Tetrapharmakos
The Tetrapharmakos (τετραφάρμακος) "four-part remedy" is a summary of the first four of the Κύριαι Δόξαι (Kuriai Doxai, the forty Epicurean Principal Doctrines given by Diogenes Laertius in his Life of Epicurus) in Epicureanism, a recipe for leading the happiest possible life.
They are recommendations to avoid anxiety or existential dread.
The "tetrapharmakos" was originally a compound of four drugs (wax, tallow, pitch and resin); the word has been used metaphorically by Roman-era Epicureans. to refer to the four remedies for healing the soul.
The four-part cure
As expressed by Philodemos, and preserved in a Herculaneum Papyrus (1005, 4.9–14), the tetrapharmakos reads:
This is a summary of the first four of the forty Epicurean Principal Doctrines (Sovran Maxims) given by Diogenes Laertius, which in the translation by Robert Drew Hicks (1925) read as follows:
Don't fear god
In Hellenistic religion, the gods were conceived as hypothetical beings in a perpetual state of bliss, indestructible entities that are completely invulnerable. Gods in this view are mere role models for human beings, who are to "emulate the happiness of the gods, within the limits imposed by human nature."