Carolyn Todd
Many of us feel impatient more often than we’d like. Sitting stuck in traffic when you’re already 15 minutes late. Waiting in line when you need to grab lunch quickly before rushing back to work. Fuming while on an interminable hold with customer service.
What we’re missing in these moments is patience, a seemingly rare resource in today’s fast-moving world. While patience often feels so elusive in the moment, the good news is that it isn’t a fixed trait. It’s a skill you can get better at.
Here are some expert-backed strategies that can help.
Take a few deep breaths
It’s hard to feel patient when you’re caught up in stress, anger, or anxiety, says Sarah Schnitker, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University who studies patience. When you’re feeling overwhelmed with these emotions, it can be more difficult to remember those tips you read about being more patient.
“Once you get into that stress cycle, it can be hard to realise, ‘Oh, I do have tools I can use,’” Schnitker says.
So a good first step when you notice impatience arising is to take slow, deep breaths, Schnitker says. It sounds too basic to work, but it does. Research shows this simple practice activates your nervous system’s relaxation response.
Evidence points to diaphragmatic breaths, extended exhales and box breathing – where you breathe in, hold, exhale and hold for an equal number of seconds – as the best breathing exercises for that calming effect.
Breathing can help to plan for specific scenarios where you often lose patience, Schnitker adds. For example, “When my child is taking a long time to put on their shoes in the morning, I’m going to take three deep breaths before I respond.”
Create some psychological distance
One of the most effective ways to increase patience is a technique Emiliana Simon-Thomas, science director of the Greater Good Science Centre at the University of California at Berkeley, calls “zooming out”.
Ask yourself if you’ll still be upset about what’s currently happening in a month. “If you zoom way out, it becomes a small blip in the grand scheme of your week, your year, your whole life,” she says.
Research suggests that creating this type of psychological distance from your current experience can calm your nervous system and relieve stress, Simon-Thomas says.
For example, say your flight gets delayed several hours. In that moment, remind yourself: “If someone asks you in a month how your trip was, you’re not going to say, ‘Oh, I can’t remember anything except that my flight was delayed three hours,’” Simon-Thomas says.
You can also zoom out spatially, she adds. Visualising the entire airport from above, for example, helps you step outside of yourself and consider everyone else’s experience – perhaps prompting you to give a little more grace to the passenger in front of you at security who is taking forever to collect their items.
Shift from ‘I have to’ to ‘I get to’
The lens of gratitude widens your attention to see what’s good about even a seemingly frustrating scenario, Simon-Thomas says. “You’re shifting the perspective from ‘How come I don’t have this situation that I want?‘ to ‘How fortunate am I that I have this situation?’”
For times in your day where you’d really like to be more patient and present because it’s something that truly matters to you – like taking care of your child or pet – try to reframe the task as a privilege.
“The framing of it shifts how you experience that time,” says Cassie Mogilner Holmes, a professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management and author of Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most.
One quick way to do this: Swap “I have to” for “I get to”. Take that flight delay, for example. You might say to yourself, “I get to get into this metal tube and travel huge distances in a short amount of time? What a miraculous opportunity,” Simon-Thomas says. Waiting three extra hours starts to seem like less of a burden.
Or consider the task of putting your kids to bed, Mogilner Holmes offers. If you see the bedtime routine as something to just get through, then every little delay becomes frustrating. If you see it as a precious opportunity – because soon enough, your kids will be able to put themselves to bed – the time becomes something to savour.
“This makes us realise that these everyday things we move through mindlessly are actually these beautiful moments,” Mogilner Holmes says.
Practicing gratitude on a regular basis (with a gratitude journal, for instance) also makes it more accessible in moments of impatience, Simon-Thomas adds.
Try mindfulness meditation
If impatience comes from trying to rush to the next thing, then the direct antidote is settling into the present.
“Presence allows us to actually be in the moment and really absorb it,” Mogilner Holmes says. “So we’re not moving through time, but actually being in it.”
A great way to cultivate presence is mindfulness meditation. “Meditation is the practice of being present, such that you can turn it on at other points of the day,” Mogilner Holmes explains. Just a few minutes of daily practice can make it easier to tap into presence the next time you feel impatience bubbling up. Moving meditation – like yoga or mindful walking – also works well, she adds.
Say you’re waiting for the doctor. Instead of ruminating about how late they’re running, you might notice the trees outside the waiting room or the soothing quality of your breath.
Put your phone away
Another way to increase presence is to remove the things that pull you out of the moment and create a sense of urgency – such as your phone.
“Having your phone out of sight disconnects you from these incoming distractions,” Mogilner Holmes says. “It allows you to be in the here and now and really connect with the moment, as well as who you’re with, even if that’s just yourself.”
Putting your phone away – in a drawer, your purse, another room – also softens our ideas about what else we should be getting done, Mogilner Holmes says:
“The mere presence of the phone shifts our overall expectations of what we could and should be doing with any moment of our time.”
To implement this, designate certain activities, areas of the house or times of day as no-phone zones: the dinner table, coffee with a friend, your morning walk, date nights with your partner.
Talk – and laugh – about it
Research shows that even brief social interactions with strangers can boost your mood. So next time you’re feeling impatient waiting for a late train, strike up a conversation instead of scrolling.
Connecting with somebody and sharing a sense of fellowship and amusement about the ridiculousness of an inconvenience can feel nice and make the time pass, Simon-Thomas says. If you’re alone, call a friend or send a voice note.
Humour and levity are also powerful tools for defusing tension in moments of profound impatience, Simon-Thomas says:
“Ask yourself, is there some way to make this situation funny, amusing or more lightweight? Can you dissolve the seriousness of the moment?”
Crack a joke, put on a comedy podcast, swap funny stories with the person you’re with – whatever might make you laugh.
Ultimately, Schnitker recommends experimenting with various strategies to see what works for you.
And if you feel like your mindset isn’t improving quickly enough? There’s another opportunity to practice, she says:
“You have to be patient with yourself as you try to become more patient.”
Washington Post
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