What If All Emotions Only Lasted 90 Seconds?

What if all emotions and feelings only lasted 90 seconds? How would you spend that time? Would you try to manage them or would you surrender to them?

We’ve been taught to manage our feelings rather than understand them. 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.⁠

Within that time our thinking kicks in and we start to intellectualize what we’re feeling. But doing that only prolongs those feelings and a narrative on emotions is born. Surrender doesn’t need to mean giving up. It means accepting what is true.⁠

We’re not trying to knuckle our way through the 90 seconds either though. Just starting to understand that emotion is always only temporary and constantly in motion is how you begin to take the power away from it consuming you.⁠ Consider this as a new truth for you.⁠