Why impatient people are quite right to fear their time is running out

IT IS said that patience is a virtue, but it could also lead to a longer life, a study suggests.

Intriguing research has found that impatient people are ageing prematurely and the desire to get things moving could be linked to the fact that their life really is slipping away.

The findings lead to the possibility that impatient and anxious people could slow down their ageing process with interventions, like meditation.

To measure impatience, scientists from the University of Singapore asked 1,100 undergraduates to take part in a game in which they could choose an immediate cash reward or wait and receive more money in the future.

The game is based on the well-known Marshmallow Test, in which children are told they can have one marshmallow now, or two later. Those who choose to wait generally do better in life.

After determining which students were impatient, the researchers then took blood tests and measured the length of their telomeres – the protec- tive caps on the end of chromosomes which prevent damage to DNA.

Telomeres grow shorter and wear away over time, so they are a marker of how fast a person is ageing.

The scientists found that students who chose the immediate reward had shorter telomeres, suggesting that impatience was somehow written into their biology and linked to decreased lifespan. Dr Xing Zhang, of the University of Singapore said: “We are unable to fully disentangle two potential underlying mechanisms, whether impatience leads to shortened telomeres or, alternatively, shortened telomeres lead to impatience.”

Telomeres stop chromosomes from fraying, clumping together and “scrambling” genetic code. Scientists liken their function to the plastic tips on the ends of shoelaces, and say that lifespan is linked to their length.

The team is planning a follow-up study to see if mindfulness – a form of meditation – can help reduce impatience and preserve telomeres for longer.

“We hope to investigate the extent to which the changes in the degree of patience demonstrated by subjects predict any changes in telomere length,” said Dr Zhang. “This will enable us to address the question of causality to some extent.

“If changes in patience precede changes in telomere length, the findings would be pointing to the idea that improved patience leads to preserved telomere length.”