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Serious question, did you know your brain holds onto anger for exactly 90 seconds?
I saw a clip from a Jill Bolte Taylor talk where she says the chemicals from a angry feeling flush out of your body in about 90 seconds. Anything you feel after that minute and a half is you choosing to keep it going by replaying the story in your head.
So now when my kids leave the garage door wide open for the third time in one week, I count to 90 before I say a word. Half the time I'm laughing by second 60 because the number feels so silly.
Tried it on my brother after he made the same dumb joke about my truck at Thanksgiving. Did it work for you or did the count just make you more mad?
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schmidt.eva4d ago
Noticed something weird when I tried this. The 90 seconds only works if the anger is about something happening right now, like your kid and the garage door. But my brother's Thanksgiving joke has YEARS of history baked into it. One dumb joke isn't 90 seconds of chemicals, it's every dumb joke he's ever made stacked on top of each other. So the count did nothing except give me time to mentally replay all of them. Counting works for small stuff but old grudges seem to have their own clock and it's way longer than a minute and a half.
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