How to Tolerate Annoying Things

Summary

Something like this has probably happened to you recently, maybe even today: You spilled your coffee while rushing out the door. You struggled to change a setting on your phone, only to give up in frustration. You got a bug bite, or sunburn, or stubbed your toe. You had to stand in a long line or wait in traffic. Someone spoke (or chewed gum, or slammed a door) too loudly. Someone interrupted or ignored you. These are not the kind of events that disrupt the course of your life. But they are all annoying, and sometimes bothersome enough that they could set the tone for the rest of your day. Annoying experiences like these have also been dubbed ‘micro-stresses’ or ‘daily hassles’. They usually come your way unexpectedly, cause you some stress, and interrupt your flow. Though they are minor compared with, say, a personal attack, an injury or a significant loss, I’ve seen in my work as a psychologist how often people struggle to tolerate annoying things or underestimate their impact. It’s quite likely that you’ve been told ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’ and ‘focus on the bigger picture’. Despite our best efforts, though, many of us sometimes find it hard to shrug off the lingering emotional effect of an annoying experience. Making it worse, you might judge yourself for not being able to just let it go. Even if a particular stressor seems insignificant on its own, annoying experiences can have a cumulative effect. Like drops filling a bucket, they can eventually spill over until you’re suddenly snapping at someone, or tearing up. Research suggests that accumulated stressors might take a toll in other ways too. For example, a study in the 1980s found that people who experience more daily hassles report greater fatigue, headaches, and gastrointestinal symptoms. More recently, researchers have shown that increased stress and hassles significantly predicted the consumption of high-fat and high-sugar snack foods, with implications for physical health. And clinical researchers ...