Good things take time – but new research suggests mindfulness can make the wait easier

You know a ten-dollar reward next week beats five dollars today. Yet we still struggle to wait. That's why 'buy now, pay later' schemes have such a pull, even though we often regret them later. New research from Auckland University of Technology has an explanation: it's not weak willpower. Our brains simply hate waiting, not that they undervalue the future. The good news is that mindfulness meditation can help. In one study, before a mindful walking class, only thirty-six percent of participants chose to wait a week for a ten-dollar gift card over five dollars immediately. After the class, sixty-nine percent made the patient choice. A bakery experiment showed similar results: seventy-eight percent of customers waited two weeks for a larger coupon after watching a mindfulness video, compared to fifty-one percent who didn't. Why? Mindfulness makes the present moment feel more expansive and spacious, which makes waiting feel less costly. Per the researchers, this shifted people's sensitivity to time itself, but not their sensitivity to reward size—so meditation won't change how you value money, but it can make patience feel less like suffering.

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