adversity” is a technique that has you psychologically face your fears in your mind’s eye. This is also known as “cognitive exposure”. The idea is that it is only when we start to face our fears that they will begin to fade. If we avoid them, then they will grow more intense.

Lesson 6

The Amor Fati Formula For Deep Acceptance Of What Is

The sixth meditation will keep you from arguing with reality and begin generating love for your circumstances, thus empowering you to make changes from grounded reverence rather than resistance. “Amor Fati” is a technique that has you actively find things you love about your current situation. The idea is that acceptance is a great first step, but actively learning to love your current struggles is the next level along the path of Stoic mastery. There is always some benefit we can derive from any situation.

Lesson 7

The Final Contemplation To Annihilate Core Fears

The seventh meditation shifts denial of death into a recognition of its beautiful naturalness to inspire a more vibrant appreciation of life while silencing core fears. Most of our anxiety on the deepest level can be traced back to death. When we can embrace death, as the Stoics did, we will find a renewed sense of urgency and appreciation for life. This meditation will help us become relaxed with the idea of death, and instead of worrying about it we can instead start attempting to live fully.

Ask your teacher

This course includes 65 community questions and 27 audio replies from Jon Brooks. The community classroom and teacher audio replies are only available via the app.

4.8 (370)

Recent Reviews

February 11, 2026

🙏

Benjamin

December 24, 2024

This is a hard course, but it has good tools

Torie

November 15, 2024

Thank you for this course . So helpful and I plan on taking it again. Jon is wonderful teacher and very knowledgeable .

Cynthia

November 13, 2024

This was a very different set of meditations than I'm used to doing but I found great value in these perspectives. They really did make my comparatively minor anxieties *poof* into the wind. (Aliens would think, "THAT is what you're all worked up about?!") 🙂 Thank you, Jon! I intend to explore more of your offerings here on Insight Timer.

Alistair

November 13, 2024

Awesome course. Day 7 really hit home!

Chad

November 3, 2024

This was one of the best courses for my mental health. I can see how so many other ways of working with mental health stem from stoicism. Even notice how my therapist has incorporated these techniques. Thank you.

Imran

October 22, 2024

Excellent

Marc

July 25, 2024

It is not for the faint of heart and maybe a bit advanced in heavyness. However, this is because it goes straight to the issues without any sugarcoating

Monica

June 3, 2024

Excellent course. Found so much utility in it and I’ll go through it again to really capture the lessons. Very digestible concepts and wonderfully concise.

Silas

May 6, 2024

This has hepled. Thanks Jon.

Dave

April 28, 2024

Outstanding insight into anxiety. Thank you for sharing your thoughts about a positive experience in this existence. Namaste 🙏

Tracey

April 11, 2024

Excellent!

Hermann

April 5, 2024

Very helpful course, the exercises are really effective. Thank you

March 31, 2024

Delving into the stoic ways, with Jon’s insights and his own way of teaching has been freeing. 💝 I have learned more about navigating through my emotions than I thought possible. With decades of false beliefs, I get closer to truths that serve me…and this helps me live in LOVE. Thank you Jon

Dan

February 25, 2024

Very insightful & useful.

Scott

February 16, 2024

What an excellent course 👏 For many years I read the daily stoic, and the likes of the obstacle is the way and others. This course susinctly explains some amazing (yet very provocative) meditations to prepare us for some of our deepest challenges.l, well, the ultimate challenge. Cannot recommend this enough, however, be prepared to face your anxieties head on.

Melinda

February 12, 2024

So much good information here that will take further contemplation to process and keep in practice. I have incorporated some techniques that are being helpful in dealing with anxiety and depression. Thank you. 🙏🏼☮️🧡

January 26, 2024

I have lived the life of a stoic since very young, although I did not know it then. I continue to learn stoic principles from the great teachers. I try to apply all to my feelings and emotions regarding the tragic death of my 12 year old daughter and my present and future self, living this “new” life. Thank you for your creation of this course. It helps me sustain each breath I take and each step on my journey 🙏🏼✌🏼

Bela

January 17, 2024

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