How The Samurai Dealt With Stress And Anxiety
Stress management techniques from ancient warriors
“Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men.”
— Miyamoto Musashi, “A Book Of Five Rings”
Many things change over the course of history, but one thing hasn’t — stress. Humans have been dealing with stress well before modern society and psychology. Stress management is a cottage industry today with a market size of $7 billion according to Grand View Research. It’s not hard to find a study pointing to the endless stresses we modern people face today.
But what did people in stressful times do previously to make it through the day? We may think our current age is stressful, however, it’s minor league compared to things our ancestors lived through. One group in particular lived with the constant threat of a horrific death every day of their life. Strangely, this profession seemed to be a pretty calm group.
Samurai were the warrior class of Japan and were expected to die in the service of their employer — talk about a stressful career path. Yet these characters kept a relatively serene appearance. In fact, their whole ethos revolved around a calm and composed nature. While they often trained for battle with others, they ultimately struggled internally for better control of themselves.
In fact, as one of the greatest samurai who ever lived mentioned in the quote above, the first victory you win must be over yourself. These ancient warriors can teach us a great deal about handling stress in the modern world.
Remaining Calm And Controlling What You Can
“Both in fighting and in everyday life you should be determined though calm. Meet the situation without tenseness yet not recklessly, your spirit settled yet unbiased.”
— Miyamoto Musashi, “A Book Of Five Rings”
As author and blogger Eric Barker points out, the samurai trained endlessly for battle. This training lessened the natural fear one would feel in combat, allowing them to remain calm.
They may not have had much choice in life over their circumstances on how they’d meet their death, but the training also gave the samurai a sense of control.
He points out that much like the stoics, the samurai ignored things they couldn’t control and focused on what they could. Being as prepared as possible for combat was the one thing they had in their command.
Psychiatrist Jacquelyn Ferguson in her article in Corporate Wellness Magazine explains this thinking is called an “internal locus of control (LOC)”. Those with an internal LOC believe “they largely control what happens to them.” She also explains these people are generally happier, have less stress, and experience more satisfaction with their life.
Ferguson mentions we have no control over other people or certain external events, but as Epictetus mentions we can control how we react to them. She says our energies are better spent on the things we can control. Furthermore, we can develop this internal LOC with practice, much like the samurai and their endless training.
Finding Balance Between Your Worlds
In an interview on the AOM Podcast, author and professor of ethics Shannon French describes the Bushido code of the samurai.
The code is one that revolves around balance. It’s a balance of 4 philosophies: Shintoism, Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism. At a quick glance it may appear the quartet of belief systems are opposed to each other. However, when interwoven into one code it gives a symmetric system for dealing with stress.
Daoism teaches you to strive towards a balance of yin and yang — chaos and order. Buddhism also teaches you to find a middle ground between extremes. Shintoism attaches value to tradition and a respect to one’s ancestors, while Confucianism teaches you how to handle power dynamics between people.
In her study of the Bushido code, French would find samurai strove to implement this idea of balance. While their main profession involved death and combat which requires nonstop focus and presence, the warriors reversed this off the battlefield. French explains the samurai would often study origami, painting, and bathe in nature in their free time. The creation balanced out the destruction and death which could be ever present.
In the modern day, Japan still employs this thought process. In Victor Harris’ translation of “A Book Of Five Rings”, he mentions the Japanese saying of “Bunbu Itchi”, which means pen and sword in accord. Harris says modern businessmen and politicians balance their time in cubicles and legislature by putting on armor and hitting each other with bamboo swords in the fencing art of Kendo.
French says in modern research, neurology has shown it’s healthy for an individual to attempt to bring these cycles into their lives. The embracing of opposites works to alleviate the stress caused by over saturation of one type of stimuli.
Stress Isn’t New — Use Old Methods To Deal With It
We live in stressful times, or at least that’s what we’re told repeatedly. However, samurai dealt with more stress than we could ever imagine. Death followed them every day, yet they remained calm and handled it. We can do much the same in our modern world today by doing the following things.
Remain calm by putting your energy in things you can control. Train endlessly in those areas, working to develop an internal LOC.
Find balance between your worlds. Adopt a hobby far from your profession or lifestyle. Cubicle dwellers should study martial arts or a physical hobby. Physical laborers should embrace intellectual pastimes. Keep your pen and sword in accord.
- Originally published on Medium 7/13/2020