The 90-second chemical reaction of emotions Our emotional triggers or red flags activate chemical changes within our body which puts us on full alert: the fight, flight, or freeze response. For these chemicals to be totally flushed out of our body takes less than 90 seconds.
That's the 90-Second Rule. As described by brain scientist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, “When a person has a reaction to something in their environment, there's a 90-second chemical process that happens; any remaining emotional response is just the person choosing to stay in that emotional loop.”
In neuroscientist Jill Bolte-Taylor's memoir, My Stroke of Insight, she notes that the physiological lifespan of an emotion in the body and brain is 90 seconds. The sensations—adrenalin, heat in the face, tightness in the throat, rapid heartbeat—arise, peak and dissipate on their own.
When things are getting hot and you're getting hot-headed, look at your watch. It takes 90 seconds to dissipate that anger response.” Another way of translating Taylor's rule is when you react to a situation, you make a choice to do so—an unconscious choice perhaps, or a neurological choice—but a choice nonetheless.
Tactics for survival are fierce as the 90 second rule is also in place, meaning athletes are eliminated from the race if they fall more than 90 seconds behind the leader after any discipline.
According to modern neurology, the average duration of an emotion in the human brain is 90 seconds.
Emotions are absorbed in the body in about six seconds. Each burst of emotion chemicals, from the time its produced in the hypothalamus to the time it's completely broken down and absorbed, lasts about six seconds.
Taking a 6-second pause when you are triggered by stress allows you the space to make a conscious decision about what to do or say next. Our natural tendency when faced with a stressful or challenging situation is to react immediately, without thinking about whether it is the most rational or appropriate way to act.
During a 6-second pause, the student engages the analytical part of his brain for at least 6 seconds (the minimum amount of time needed to create an emotional interruption) by participating in higher-order thinking. He can do this by recalling 6 math facts, naming 6 friends or thinking of 6 favorite foods.
Consistent with previous research on emotion duration, sadness was found to be the longest emotion whereas shame, surprise, fear, disgust, being touched, irritation, and relief were the shortest (Scherer and Wallbott 1994; Verduyn and Brans 2012). Interestingly, boredom was also found to be among the shortest emotions.
An emotion is normally quite short-lived, but intense. Emotions are also likely to have a definite and identifiable cause. For example, after disagreeing with a friend over politics, you might experience anger. Take the example of disagreeing with your friend.
Moods can last for hours while emotions last anywhere from seconds to minutes, at most. This is why it's typically easier to identify emotional triggers but difficult to pinpoint the trigger for our moods. Moods also don't have their own unique facial expressions whereas the universal emotions do.
Why? Because it enables us to eliminate or get rid of one of the variables, so we can solve a more simplified equation. Some textbooks refer to the elimination method as the addition method or the method of linear combination. This is because we are going to combine two equations with addition!
In propositional logic, conjunction elimination (also called and elimination, ∧ elimination, or simplification) is a valid immediate inference, argument form and rule of inference which makes the inference that, if the conjunction A and B is true, then A is true, and B is true.
According to Harvard brain scientist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, ninety seconds is all it takes to identify an emotion and allow it to dissipate while you simply notice it. When you're stressed, pausing ninety seconds and labeling what you're feeling (eg., I'm getting angry), tamps down activity in the amygdala.
What is the Five-Second Rule? The Five-Second Rule is a technique to get things done the moment they cross your mind. The rule is once you get an instinct or gut feeling to do something that you know you should be doing, start it immediately.
The rule is simple enough. Commit to a personal or professional goal for 21 straight days. After three weeks, the pursuit of that goal should have become a habit. Once you've established that habit, you continue to do it for another ninety days.
There are no guidelines for how much crying is too much. A study in the 1980s found that women cry an average of 5.3 times per month and men cry an average of 1.3 times per month. A newer study found that the average duration for a crying session was eight minutes.
The 90-second rule is one of Tony Robbins' natural remedies for anxiety. Accept that you feel fearful in the moment and look at a timer or clock; you have 90 seconds to feel terrible. Align your head and your heart through heart breathing and allow yourself 90 seconds to feel self-pity or fear or anger or worry.
Out of 27 emotions in total, the researchers found that sadness was the longest-lasting emotion; shame, surprise, fear, disgust, boredom, being touched, irritation and relief, however, were the shortest-lasting emotions.
"Check Six" refers to making sure you have situational awareness and know who is behind you (that is, your six o'clock position) trying to shoot you down. When a fighter pilot tells his wingman to "Check Six," it means to have a look behind you to see and avoid any threats.
Social psychologists have discovered that emotional response to a given stimuli is milliseconds faster than cognitive or thinking response. This is made possible in large part to this tiny almond-shaped bundle of nerve cells called the amygdala, which has found its place in our species for centuries.
Their conclusion: Joy moves faster than sadness or disgust, but nothing is speedier than rage.
Ekman & Friesen have identified six basic emotions: happiness, sadness, surprise, disgust, anger, and fear.