Stress Management: Ancient Philosophers' Perspectives and Relaxation

This essay delves into the concepts of stress and relaxation, exploring their impact on human well-being. It introduces Zeno of Citium and the Stoic school of philosophy, highlighting their emphasis on virtue, reason, and self-control. The essay examines Stoic principles for managing stress, including premeditation, self-denial, and shifting one's state. It presents counterarguments to these techniques, acknowledging their potential limitations. The essay draws on philosophical insights to offer practical strategies for coping with the daily challenges of stress and anxiety. The essay also includes references to relevant academic sources for further research.

STRESS, RELAXATION &
PHILOSOPHERS
ARGUMENTS

WHAT IS STRESS?
 Stress is the backlash of the body to some transition
involving adaptation or response. The body responds
with physiological, behavioral, and psychological
reactions to those adjustments.
 Stress is a matter of everyday existence. You may feel
discomfort from the surroundings, body and emotions.
Also significant developments in life, like
advancement, mortgage or a baby's conception,
cause tension.
 Hans Selye introduced the word "stress" as it is
commonly known in 1936, describing it as the body's
indifferent reaction to some call for improvement. But
Selye was sadly ignorant that stress was used in
science to describe the term elasticity for decades
(Spielberger et al., 2014).

WHAT IS STRESS RELAXATION?
 With all of us relaxing involves flopping on the sofa
at the end of a long day and tuning out in front of
the Television. Yet this does nothing to rising
stress's harmful impact.
 Instead, one has to trigger the body's normal
reaction to relaxation, a condition of intense
relaxation that places the brakes on tension,
reduces breathing and cardiac pace, decreases
blood pressure, and integrates body and mind.
 Someone may achieve so by performing methods
of calming such as deep breathing, reflection,
melodic training, yoga, or tai chi. Daily practice
may greatly relieve frequent stress (Castile et
al., 2016).

ZENO – THE PHILOSOPHER
 Zeno of Citium (c. 336–265 BCE) was the
father of the Stoic School of Philosophy in
Athens who believed that the Logos
(Universal Reason) was the supreme value of
existence, and the object of human existence
was to live according to it.
 His father was a trader who
frequently traveled to Athens and Zeno of
course picked up the career of his father. If
Zeno learned philosophy in his teens is
unknown, but about the time of 22, when lost
following a ship debris in Athens, he took up
a replica of Xenophon's Memorabilia
(Ehrlich, 2014).

CONT’D
 He became so fascinated by Socrates' image
that he left his career and transformed the study
of philosophy into his sole concern.
 As he learned within Crates of Thebes, Zeno
penned his Republic, a view of the ideal world
very distinct as Plato pictured in his research
with the similar name.
 Zeno's Republic is an utopia where people agree
to be their habitat in the cosmos and where
everything resides according to universal rules
and moral understandings. Within the view of
humanity, males and females were absolutely
fair and there was no inequality, since both acts
were focused on principle (Vendler, 2015).

STOICISM
 This theory argues that virtue (eg wisdom) is
pleasure and judgment, instead of language,
must be focused on actions. We do not monitor
and cannot depend on outside things, just
ourselves and our reactions.
 Stoicism has only a handful of key concepts to
it. This is designed for practice. It heads out to
educate us on how the universe can be
volatile. Our life is like a fleeting instant. How
to be stubborn and powerful and in self-control.
And ultimately, that the root of our discontent
resides not in reasoning but in our impetuous
reliance on our instinctive sensing (Sellars,
2018).

ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
 Stress and anxiety are daily obstacles that ought to
be faced. It figures out that life was still quite
stressful a few thousand years earlier, and the
early Greeks–particularly those who followed
Stoicism, a school of Greek philosophy established
by Citium's Zeno–had eternal wisdom to give to
deal with stress.
 The remarkable degree in practicality in Stoicism
has occasionally been mistaken as cold pessimism.
It does, though, deliver a tremendous array of new
insight to overcome the problems we encounter
(Christensen, 2013).
 Below are three old ideas of philosophy to enable
one deal with the daily pain.

1. PREMEDITATE
 Premeditation is among the Stoic
techniques, most effective for dealing with stress.
 It is the tradition to envision the future–usually
the day forward –and foresee all the negative
stuff that might occur.
 That's good as it places everything in context. In
our heads we like to build stuff up to render them
seem even greater than they actually are.
 Through considering all the worse events that
might occur, one will come down to earth to
acknowledge that the world is not that terrible
(Fabjański & Brymer, 2017).
 This will be a good practice to relief stress
immediately and feel contented.

2. PRACTICE SELF-DENIAL
 Another unusual custom here: deliberately
deprive oneself simple democratic amenities.
Stoics will for instance miss meals.
 This not only allows a person develop self-control,
a vital capacity for almost everything one would
like to achieve with life, it also allows someone to
enjoy what s/he got, and helps bring the stuff
s/he worried about into focus.
 This takes both humility and self-control to
handle tension at the source (Brouwer, 2014).
 So, next week, go skip supper, the Starbucks on
Monday or the preferred holiday treats to shore
up one's stamina and note that s/he does not
even have it that terrible.

3. SHIFT YOUR STATE
(ACT LIKE YOU ARE NOT
STRESSED)
 It is disappointingly naïve given that this guidance
comes years ago empirical research can
demonstrate that body language and wearing a
smile would potentially improve our emotional
state, make us happy and optimistic.
 Stoics recognized that when feeling a strong
emotional illness like frustration or depression,
embracing somebody's actions that sound the
same way may potentially make us improve our
situation.
 If you are nervous, calm your facial muscles, have
deep breathes, slow down, and do anything you
like and position your mind and body in a condition
that no longer panics (Arnold, 2014).

COUNTER ARGUMENTS
 Premeditation might not be as good as it is
described. In my opinion, thinking about the
negative stuff that can occur in future stresses
more than actually having it. It can make the
present beautiful only if the person is strong
enough not to stress about the future.
 Self-denial, on the other side, can be helpful as it
can bring gratitude for having good things and
blessings in life. Because gratitude also brings
optimism.
 Thirdly, shifting of state might also help as
diverting the mind from what is stressful to what
gives pleasure gives relief and sometimes hope
too.

REFERENCES
 Spielberger, C. D., Sarason, I. G., Strelau, J., &
Brebner, J. M. (2014). Stress and anxiety. Taylor &
Francis.
 Castile, R. M., Skelley, N. W., Babaei, B., Brophy, R.
H., & Lake, S. P. (2016). Microstructural properties
and mechanics vary between bundles of the
human anterior cruciate ligament during stress-
relaxation. Journal of biomechanics, 49(1), 87-93.
 Ehrlich, P. (2014). An Essay in Honor of Adolf
Grünbaum’s Ninetieth Birthday: A Reexamination
of Zeno’s Paradox of Extension. Philosophy of
Science, 81(4), 654-675.
 Vendler, Z. (2019). Linguistics in philosophy.
Cornell University Press.

 Sellars, J. (2018). Roman stoic mindfulness: An
ancient technology of the self. In Ethics and
Self-Cultivation (pp. 15-29). Routledge.
 Christensen, J. (2013). An essay on the unity of
Stoic philosophy.
 Fabjański, M., & Brymer, E. (2017). Enhancing
health and wellbeing through immersion in
nature: a conceptual perspective combining
the Stoic and Buddhist traditions. Frontiers in
psychology, 8, 1573.
 Brouwer, R. (2014). The Stoic Sage: The Early
Stoics on Wisdom, Sagehood and Socrates.
Cambridge University Press.
 Arnold, E. V. (2014). Roman Stoicism
(Routledge Revivals). Routledge.