How to Tame a Craving (Epictetus Style): The Ultimate Practical Guide

Chapter 34 — Enchiridion · A field manual you can use tonight.

In this post, we’ll unpack Epictetus’ method for mastering cravings and compulsive urges — a timeless five-step exercise from Enchiridion 34.

The exercise we’ll unpack can be found in Chapter 34 of the Enchiridion. It’s not a long quote, but we’ll discuss it at length to extract as much usefulness from it as possible.

A common theme in Epictetus—and many ancient texts—is saying a lot with very few words. Here’s the quote in full, translated by A. A. Long:

“Whenever the impression of some pleasure comes into your mind, guard yourself against being carried away by it, just as you should do with impressions in general. Let the thing wait a bit, and give yourself a pause. Then think of both times—first the one when you will enjoy the pleasure, and then the one after that when you will be sorry and be angry with yourself. Now contrast them with your joy and self-satisfaction if you abstain. But if you find this the right moment to embark on the affair, do beware that you are not being overwhelmed by its charm and sweetness and allure. Think how much better it is to realize that you have won this victory.”

For a quick summary, here’s how I’m breaking it down into five steps:

1. Notice the impression: “Whenever the impression of some pleasure comes into your mind…”
2. Name it: “Guard yourself against being carried away by it, just as you should do with impressions in general…”
3. Pause: “Let the thing wait a bit, and give yourself a pause…”
4. Probe it: “Then think of both times—first the one when you will enjoy the pleasure, and then the one after that when you will be sorry and be angry with yourself. Now contrast them with your joy and self-satisfaction if you abstain…”
5. Choose deliberately: “But if you find this the right moment to embark on the affair, do beware that you are not being overwhelmed by its charm and sweetness and allure. Think how much better it is to realize that you have won this victory.”

Let’s go even further to really help us with our cravings now.

This is referring to a trigger. In Stoic psychology, a trigger is just the first impression (phantasia) that hits the ruling faculty (hegemonikon). The cues can come in many forms.

Here are the main types of triggers. As you read them, think about which ones you experience most:

1. 🥖 Sensory cues (outside-in)
   Sights, sounds, smells that light up old associations.
   Examples: seeing a bakery, the clink of glasses, the smell of popcorn, a red notification badge.
2. 😴 Interoceptive cues (inside-out)
   Body states that push for quick relief.
   Examples: hunger, jitters, tight chest, fatigue, headache. (Classic HALT: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired.)
3. 🧠 Cognitive cues (thoughts/images/memories)
   What your mind serves up on its own.
   Examples: a vivid memory of pleasure, a fantasy reel, a mental replay of an insult.
4. 🗣️ Social cues (people & status signals)
   Faces, roles, tone—anything that hints at approval or threat.
   Examples: being ignored, a snide comment, a flirtatious glance, a boss’s Slack ping.
5. 🛋️ Environmental/temporal cues (context & timing)
   Places, routines, times of day that “bundle” habits.
   Examples: the sofa at 10pm, your commute, payday, the gym locker room.
6. ☕️ Ritual chain cues (one step triggers the next)
   Habit sequences where A almost always calls B.
   Examples: coffee → cigarette, dinner → dessert, bed → scrolling.

From a Stoic perspective, all of these “triggers” are indifferent. They aren’t orders that compel you.

You first endorse them (assent), then comes impulse (intention to take action), and ultimately action (doing the thing).

To guard against the impression, it's wise to name it. Create a definition for it. You can say:

“This is an impression of pleasure/insult—not a fact.”

Or:

“You are an appearance.”

Label before you believe. Here are some examples of that in action:

• Sensory: Notice the impression → Name (“appearance of sweetness/status”)
• Interoceptive: Check the body first (water, food, rest). Don’t argue with thirst while dehydrated.
• Cognitive: Treat the movie in your head as an image, not evidence. Label: “fantasy.”
• Social: Label the sting: “appearance of insult.”

Learning how to pause is one of the most important emotional skills you can learn.

When we are stressed, angry, craving, or caught up in our thinking, we often have a strong impulse (hormê): the intention to act—likely linked to dopaminergic circuits that compel movement toward relief.

Learning to pause when you’re caught up in an impression is almost always the best first step.

Let’s say your child does something that feels disrespectful—name-calling, nagging, being loud, being defiant. Any immediate reaction (outside of legitimate emergencies) is unlikely to be productive. Simply doing nothing—briefly—is probably the best thing you can do.

The same with cravings. If the voice in your head is selling indulgence—“You’ll feel so good; you deserve this”—rather than arguing with it or taking it as fact (neither is very helpful), a better strategy is to wait. Do nothing, and reassess after the initial wave of craving has passed.

The economist Daniel Kahneman popularised the distinction between the remembering self and the experiencing self: how we experience something in the moment is different from how we remember it afterward.

This often shows up as the peak–end rule: we remember the emotional peak and the end more than the duration.

Epictetus is asking us to consult our remembering self. He’s saying:

“I know your experiencing self is really enjoying this right now. But you also need to listen to your remembering self, because it has more context and knows how these things tend to go. So what does that version of you say? Do you consistently feel good after indulging—or worse?”

The Three Tests

Ask: “Is this up to me? Is it true? What follows if I act vs. abstain?”

• Control test (dichotomy): What here belongs to me (judgments, choices) vs. externals (opinions, outcomes)?
• Axiology test: Only virtue is good, only vice bad; pleasures/insults are indifferents. Does this action serve wisdom, justice, courage, temperance?
• Two-times test: Picture the hit now and the aftertaste later. Add the alternative: the clean pride of self-command.

This is logos doing quality-control on the impression before you sign it.

Once you’ve examined the impression through the lens of reason (logos), the final step is to act — or not — from deliberate choice rather than compulsion.

Guarding against the impression mainly means not letting it take you over. It’s like someone telling you a “fact of the world,” but you don’t accept it at face value. You pause, examine, and then decide.

Part of this guarding is not letting the situation rush you. Imagine someone saying, “Here’s a new fact; agree or disagree right now!” You don’t have to do either. You can wait. The same is true with a craving. The craving has a voice and its own automatic thoughts: “This will feel so good… do it!”
Hear the arguments—then wait.

From here, bring to mind two future possibilities and really visualise them.

Visualise how much you will enjoy the pleasure—see it happening—and how great it will be.

Then also visualise the feeling after it: sorry, angry with yourself, empty.

When you have this picture in mind, contrast it with the positive feelings you get from abstaining—the act of saying no.

In the end, you may find this is indeed a good time to do the thing that promises pleasure. Make a rule: If I commit to this, I will do so mindfully, with intention, and for good reason. It won’t be because I’m compelled by some external force.

And remember: the feeling of having won the victory against a craving is nearly always deeper than the craving itself.

Every craving is an invitation to practice freedom. Each pause, each withheld assent, is a quiet victory of the ruling faculty — a rehearsal for virtue itself.