In this post:
- How impatience affects our health
- How patience benefits our physical and psychological health
- How to develop patience
Please note that this post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.
We’ve all been there before. We’ve had someone we had to wait on that made us late to a meeting. We’ve laid on the horn when someone was too slow on the road. We’ve shown someone how to do the same task again and again and they just can’t seem to learn it.
We’ve tried to express patience and understanding towards others’ shortcomings, but the same issues just keep happening. And for a lot of us, our patience seems to run dry fairly quickly (myself included).
Losing control of our patience is a fast, thoughtless reaction that not only hurts other people, but ourselves included.
How impatience affects our health
Being impatient raises the stress levels of the body, and brings about several unpleasant effects that you’ve probably experienced before:
- Your breathing becomes shallow
- Your muscles tense
- You clench your jaw
- Your fuse shortens
- You become anxious
- You rush and your work gets sloppy
- You become increasingly restless
Do any of these symptoms sound familiar?
As if these aren’t enough, you may find that your impatience is leading to other upsetting side effects. For example, your relationships with others may have suffered as a result of your temper. People may see you as impulsive or insensitive, or even arrogant. Your decision-making skills may suffer because you make snap judgments when you’re impatient. Some people may even try to avoid you because of your impatience.
Patience is indeed a virtue, and the more you practice it, the more likely you are to be viewed favorably by everyone you know. Patience also presents a number of advantages for both physical and psychological health.
How patience benefits our physical and psychological health
- Patience leads to improved mental health. Much research has confirmed that people who express more patience in their everyday lives experience less depression and overall less negative emotions.
- Patience improves your relationships with others. Showing patience in your interactions with others can go far in cultivating other positive qualities. Research has shown that patient people tend to show more empathy, cooperation, and forgiveness than those with less patience.
- Patience elevates your overall physical health. Research has also found that having more patience leads to improved health. Those that utilize patience are less likely to report health issues such as headaches, sleeplessness, diarrhea, ulcers, and even acne.
- Lastly, patience is linked to success. We all have goals we want to reach someday. Maybe we want to buy a home, start a family, own our own company, or finally land our dream job. The road to achieving our goals are often long, and those who don’t have the patience to wait for them are less likely to achieve those goals. According to Entrepreneur.com, patience plus hard work leads to increased positive rewards. People who are more patient realize the long term success and benefits that come from delayed gratification.
So now that I’ve convinced you of how great patience is, how exactly do we cultivate and keep it alive in our everyday lives? Read on to learn the steps in developing the patience of a saint, and experience the plethora of benefits that come with practicing this virtue.
How to develop patience
1. Firstly, understand that impatience, anger, and irritability are addictive in nature. We often use these emotions, such as impatience, to protect ourselves and get ahead. Why are we rushing? We want to be there first. Why do we snap and get angry? Because we are trying to accomplish a task faster. Anger is an innate response that quickly surfaces in the form of impatience, and it can become addictive the more we try to get ahead in utilizing these emotions. Understand that such emotions are simply how we’re wired to survive.
2. When you start to get angry, slow your breathing down first. By slowing your breathing and reducing the typical shallow breathing that comes with impatience, you’re slowing your heart rate and instantly relaxing your body. When our breathing is shallow, our thoughts become erratic as less oxygen is getting to our brains. So by allowing more oxygen to enter your brain, you will actually be able to think more clearly when you start to become irritable.
3. Relax your muscles. Impatience can also cause your muscles to involuntarily tense up. Consciously focus on relaxing your muscles by squeezing sets of muscles (e.g., your calves), one at a time, and feel the tension start to leave.
4. Slow down what you’re doing. Rather than giving in to the urge to keep plowing ahead with whatever you’re feeling or doing when you become impatient, force yourself to slow down by moving more slowly, and speaking unhurriedly. Your mind has the ability to mimic the emotions of your physical behaviors, so by slowing your bodily movements down, your mind will calm down, too.
5. Listen to what others are saying. When we start to rush and get impatient, we stop listening to what others are actually saying. Slow yourself down and give people your full attention to what they’re saying. Show empathy in the emotions that they’re displaying, and give your sincerest attention to their needs.
6. Check your internal dialogue. Our internal dialogue can be one of the most powerful tools that we have against impatience. When we get really riled up with impatience and anger, we fuel the story in our minds that keeps the emotions going. “Can you believe he just said that? He deserved a piece of my mind. I’m NEVER going to speak to him again! What an a**hole!” We get caught up in the thought cycle about how wrong that person was, how awful the situation was, and it keeps the story alive and painful in our minds. STOP the story the moment you begin to hear your thoughts ramble like this and reasonably talk to yourself. “Do I actually need to get this angry?” “What’s really bothering me here?” Ask yourself why you feel this way, and calm yourself down by telling yourself that what you’re feeling is temporary, and you can either choose to hyper focus on what you’re feeling and prolong it, or you can cut it off by choice.
7. Get used to feeling a little uncomfortable. It’s hard to change habits that are so engrained into our everyday interactions. Why? Because it’s uncomfortable to go against what feels natural, and society teaches us that being “comfortable” is the only state we should ever experience. Building your patience isn’t going to be easy because it will force you to become a little more uncomfortable when you’re faced with situations that would usually make you impatient and irritable. But, with a little bit of practice (and patience, of course), it will get easier, and you’ll quickly find that expressing patience, even in the most trying situations, isn’t as hard as it once was.
