The focus of this month’s social media is to examine three ways to boost our emotional intelligence while managing our reactions to others. In the Ezine we looked at Mary Beth O’Neill’s four steps for reactivity management. In this Blog, we will look at Jill Bolte Taylor’s 90 Second Rule.

In her book, My Stroke of Insight, Bolte Taylor states, “When a person has a reaction to something in their environment, there’s a 90 second chemical process that happens in the body; after that, any remaining emotional response is just the person choosing to stay in that emotional loop.”

You can’t control the quick chemical response but you can choose what happens next.

“When my brain runs loops that feel harshly judgmental, counterproductive, or out of control, I wait 90 seconds for the emotional/physiological response to dissipate & then speak to my brain. I am consciously asking my brain to stop hooking into specific thought patterns.” Jill Bolte Taylor says this is learning to listen to your brain.

She offers the 90-second rule, as a way for us to understand our reactions to threatening situations. When we are faced with a situation where we “feel” a sense of threat, as danger approaches–which can happen when someone speaks to us using a tone that appears angry or disrespectful, or when we feel overcome with anxiousness or heightened levels of nervousness or stress–our body reacts with a chemical response. In other words, at times we can have an automatic and physiological reaction to a given situation of threat that impacts our state of being, which in turns influences what we do and how we behave. However, this physiological reaction only lasts for 90 seconds or less before it has moved through our body. Whenever we stay angry or upset with someone based on our response to his or her behavior, or we let our emotions overtake us, it is a choice that we have made, says Bolte Taylor. Or, perhaps it is because of a choice we did not make, as we gave in to the emotions. One way or another, a decision is made, either automatically or after controlled thinking–let’s call it mindfulness–that keeps us from jumping to an automatic response that we later regret.

When was a time you gave yourself a 90 second pause that changed what you said or did?

Bolte Taylor, J. My stroke of insight: A brain scientist’s personal journey (2005). New York, NY: Penguin Group.