09.01.2025

MASTERING YOUR FEELINGS IN 90 SECONDS ENSURES PEACE AND SUCCESS AT WORK

Wow, how angry your colleague (boss, client, partner) got. You've been boiling for half an hour now and you can't stop. Although you followed the basic advice of psychologists - you counted to 10, you did not respond, you stopped the conversation and you withdrew from the battle.

Then follow two more recommendations. First, stop with the so-called mental rumination - don't repeat what the colleague said to you that made you so angry, and what you could have said back to him to put him in his place and come out victorious.

Second, switch your brain into analytical mode. In other words, focus on the causes of the conflict and on the conclusions - what it taught you.

Psychologists assure that any negative emotion - even the strongest such as rage, passes in 90 seconds. If she keeps you more, then somehow you turn her on again, you don't let her go.

Your colleague is no longer angry with you. You are angry with yourself. And whatever he said or did, it's not his fault. It's your own fault.

You probably know this mantra often repeated by professionals that you cannot influence unpleasant events, circumstances, people, but you can influence your reaction to them. However, it amazes you that negative feelings can go away in just 90 seconds. what normal person calms down for that much. A minute and a half is too little.

It's not, explains Dr. Jill Bolty Taylor, a neuroanatomist, brain researcher, and author of The Stroke of My Insight.

The negative feeling is a signal of stress and excites hormones (adrenaline, norepinephrine, dopamine, cortisol, etc.) that prepare the body to respond immediately to aggression from the environment and to defend itself in the emergency situation. This initial biochemical response to physical or mental stimuli is instinctive, it is beyond your control.

"But hormones are completely broken down in the body in less than 90 seconds. In 90 seconds we can observe the process happening inside us, feel it and watch it pass. After that, any emotional responses are a personal choice of the person themselves - to stay or not stay in that emotional loop. Neurologically, we have the power to choose who we want to be," Dr. Taylor points out.

A minute and a half is enough time to realize the emotion, suffer and tame it. Otherwise, the negative feeling continues to excite hormones that begin to poison you, because they trigger a whole series of harmful physiological processes in the body, changing the priorities of the blood supply. This is dangerous for health - it is not by chance that nature has set the biochemical reaction to pass in just 90 seconds.

In addition, you do not help each other in solving the conflict because you are not able to think clearly.

The mastery algorithm is simple and you can apply it to any negative emotion.

The colleague says something that makes you angry.

You say to yourself: "I am angry". I.e. you become aware of and name the feeling that rages within you.

Then you start thinking along the lines of "What I'm drinking right now is just a feeling. It will go away." It will do you good to breathe deeply.

Hormone production will soon return to normal. Research has shown that norepinephrine (norepinephrine) - the so-called anger hormone, a neurotransmitter secreted by the adrenal glands, disappears from the bloodstream in 90 seconds.

The emotion will diminish and be about to pass if you don't reinforce it.

It won't happen if you don't switch your brain from stress to analysis. Why did it happen, what did I learn from it, how can it not happen again, and other such questions are an effective way to switch.

You are already calming down, regaining self-control, managing your feelings and reason.

Experts say that if he remembers the 90-second rule and consciously follows this algorithm, any normal person can get rid of anger, rage, rage, resentment, etc. unpleasant emotions really for about 90 seconds.

If he can't, he has some mental problems for which he needs to consult a specialist. Getting stuck in a negative emotion is a sign that he needs help, because he is overloaded with stress and has "burned out" the natural processes in his body. Because of this, it is unable to switch even though it tries. He probably thought he was in emergency situations for too long, drew on a toxic biochemical cocktail, lived in heightened arousal, and drove himself into anxiety, depression, or a more severe mental disorder.

The application of the algorithm should work no matter how great the intensity of the feeling. In fact, you only quantify your anger or resentment when you start thinking.

This is another critical moment where you should not allow yourself to go back to experiencing the emotion as if the emergency was happening again. The goal is to get away, not to beat yourself up, repeating to yourself, "He pissed me off a lot, he hurt me a lot," psychologists emphasize.

You can understand why and how this method works by a simple comparison with a familiar unpleasant condition - a headache.

You imagine that it was not a colleague who was angry with you, but a headache. At first you feel discomfort.

You say to yourself: "I have a headache". I.e. you become aware of and name what you are experiencing.

Then you think along the lines of "What I'm experiencing right now is just a headache. It will go away." You don't say to yourself "it hurts, it hurts, wow how much it hurts", you take a pill and the headache really goes away.

Analysis switching works the same way, experts explain.

With negative feelings, it's even easier knowing that they will pass in 90 seconds - you are naturally programmed biochemically to wash away the hormonal response.

Dr. Taylor recommends looking at the second hand of your watch during this time.

Then, if the conflict is minor, there is no need to even analyze it, just give your brain some other activity, more positive and relaxing.