Strategies to Help you Deal with Low Frustration Tolerance

Having "low frustration tolerance" is often a factor in creating stress and can lead to anger and rage.  The good news is frustration tolerance can be increased by simply changing the way you think about things.  What is low frustration tolerance and how can you work to address it?

Low frustration tolerance is just what it sounds like.  You do not tolerate even the most minor frustrations well.  You are easily irritated.  You have a short fuse.  Some people with low frustration tolerance seethe quietly, some explode verbally, and some resort to physical violence when provoked. 

How can you increase your ability to deal with stressors, irritants and frustration without blowing your cool?

1.  Realize It's All in Your Head

When the irritation happens and before you lose your cool, you have a thought or harbor some belief which either lowers or increases your frustration.  What are some examples?  Imagine being stuck in a long bank line for 45 minutes.  Most Americans would become agitated and restless.  Some will blow a fuse.  Yet an African might be very pleased to stand in a long line.  The line and the wait time are the same.  Why the difference?   Because of the beliefs they hold about standing in the line.

An America may stand in the line thinking:

"This is ridiculous."
"I don't have time for this."
"They should have more staff to handle this."
"It shouldn't take this long to deposit a check."

A student in one of my classes pointed out that in an African country where people have to walk long ways to get from place to place, waiting in a line is viewed as a good thing.  They consider it an opportunity to rest. 

These two different viewpoints about standing in a line for 45 minutes cause different feelings.  If you believe you shouldn't have to wait 45 minutes, you get irritated.  If you believe this is a rare opportunity to rest, you feel relieved and happy. 

Now consider situations which irritate or annoy you.  Look at some of the thinking which may be causing you to be more irritated or frustrated that the situation warrants.  Here are some examples:

• "I can't take this."
• "This is too much."
• "I can't wait that long."
• "It shouldn't be this way."
• "It shouldn't be this difficult (or complicated)."
• "I should always be happy and content."
• "Things must go my way, and I can’t stand it when they don't."
• "I can't stand being frustrated, so I must avoid it at all costs."
• "Other people should stop doing things which annoy me."

Why is it important to listen to what you are thinking?  Because you can change what you are thinking.  As the example of waiting in a line shows above, if you change your view of what is happening, you can change how you feel about it.  If you can tune in to what is going on in your head you can rewrite the script.  A large part of feeling frustrated comes from feeling helpless.  Realizing you aren't completely helpless decreasing the frustration. 

It can also be the case that what you are thinking is incorrect.  If you have inaccurate beliefs (i.e. your husband doesn't always tune you out when you are talking) then your frustration may be unwarranted (he may actually be listening to you this time).  If so, challenging the validity of the belief can challenge the frustration that results from it.  The scene that used to make you blow might now have no effect at all, or it may even make you laugh. 

Hint:  Be on the lookout for words like "must", "can't", "should", "have to", "always", "never" and other inflammatory language. 

Irrational Belief	Rational Belief
I can't take this.	You can take this.  You will not die or go insane from standing in line or getting stuck in traffic.  You can take it.  But you have a choice about how you take it.  You can spend the next hour having a conniption fit and raising your blood pressure several points or you can spend it listening to music, catching up on calls, or reading a book.  Your choice.
This is too much.	Too much what?  Stress?  If it is too much stress, remove yourself from it and regroup before you blow your top.  If it is too much inconvenience, frustration or annoyance, ask yourself, is it really too much?  Let's say you've been standing in line at the DMV for four hours trying to get your license.  Ask yourself, is it too much of a frustration, or merely a frustration?  If it really is too much, leave and come back when it is less crowded or you have more time.  If it has to be renewed today, weigh the cost of getting a ticket for driving without a license.  Is it still too much of a frustration?  Or does the danger of a ticket outweigh it?  If the benefit of driving legally outweighs the frustration required to get the license, make a decision about how to pass the time in a productive manner.  If you are standing in line for concert tickets, is it too much frustration, or is it worth it to go to the concert?  Realize you have choices.  You don't have to stand there, you choose to.  You have something to gain from tolerating this frustration, whether it be concert tickets or a renewed license.
I can't wait that long.	You can't wait that long, or you simply don't want to wait that long?   There is a difference.  If you truly cannot wait that long, leave and plan to come back when you have time to wait.  If you don't want to wait that long, make a choice.  Is waiting worth it or not?
It shouldn't be this way.	But it is this way.   Now what?  You cannot change the situation, but you can choose how you react to it.
It shouldn't be this difficult (or complicated).	But it is this difficult (or complicated).   Now what?  Deal with the reality of the situation instead of some ideal situation that you have created in your head.  Let's say you are trying to complete your income tax return.  It is difficult.  It is complicated.  You are not a numbers person and forms are not  your forte either.  You do not have the power to change the difficulty and complexity of the required procedure.  Do you want to spend your time and energy ranting about it?  Do you want to hire someone else to deal with it?  Or do you want to do it yourself and get it over with so you can get back to doing what you enjoy?  Choose how will you deal with it.
I should always be happy and content.	You should?  Or what?  Your head will explode?  Where is that written?  Is that true for everyone else?  If not, why should it be so for you?  Perhaps you would like to be happy and content all the time, but is that realistic?  No.
Things must go my way and I can't stand it if they don't.	Things can't go everyone's way all the time.  That's simply impossible.  We can't all be first in line at the DMV.  So what are you going to do when it's not your turn for things to go your way?
I can't stand being frustrated, I must avoid it all costs.	Then do so.  But make a list of what you will lose out on if you do this.  Then decide if it's worth avoiding the frustration to avoid the pleasaure too.  It may be.  It may not be.  But make a conscious choice, then take responsibility for it.  I hate driving in rush hour traffic.  So I choose to ride the bus to work rather than drive.  It takes about 30 minutes longer each way, but I use that time to catch up on my reading and arrive at my office refreshed and calm, rather than stressed from driving down I-35 at rush hour.  I am happy with that choice.  However, I sometimes choose to drive in rush hour in order to be able to accomplish errands at lunch or attend a performance downtown that evening.  Then the convenience of completing the errands or the pleasure of attending the performance outweigh the frustration of the traffic I have to fight my way through.  Either way, I have made a conscious choice and I'm am happy with it.
Other people should stop doing things which annoy me.	Or what?  You have no control over other people. Only yourself.  You cannot control what other people do.  You can only control how you react to it.  Stop letting other people control your day and your emotions.

2.  Expose Yourself

Another way to increase your tolerance for frustration is to gradually expose yourself to frustrating situations.  Make a list of situations in which you tend to lose your cool or overreact.  Commit yourself to face at least one of these each day or each week, depending upon the severity of the frustration.  If it is rush hour traffic, once per day may be too much too often.  If it is waiting in line for coffee, once per morning might be tolerable.  If you can stand your husband's dirty clothes on the floor, try to go a day without picking them up, then two days, then three, etc.  Try to increase your tolerance slowly.

3.  Rate It

Sometimes rating the frustration puts it into context.  If you are thinking, "This is terrible!"  Ask yourself, "How terrible is it?  As bad as a root canal?  An auto accident?  Being fired?  Getting divorced?"  On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst you can imagine, how terrible is it?  Putting it next to other things you have experienced in life may cause you to realize that waiting 30 minutes for lunch during the lunch hour rush may not be the worst thing that ever happened to you. 

4.  Develop Skills

Developing skills for helping you handle stressful events can help you weather them with more grace.  Figure out what your issues are when you get frustrated.  Is it that you feel trapped?  Powerless?  Bored?  Pressured for time?  Inconvenienced?  Discounted?  Then figure out how to do something which eliminates that feeling. 

I try to carry a book or magazine with me.  Being of German descent, the idea of "wasting time" is a real frustration provoker.   (I think Germans have special genes which make "waste" and "inefficiency" especially intolerable!)  When I get trapped somewhere (rush hour traffic, a long line, a late appointment, etc.) I catch up on my reading.  This serves two purposes:  1) the time doesn't feel wasted, 2) it keeps me amused and out of trouble, 3) I feel I accomplished something when I finish reading a book that would otherwise have piled up on my bedstand and 4) I don't feel so much at the mercy of life's little calamities.  

Making active choices instead of merely reacting can greatly decrease your feelings of stress and frustration and give you a better sense of control over your life.  Working to increase your tolerance for frustrations which cannot be otherwise avoided will help you feel more confident and competent in your ability to handle annoyances.  Both of these together can make your life more peaceful and your world a little calmer.

 

Comments

[D]

I've been reading these kinds of instructions for years and they really do help a little. But unfortunately, some of us feel like hopeless cases when it comes to getting past this problem.

Ever since I was a little kid (I'm now pushing 60), I've felt this seemingly unmanageable frustration that wells up in relation to minor inconveniences. Certain stimuli just really push my buttons hard: devices and software that don't work as they should, making the same error successively, getting lost in the car when I'm in a time crunch -- little stuff. In retrospect, I can assess these things as comparatively trivial. But when the episodes are going on, they seem -- feel -- like really big deals. At those times, I complain like mad, swear like a drunken sailor (I don't normally talk that way), feel sorry for myself, etc. Then afterwards, I'm ashamed of the undignified way I conducted myself, even if I'm alone.

I've noticed that the few times I've been on antidepressants, I've felt a much higher frustration tolerance -- dramatically so. But I don't want to be drugged forever.

So any advice for the long-term, hard cases?

[Solutions Therapy]

Hi D,

Not being able to speak to you it is hard to tell what the problem is, but it's not something I haven't heard before. In fact, it's fairly common. It sounds like your emotional bank account is overdrawn, leaving you no buffer to take everyday irritations in stride.

I would like to ask if you get frustrated this way when you are in love, or have landed a new job or when you are on vacation. In other words, when you are really happy do you still get frustrated this easily? My guess would be that you don't.

It's also interesting that you mention antidepressants. They can really help with the low frustration tolerance and irritability because they raise the levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin. Serotonin causes you to feel calm and less irritable. So you've found a solution to the problem, you just need to figure out how to replace the antidepressants with behaviors which produce the same results - raising serotonin levels.

There is another neurotransmitter which antidepressants don't usually affect - dopamine. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter which gives us feelings of pleasure.

So it would seem the goal would be; finding out how to release serotonin and dopamine naturally so you would not be dependent on the medication. And this is possible. Anything which gives you pleasure or makes you happy releases serotonin. By this I mean real pleasure and real happiness. Not the kind they sell you on TV when they tell you that buying the latest, greatest product will make you happy. True happiness and true pleasure usually don't cost much, but you have to take the time to do them.

I cannot possibly know what gives any one person pleasure or happiness. We are all unique. So please take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt and develop your own list of things which give you pleasure. The following list is just an example of some things which might work.

Research has shown that the following things can naturally lift serotonin and dopamine levels:

Sunshine
Exercise
Playing with a child or an animal
Eating something really delicious
Sex
Laughing

Other things which might raise your pleasure levels:

A warm, scented bath
A day at the beach or hiking in the mountains
Listening to your favorite music
Walking through beautiful scenery
Etc.

I have a friend who puts on Beethoven then lies on the floor and "conducts" the orchestra. The loud, booming, manic sounds of some of Beethoven's works energize him.

I hope this helps.

[Sophia]

Really interesting! I find it so hard to tolerate frustration.I don´t have patience at all.Sometimes I stop to reason for a while but then, I can´t help having an eating disorder...any advice to give me to keep on trying to deal with frustration and in turn develop patience?

[Solutions Therapy]

Hi Sophia,

I would suggest you start with the eating disorder! Eating disorders can seriously threaten your health, even your life, not to mention your mental health. I hope you will find a counselor and start there.

[deborah venable]

city people learn that waiting is part of life,as rural areas grow their long time residents do some stupid and dangerous driving!! iwas at a stop light today waiting to turn left/when the guy behind me in a pickup pulled to my left side and turned left while the light was still red..when driving in the country i don't dare stop for a yellow light. (rear-ended twice for douing that)i used to leave space in front of my car when stoppped at a light,not in farm towns they come from behind up the middle to fill the space!

[deborah venable]

it is HARD to be a christian/good person with all the mean-rude people we deal with.what i do is silently ask GOD HELP ME OUT HERE..when someone gives me mean look i'll smile at them (demons hate that)

[deborah venable]

there are mean (EVIL) people whose goal is to get us upset/angry enough to lose our cool.this realy FRUSTRATES me.

[deborah venable]

what can i do when i have chronic fatigue and FRUSTRATION makes it unbearable ? thanks everyone for taking time to think about this stuff.

[GLEN]

hello D, A big reason things set you {and myself}off is the low qaulity of life we get for working our ass off but not being able to afford or have time to enjoy life.go to a young peoples bar on a friday eve and i bet 90% will say that drinking is their way of relaxing.it becomes a cycle.mix boooze with frustration there will be trouble;because life is tense you don't need anyone invading your peace time..

[GLEN]

SOPHIA {nice name) can you afford to eat out with friends once a week?it can be fun.one night italian next time mexican etc.it will become something to look forward to.HOPE THIS HELPS!