All About Patience: Definition, Health Effects, and How to Learn It

Whether you’re stuck in line at the bank, your teething baby is crying through the night (still), or you’re waiting on a decision after a series of high stakes job interviews, sometimes you need to dig deep and scrounge up every ounce of patience you have.

“Patience is a virtue” — so the saying goes. And while some of us tend to innately have more than others, mental health and behavior experts say it can be cultivated if we work at it.

Think of it like a muscle — the more you work it out, the stronger it gets, according to Debra R. Comer, PhD, the Mel Weitz Distinguished Professor in business at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, where she studies organizational socialization and virtuous behaviors.

“Patience is completely something you can grow, and something you need practice to do well. Anyone can improve if they try,” Dr. Comer says.

If you’re often losing your cool whenever your patience is put to the test, here’s everything you need to know about patience and precisely how to get better at it.

While we all may be familiar with the notion of patience, let’s start with its definition according to the researchers who study it.

Patience is the ability to stay calm in the face of adversity, waiting, frustration, or suffering, according to Sarah Schnitker, PhD, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, who studies patience, along with other character strengths like gratitude, forgiveness, and generosity.

In a nutshell, patience is all about putting up with something you’d rather not with calm acceptance, says MJ Ryan, executive coach and author of The Power of Patience: How This Old-Fashioned Virtue Can Improve Your Life and other books on positive emotions.

With patience, you aren’t begrudgingly accepting your circumstances. “It’s saying it’s okay this way, and I’m still going to keep at it,” Ryan says.

Patience may look like keeping up with your workout routine even though you’re not seeing the numbers on the scale shift or choosing to sing along to the song on the radio on your commute home as you sit in stopped traffic.

Impatience isn’t just the opposite of patience, Dr. Schnitker says.

A study published in 2021 in the Journal of Positive Psychology (Schnitker is the author) identified three buckets of scenarios that test people’s patience. They include: life’s daily hassles and interruptions (flight delays, traffic jams, and being put on hold on the phone for 45 minutes are examples); interpersonal conflict (difficulties with your colleagues or managing the quirks of your family members); and life hardships (such as systemic racism or dealing with a chronic illness you’ll need to manage for the rest of your life).

Impatience can bubble to the surface in two ways, according to Schnitker. The first is in the complete absence of patience — the stereotypical way we’d envision impatience — where we’re screaming and stomping with steam coming out of our ears. The second looks like disengaging or throwing your hands up in the air and giving up altogether.

The American Psychological Association (APA) dictionary does not define impatience, but defines irritability as “a state of excessive, easily provoked anger, annoyance, or impatience.”

We can attribute our levels of patience somewhat to our natural disposition and personality, but in a lot of instances, other factors are at play, too, according to Kate Sweeny, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of California in Riverside, where she studies the psychology of uncertainty and waiting.

Dr. Sweeny says that our natural temperament can explain why we are — or aren’t — as patient as our siblings, colleagues, or friends. Also, how we were raised and taught to practice emotional regulation skills and impulse control matters.

And then there are the conditions of a situation — namely our energy levels, resources, and how many other frustrating things we’ve encountered that day. A “patient” person could be lacking sleep, feeling “hangry,” or reeling from a day of having had their mental fortitude tested leaving their fuse a bit shorter, Sweeny says. (We are human, after all!)

Essentially, you’re working with a trio of factors — personality and disposition, a stressful circumstance, and your mood and energy levels that could make you more or less reactive at that very moment. “It’s combining challenging things of not knowing what’s coming, not having any control over it, and how you feel. Any of those is hard enough but together, it can feel like a total nightmare,” she says.

Good things really do come to those who wait. Tapping into your patient side has its fair share of potential benefits for your physical and mental health, research suggests.

Patience May Make You More Agreeable

For starters, patient people are more likely to be agreeable, conscientious, and open to new experiences, according to a study published in 2018 in the journal Health, Spirituality and Medical Ethics. After studying 440 university students, the researchers suggest that patient people have higher levels of empathy, altruism, and discipline. (Also, the patient people were significantly less prone to negative emotions — more specifically, those linked to neuroticism.) With that combination in tow, it’s no surprise the researchers found patient people “act peacefully” and tend to struggle less with the people around them and the circumstances thrown their way.

Patience May Boost Self-Esteem and Sense of Self-Control (and Productivity as a Result)

Results from Schnitker’s lab connected patience with life satisfaction, self-esteem, and a sense of self-control that helped study participants be more productive and work towards achieving their goals.

In a sense, patience facilitates persistence, Schnitker says. In her research following study participants as they trudged along with their life goals, Schnitker learned patient people were more likely to keep putting effort into their goals weeks into the process and were more satisfied with the pursuit of their goals.

“You need grit and self-control to accomplish a goal. Sometimes you might not ever get there, but patience has you continue anyway,” Schnitker says.

Patience May Boost Resilience in the Face of Life Stressors and Anxiety

Meanwhile, Comer’s research pinpoints how crucial it is to be well-equipped with patience to navigate life’s choppy waters. A study from her group, published in 2014, found that patient people don’t need instant gratification, often deliberate carefully before decision-making, and are less likely to ruminate or have anxiety.

Patience May Ease Negative Mental Health Symptoms and Related Physical Ones (Like Headaches, Acne, and Diarrhea)

The less stressful life of a patient person pays off. According to other work from Schnitker, research has found that not only are patient people more cooperative, equitable and forgiving, but their calm demeanor meant they were less likely to report symptoms of depression, loneliness and other negative emotions, along with fewer health problems like headaches, acne flare-ups, ulcers, and diarrhea. (Though it’s worth noting that having to cope with a stressor like a chronic mental or physical illness, can also make it harder to practice patience, so the cause and effect likely goes both ways, as Sweeney pointed out.)

Impatience May Increase Risk of Heart and Sleep Problems

On the flipside, impatience can wreak havoc on your physical health. Research dating back to the 1980s linked impatience with overall irritability and a higher risk of heart problems while other findings suggest impatient people tend to have more physical complaints and sleep worse.

Ryan notes that anger and irritability can increase cortisol, the stress hormone, and adrenaline, which kicks in when you’re in dangerous situations. “The feelings of impatience can make your body feel like you’re being chased by a tiger and about to die. We shouldn’t tax our systems this much,” she says.

Impatience May Speed Up the Aging Process

A study published in 2016 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences warned higher levels of impatience are tied to shorter telomeres, which are part of our DNA. Bear in mind, telomeres get shorter in length as we age, with the research implying impatience may be accelerating the aging process in our bodies.

Patience can be tough, but the experts offer these recommendations to help you get better at it:

1. Prepare yourself ahead of annoying situations. Comer’s biggest hack is to anticipate the situations where you’ll find your patience tested and come prepared, she says.

That could mean downloading a season of your favorite television show when you know you have a long layover between flights, or multitasking so you have some simple task to do while you’re on hold with the bank.

“You’re preempting the situation so you won’t feel like what you’re going through is unbearable,” she says.

2. Cultivate your coping strategies. Some people count to 10 quietly in their minds when they secretly want to scream, Comer says, while others put other tactics into play, such as meditating each night or excusing themselves to get some fresh air or take a brisk walk outside when they're in a situation they find trying. Note that some of these strategies help you cope with stress in the moment, and others are more preemptive solutions that will help train your brain to be less reactive to stressors when they show up.

If you’re waiting on big news, such as results from a blood test or a response on a job application, Sweeny suggests a two-step coping strategy for those situations. Make a checklist of everything you can do, from booking a follow-up appointment at the doctor’s office, or meeting more recruiters on your job hunt. After that, let go of the worry and distract yourself. “Find something that completely captures your attention, so you’re engaged, knowing you’ve done everything else to prepare,” she says.

3. Reframe the situation. Reappraise the situation — or think of it from a different vantage point, says Schnitker. This step requires a mixture of introspective work, showing empathy for others, and practicing gratitude.

If you hate your daily commute home when you’re stuck in traffic, reframe it as a golden opportunity to listen to your favorite podcast. This is introspection because you’re consciously taking a step back to observe your emotional processes while actively reworking how you feel about the situation.

And if your coworker’s last-minute requests have you white-knuckled, instead of dwelling on how irritated you are, call on empathy. Stop and take stock of every time you’ve turned to your colleagues for help.

Finally, practice gratitude daily, making a list of three things — big or small — that you’re thankful for in your life, Schnitker says. A study published in 2016 in the journal Emotion found that being grateful for the things you have can reduce impatience.

4. Measure your own progress — but don’t expect an overnight transformation. To monitor your progress, Ryan suggests keeping track of how many times you’ve lost your cool versus how many times you’ve reined in your emotions and put your coping strategies into play. First you’ll catch your impatience rearing its head after the fact but as time goes on, you’ll recognize the red flags early enough to alter your reaction.

Give yourself some grace, and do not be alarmed if it seems like you aren’t making any headway.

“Understand you won’t be perfect all the time, it’s a process that takes attention and commitment. People who actually change for the better don’t turn goofing up into giving up,” Ryan says.

Most of the time practicing patience benefits health and well-being, but not always, Schnitker says. If your patience is keeping you in a toxic work environment, an abusive relationship, or a one-sided friendship, for example, you aren’t doing yourself any favors. You’ll know because your mental health will take a toll or your patience will impede on your happiness.

Remember when we talked about impatience being either the lack of patience (losing it when you’re upset and using harsh words with a partner or friend) or disengaging (giving up)?

Ultimately, neither form of impatience is productive, Schnitker says. In one extreme, there’s an emotional regulation issue, and with the other you become apathetic and detached from the outcome. You’re either seeing red and sulking because the Starbucks line is moving too slowly, or you’re ditching the line altogether because you just can’t wait.

“Patience is about keeping reactivity under control, but still staying engaged despite the discomfort. You have to strike that golden balance,” Schnitker says.

Cleveland Clinic

The Cleveland Clinic’s clinical psychologists offer their key tips to cultivate patience to overcome life’s big and small daily hassles in this guide.

Mindful

Mindful is an online resource dedicated to teaching its readers about mindfulness, meditation, managing anxiety, and improving sleep — all key tools to help you keep your cool. Check out the organization’s online mindfulness courses, too.

Calm

Tap into your inner peace and patience using the Calm app, which offers a wide range of meditations and breathing exercises to help you wind down and relax. You can use the app for its library of guided meditations, sleep stories to lull you to bed or to listen to the sounds of nature whether you’re on a hike or you’re writing an essay.

You can try it out for a seven-day free trial; after that a subscription costs $69.99.

Headspace

Headspace is an app that teaches you how to meditate. It includes guided meditations focused on helping with daily challenges and tribulations including work stresses, trouble sleeping, managing anxiety, or improving focus.

You have an option for a 14-day free trial, followed by an annual subscription fee of $69.99.