Patience Adds To Health Patience is not only a mental virtue; it is an asset even for physical health. I'm sure you are aware of the way your heart races when you get impatient. Perhaps you have noticed, too, that your breathing becomes faster and shallower. Doesn't it seem reasonable that if you can strengthen your patience to such a degree that other people's behavior never upsets you, your heart, lungs, and nervous system will be on vacation? Don't take my word for it; try it. At first, I agree, you will feel some stress from going against an established habit. That is to be expected. After all, when you have been leading a sedentary life, walking only as far as the garage or the television set, it is stressful for a while to get out and jog; your heart and lungs complain. But how quickly they feel better for it! It is the same with patience; this is one of the grandest secrets of health.

Research today suggests that emotional immunity to negative states of mind may well be linked to physical immunity, even resistance to disease. A person who is even-minded, who doesn't get shaken if people speak ill of him or excited when they praise her to the skies - such a person, I submit, is a poor host for disease. That kind of inner toughness creates a protective buffer, an enhanced resistance to illness and the everyday stress of daily life.