Eight Consequences of Being Impatient
A positive attitude makes it easier for you to enjoy your day-to-day life. It allows you to enjoy restful sleep and gives you the possibility of establishing higher-quality social relationships. On the other hand, stress and anxiety can make you feel exhausted. These emotions arise when you’re impatient.
If you’ve ever needed a work report that didn’t arrive on time or made plans with a friend who arrived late, take a moment to evaluate the significance of these events. Are they worth becoming impatient over?
The psychological consequences of being impatient
1. Impatience complicates everything
Being impatient won’t benefit you in any way. The only thing it leads to is a sense of frustration and helplessness, seeing that you can’t do anything to improve the course of events. Additionally, these feelings will only put you in a bad mood. Impatience fuels impatience.
2. Impatience doesn’t allow you to enjoy the present
It’s important to enjoy every moment to the fullest. In this sense, impatience doesn’t allow you to live in the present, as you can’t avoid focusing all your attention on what’s coming next.
3. Being impatient clouds your vision
Most situations have both a positive and a negative side. For example, if you’re stuck in a traffic jam, you can use that time to listen to the radio, play music, or make a pending phone call. This will keep you distracted and help you avoid feeling as if you’re wasting time.
4. It reinforces negative emotions
Impatience will turn you into an anxious and stressed person who tends to always see the negative side of each situation. You have to bear in mind that your personality depends on your emotions. Being impatient will lead to a negative attitude and constant complaining.
5. Being impatient affects your emotional state
If you want to feel good about yourself, the best thing you can do is learn how to manage your emotions. Although you don’t have to eliminate impatience, you shouldn’t let it cloud your ability to think and make judgments.
How being impatient can affect your health
In addition to the consequences that being impatient has on your emotional well-being, it can also affect you physically:
6. Being impatient can lead to obesity
Impatient people may be more prone to obesity because they’re used to spending less time eating. They tend to eat more compulsively and less orderly, consuming more food in less time.
7. High blood pressure
Impatient people are at a higher risk of suffering from hypertension. This may be due to their high stress levels that are heightened by how overwhelmed and helpless they feel due to their impatient and anxious nature.
8. Premature aging
Finally, impatience can also speed up the aging process. Similar to the risk of hypertension, impatience-related stress can cause premature aging.
Impatience affects the telomeres, which are structures that protect DNA from deterioration. When the telomeres are weakened, the DNA breaks down quicker and the signs of aging appear. Impatient people tend to have shorter and weaker telomeres.