Recently, I woke to the blaring noise of our downstairs TV. My husband had been watching it the night before and had accidentally left it on “pause” rather than “off.” The sudden blast was startling and aggravating, especially since it’s not the first time it’s happened.

Minor annoyances like this happen all of the time in life. We’re on a long hold with a customer service rep, forget our wallet at the store, stub our toe on an uneven surface, or find ourselves in a traffic jam. Whatever the cause—ourselves or someone else—these small hassles upset our peace of mind.

While we can’t avoid daily nuisances, we can change how we respond to them—and evidence suggests we should. The way we react to annoyances can be more important than how many we actually face. If we don’t know how to lessen the impacts, it hurts our personal well-being in the moment and it can affect our long-term health and relationships.

“It’s surprising, but research shows that [daily hassles] have as much, and sometimes more, effects than major life events on our well-being,” says Melanie Greenberg, clinical psychologist and author of the book The Stress-Proof Brain.

The likely reason for this is that major life events, like a divorce or death, are rare, while minor hassles can occur every day. Learning how to let go of our annoyance more easily is good for us and for others. Indeed, letting go can be an act of kindness to the people we love.

How daily hassles affect us

There’s no such thing as a stress-free life—and that’s a good thing. Moderate amounts of short-lived stress can help us to perform better and become more resilient.

But if we characteristically react poorly to minor annoyances—if we let them get the best of us—it can it affect our physical, mental, and social well-being.

Feeling irritated sets off the release of stress hormones, like adrenaline and cortisol, that prepare our bodies to respond to danger. While not problematic in itself, a stress response than happens too frequently or doesn’t dissipate quickly can cause wear and tear on our bodies and exhaust us. That’s why daily annoyances may harm our well-being, lead to depression, worsen our long-term health, and decrease our overall life satisfaction.

Less direct, but no less consequential, is how feelings of irritation can spill over into our relationships. If we’re stressed out by minor things, we may react badly, says Greenberg, by “saying the wrong thing or taking things the wrong way.”

“If we’re not calming to be around, people may not feel as close to us,” she says, which could lessen the kind of social support we need for good health. Lashing out at others when we’re annoyed is more likely to backfire than help make an irritating situation better. It can even be dangerous, like when our inability to curb our frustration over a reckless driver turns into road rage.

Not taking out our frustration directly on other people can have social consequences, too, though. For example, wallowing in a bad mood, muttering to ourselves, or slamming a door in frustration is bound to put the people around us on edge. Even those folks we don’t interact with much—like the barista at your coffee shop—may read our tense body language and behave differently, says Greenberg.

“We [humans] react to the way others respond to us. So, if we emanate a more chronically stressed-out vibe, I think we’ll get more stressed out or negative responses in return,” says Greenberg.

Trying to keep our irritation bottled up and letting it simmer isn’t the answer, either. Repressing our feelings stops us from recognizing what we need in the moment and can lead us to disconnect from others—or, worse, result in outward aggression.

Luckily, there are better ways to handle everyday annoyances that protect us and the people around us from harm.

How to handle annoyances more wisely

It’s important to note that we can’t always control how much we will experience hassles in life or how we’ll respond to them. Individual differences in our age, gender, education, environment, genetics, and past experiences may all contribute to how many everyday annoyances we’ll face and how we’ll react in the moment.

But even when our individual characteristics or experiences make annoyances harder to handle, there are tools we can use to soothe irritation before it creates more problems. Here are four suggestions for doing that.

1. Practice mindful acceptance. Mindful acceptance entails recognizing present thoughts and feelings and accepting them as they are. If we can mindfully tune into our bodies when faced with minor stressors, it can help us relax and manage the hard feelings better.

“At the first sign of going into an activated, stressed-out state, you can pause and do a mindful check-in—ground yourself, feel your feet on the ground, slow your breathing,” says Greenberg. “The earlier you catch yourself, the easier it is to do something about it.”

Research suggests that people who practice mindful awareness may be less triggered by everyday frustrations and better able to let them go. This can help our interpersonal interactions.

“When we’re mindful, when we’re present, we can soothe each other and connect. When we’re in a state of stress, it’s much harder to do that,” says Greenberg.

2. Reframe the little things. The second major technique is to reframe annoyances. Part of the reason a minor hassle can become more upsetting is that we overlay it with harmful interpretations. For example, if I take my husband’s lapse as a sign that he doesn’t care about my feelings, I may become more upset than if I put it down to something innocuous, like fatigue and distraction. Not every annoyance, however it feels, is a personal affront.

“A lot of the stuff [couples] argue about is just stupid stuff,” like replacing the toilet paper roll or how to load the dishwasher, says Greenberg. “But it takes on this huge significance because of how they’re seeing it as evidence that person doesn’t care about them or they’re not being heard.”

Reframing is similar to a technique used in cognitive-behavioral therapy, where patients are taught to question their negative interpretation of events and consider alternate explanations. While reframing won’t change the annoying situation itself, it can help negative feelings dissipate more quickly.

Another way we can reframe our experience is by seeing an annoyance as just an unavoidable facet of life or small in the face of other concerns, says Greenberg. When triggered, she suggests asking ourselves, What’s the big picture here? How important is this, really, especially compared to everything going on in my life? Is this something I even have control over? Asking questions like these helps us see our situation more objectively, as a small blip that doesn’t need to hijack our mood.

“Trying to take a step back and broaden our view can help us be like a fly on the wall, giving us a more distanced [perspective],” says Greenberg.

3. Practice Self-compassion and empathy. When things go wrong, we can sometimes be overly critical of ourselves. Greenberg warns about the problems with being perfectionistic and assuming the world will always run smoothly when that’s just not realistic.

“Sometimes we’re stressed out by the small stuff because we are being hard on ourselves,” she says. “Instead, taking a step back and telling yourself that you don’t have to do it all perfectly, that you’re doing a pretty good job given all that you’re facing, can calm the nervous system.”

Practicing Self-compassion—being mindfully kind to ourselves and recognizing our common humanity, where no one is perfect—can help us let go of perfectionism and manage our everyday hassles better, keeping us happier, too.

Similarly, we should remember that other people are also imperfect and need our empathy.

For example, if a customer service person is keeping you on a long hold and you feel your frustration rising, you can try to think of the situation from their point of view: Maybe they’re trying to solve your problem and it’s taking more time than they thought. Perspective taking can go a long way toward diminishing our negative feelings in an annoying situation.

4. Don’t forget the good and practice gratitude. Coping with hassles is always easier if we can keep in mind that there is also good happening around us. Yes, I picked the longest checkout line at the grocery store, but look at the amazing produce I’m buying. Yes, I stubbed my toe on the bed frame, but at least it’s not broken and I can still walk. Opening the lens of our experience and seeing what we can be grateful for can help take the sting out of common annoyances.

If this seems too Pollyanna or trite—or just too difficult to do in a moment of agitation—try practicing gratitude in the rest of your life. Having a grateful attitude can lessen the effect of daily hassles on our life satisfaction and improve your mood. This is likely because the positive feelings gratitude engenders help us broaden and build our personal resources for coping with common stressors when they arise.

Letting go for the good of everyone

Of course, there are other ways we can manage our minor upsets better besides these. Taking good care of our bodies (by eating right and getting enough exercise and sleep), heading out into nature when we can, practicing awe, and spending time with supportive people can all help keep our nervous system calmer and in better shape for managing daily stressors.

Some tactics might work better than others for you, and that’s fine. The key isn’t perfection, but intent. The next time you’re annoyed, try calming yourself rather than cursing for missing a tennis shot, or tailing a slow driver, or stewing over your friend being late. Doing your best to let it go, using whatever tools work for you, is an act of love that others will appreciate.

“We’re living in such very stressful times—antagonistic, hostile times—and people are under a lot of stress,” says Greenberg. “We need to try to think of ways, even just in your own network, to help people feel better.”

If we could all do that, think of how much kinder and more loving our world could be.