How to Change Your Life, 90 Seconds at a Time

Emotions last 90-seconds. Unless you choose to linger in them. It’s OK if you’re scoffing right now. We’ve all lived through moments where our emotions lasted far longer. We dwell, we catastrophize, we ruminate. We hold on to hurt, anger, doubt, fear, anxiousness, sadness, guilt…but that’s just it. We hold on. 

Brain scientist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor discovered the 90-second emotion rule that shows scientifically that emotions last 90-seconds if we don’t interfere. It’s when we interfere with those emotions that they linger and cause an infestation of sorts. 

How do you stop interfering?

You learn to “ride the wave,” as I like to tell my clients. It’s a form of impulse control, of self-control. This is a skill that I help my clients develop. The first step, after learning to recognize when you’re holding on to emotions, is to discover alternative ways of responding to situations that trigger an emotional response that you tend to dwell in.

Then you have to create space for yourself to allow that emotion to pass through you. There needs to be space between the trigger and the response. Viktor Frankl taught us this years ago when he wrote, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

To create that space, breathe. Breathe for 90-seconds. You can take a walk while you do it. You can stretch while you do it. So long as you take 90-seconds to breathe and allow that emotion to pass by you like a cloud drifting across the sky. Or, if you prefer, a tumbleweed that just rolls along.

Developing the skill that allows you to take advantage of the 90-second rule of emotions will change your life. It will decrease your stress by reducing the amount of negativity that you experience, which then improves your mental and physical health and your relationships. Give it a try, and let me know how it works for you.