9 Simple Ways to Be More Patient in Your Daily Life

Losing your cool too often? Patience isn't a gift, it's a muscle. Here are 9 ways to build it gradually and strategically.

There are many things that tend to test my patience:

…the Trader Joes parking lot

…lines at the post office

…waiting for a my cake to finish so I can eat it hot out of the oven

This made me wonder…is it possible to improve my patience? Why science says yes!

What Actually Is Patience (And Why Do We Suck at It?)

Researchers (source) discovered that patience is made up of three different skills rolled into one. There’s interpersonal patience (dealing with that coworker who tells the same story for the millionth time), life hardship patience (handling major setbacks without completely unraveling), and daily hassle patience (surviving the DMV without committing a felony).

Most of us are decent at one type but absolutely terrible at another. I can handle life’s big curveballs pretty well, but put me behind someone counting exact change at the grocery store? Different story.

The reason we struggle with patience comes down to something psychologists call “present bias.” Our brains are wired to want rewards NOW, not later. A Stanford study found that when we’re forced to wait, the same brain regions light up as when we experience physical pain. No wonder waiting feels so uncomfortable—your brain literally treats it like a threat.

Why Your Impatience Might Be Sabotaging Your Life

Before we jump into solutions, let’s talk about what impatience actually costs you. Because honestly? It’s probably more than you think.

Sarah Schnitker’s research (source) strongly linked patience to greater life satisfaction, better physical and emotional health, stronger relationships, and more successful achievement of long-term goals.

Meanwhile, chronically impatient people? They’re more likely (source) to have relational stresses, emotional sensitivity, and difficulties in forming effective relationships.

One study (source) even found that impatient people earn less money over their lifetimes because they’re more likely to take the first job offer rather than waiting for better opportunities. Ouch.

Your Personal Impatience Triggers (And Why They Matter)

Before you can become more patient, you need to know what specifically sets you off. Grab a notebook (or your phone—I’m not judging) and track your impatience for just three days. Note:

• What triggered it?
• What time did it happen?
• How hungry/tired/stressed were you?
• What story were you telling yourself?

When I did this exercise, I discovered something embarrassing: 90% of my impatience happened when I was hungry. Turns out I’m basically a toddler who needs snacks. Now I keep almonds in my car, and my road rage has decreased by approximately 73%.

You might discover your triggers are completely different. Maybe it’s when you feel disrespected. Or when you’re running late. Or when technology doesn’t work instantly (looking at you, spinning beach ball of death).

The 9 Simple Ways to Build Your Patience Muscle

The 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Technique

When you feel impatience rising, this technique hijacks your nervous system before you explode. Name:

• 5 things you can see
• 4 things you can touch
• 3 things you can hear
• 2 things you can smell
• 1 thing you can taste

This forces your brain out of fight-or-flight mode and back into the present moment. I use this constantly in traffic, and it works better than any meditation app I’ve tried.

Bonus: Meditation DOES indeed work, but it is more gradual. If you’re in it for the long-haul, check out our guide: How to Meditate Properly: A 7-Step Guide for Beginners

Do a Vow of Silence

Taking a vow of silence—even for just one day—is one of the most effective patience tests you can take.

Why? Because it forces you to sit with discomfort rather than verbalizing it immediately. When you remove the option to speak, you can’t interrupt, you can’t snap back, and you can’t rush a conversation to its end. You are forced to become an observer rather than a reactor.

The urge to speak is often an urge to control the situation. By staying silent, you build the muscle of self-restraint. If you can control your tongue for 24 hours, controlling your temper in traffic becomes significantly easier.

Our founder, Vanessa Van Edwards, took a strict 7-day vow of silence to test her own limits. It was grueling, but it completely rewired how she listens and interacts with people.

Watch the full experience here:

Read the full story:How to Take a Vow of Silence (and Why it Matters!)

Practice Micro-Patience

You don’t need to meditate for hours or attend a silent retreat. Start ridiculously small:

• Let one car merge in front of you without feeling annoyed
• Count to three before responding in conversations
• Choose the longer checkout line on purpose (I know, radical)
• Let your coffee cool naturally instead of blowing on it
• Read an entire article (like this one!) without switching tabs

These tiny practices build your patience muscle without overwhelming you. Think of it like going to the gym—you wouldn’t start with the heaviest weights.

Reframe Waiting as “Found Time”

Instead of seeing waiting as time stolen from you, what if you saw it as a gift?

Flip your mindset: Treat waiting not as lost time, but as unexpected pockets for quick wins.

I started keeping a running list on my phone called “Things to Do While Waiting”: quick, low-effort tasks that fit in 5-20 minutes. Examples: reply to a pending message from a colleague, review vocabulary flashcards for a foreign language app like Duolingo, perform 10 wall push-ups or shoulder rolls for posture relief, outline your grocery list for the week, listen to a podcast episode snippet, or meditate with a guided app like Calm for 5 breaths.

I actually get a tiny hit of excitement. Twenty minutes at the doctor’s office? Perfect, I can finally text my college roommate back.

Another way to think about “found time” is brain rest time. It’s rare our brain gets a break especially admist endless scrolling. Sometimes when I am forced to wait I reframe it as a gift to my brain.

These are great tips—find out more in this special:

The Physiological Sigh (Your Secret Weapon)

This breathing technique, popularized by Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, is the fastest way to calm your nervous system. Here’s how:

Take a normal inhale through your nose, then add a second, smaller inhale on top (like you’re sniffing twice). Then slowly exhale through your mouth for longer than the inhales combined.

The double inhale maximally inflates your lungs, and the long exhale activates your parasympathetic nervous system. Two or three of these, and your impatience literally melts away. I’ve used this in meetings when someone’s explaining something for the fourth time, and it’s saved me from saying things I’d regret.

Pro Tip: Want more? Read on: 8 Breathing Exercises For Next Time You Speak In Public

The “Future You” Visualization

When you’re about to do something impatient, ask yourself: “How will I feel about this reaction in 24 hours?”

Will “Future You” be proud that you laid on the horn for thirty seconds? Will “Future You” be glad you sent that passive-aggressive email immediately? Usually, the answer is a cringeworthy no.

Research (source) shows that people who regularly consider their future selves make better decisions and report higher satisfaction with their choices. It’s like having a wise friend on speed dial, except that friend… is you!

Pro Tip: Relying on your future self might not always work if your future self isn’t a good or reliable person. Let’s change that. Here’s an article on how to increase your future potential: 20 Steps to Become the Best Version of Yourself in 2025

Create Buffer Zones

Here’s a truth bomb: much of our impatience comes from poor planning. We’re impatient because we’re late. We’re frustrated because we’re overwhelmed. We snap because we’re stretched too thin.

Start adding buffer zones:

• Leave 15 minutes early for appointments
• Add 25% more time to any estimate you give
• Schedule breaks between meetings
• Plan for things to go wrong (because they will)

Since I started arriving places early, my patience has skyrocketed. Turns out it’s easy to be zen when you’re not frantically rushing.

The Power of the Pause in Conversations

Build interpersonal patience with this simple rule: When someone is speaking, mentally count to two (like “one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two”) before replying. Keep it to just those seconds—no longer, to avoid awkward silences.

This quick buffer delivers three core advantages:

1. Verifies they’ve wrapped up their point, preventing overlaps.
2. Lets you absorb and analyze their message for a sharper response.
3. Signals you’re attentive and considerate, strengthening rapport.

Integrate it into daily interactions: In team huddles, after a coworker pitches a solution, pause to weigh pros/cons before chiming in. During dinner with friends, count off after they share a story to ask a follow-up question that shows you got the nuances. On a client call, use the beat to rephrase what they said (“So, you’re prioritizing speed over cost?”) before advising.

Develop Your Distress Tolerance

Sometimes impatience is really just an inability to tolerate discomfort. We want the discomfort of waiting to END, so we get antsy and irritated.

Psychologist Marsha Linehan developed this concept of “distress tolerance”—basically your ability to handle uncomfortable emotions without freaking out. You can build this through:

• Cold exposure (cold showers, anyone?)
• Physical exercise that pushes your limits (including long yin yoga holds)
• Sitting with boredom without reaching for your phone
• Practicing saying “I don’t know” when you want to Google immediately

The more comfortable you get with discomfort, the less waiting bothers you. Want more tips? 50+ Best Ways You Can Step Out of Your Comfort Zone

Practice Self-Compassion (Especially When You Fail)

Here’s the thing nobody tells you: you’re going to fail at this. You’re going to lose your patience, probably today. Maybe in the next hour.

And that’s okay.

Kristin Neff’s research (source) on self-compassion shows that beating yourself up for being impatient actually makes you MORE impatient in the future. It depletes your emotional resources and makes you more reactive.

Instead, try this self-compassion phrase when you lose it: “This is a moment of struggle. Struggle is part of being human. May I be kind to myself in this moment.”

Cheesy? Maybe. Effective? Absolutely.

Here are more tips: The 15 Habits of Highly Empathetic People (Empathy Guide)

The Long Game: Why Patience Pays Off

Here’s what I’ve learned after working on my patience for the past year: patience isn’t about becoming a doormat or accepting bad treatment. It’s about choosing your responses rather than letting your emotions choose for you.

My relationships are STRONGER because I don’t interrupt or rush people anymore. My stress levels have DROPPED because I’m not constantly fighting against reality. And surprisingly, I’m actually getting MORE done because I’m making fewer impulsive mistakes that need fixing later!

A longitudinal study followed people for over a decade and found that those who developed patience in their 30s reported significantly higher life satisfaction in their 50s. They had better marriages, closer friendships, and more successful careers—not because patience made them passive, but because it made them strategic.

Your Patience Practice Starts NOW!

So here’s my challenge for you: pick just ONE or TWO of these techniques. Not all nine—that’s a recipe for overwhelm and giving up by Thursday. Pick the one that made you think, “Oh, I could actually do that.”

Maybe it’s the breathing technique. Maybe it’s leaving earlier for appointments. Maybe it’s that two-second pause in conversations.

Try it for one week. Just one week. Track how it goes. Notice what changes—in your stress levels, your relationships, your general sense of well-being.

And keep in mind:

• Patience is a trainable skill with three types: interpersonal (dealing with people), life hardship (handling setbacks), and daily hassle patience (surviving minor annoyances). Most of us excel at one type but struggle with others—and that’s completely normal.
• Your brain treats waiting like physical pain: Research shows the same brain regions activate when we’re forced to wait as when we experience actual pain, which explains why impatience feels so uncomfortable. Understanding this helps normalize the struggle.
• Start ridiculously small with micro-practices: You don’t need hours of meditation. Simple actions like letting one car merge, counting to three before responding, or choosing the longer checkout line on purpose can build your patience muscle without overwhelming you.
• The physiological sigh is your emergency brake: When impatience strikes, try the double inhale through your nose followed by a long exhale through your mouth. This scientifically-backed breathing technique can calm your nervous system in seconds.
• Buffer zones prevent most impatience: Much of our frustration comes from poor planning. Adding 15 minutes to travel time, scheduling breaks between meetings, and adding 25% more time to any estimate creates space that naturally increases patience.

And when you inevitably lose your patience (because you will—we all do), remember that patience isn’t about perfection. It’s about progress. Every time you catch yourself getting impatient and choose a different response, you’re literally rewiring your brain.

Want more science-backed tips for handling life’s daily frustrations? 13 Useful Techniques to Be Calm (That Actually Work)