90 Seconds

One afternoon in the 1950s, when my sister and I were little girls, our mother gave us each what she called an “all day” lollipop. Their bright swirls of colors and enormous size—they were almost as big as our faces—initially evoked collective squeals of delight from us.

But the giddiness didn’t last. As it turned out, those darn things seemingly did take a whole day to lick to the stick.

After ten minutes or so, our tongues got tired, the flavor became monotonous, and our jaws ached--and we’d scarcely scratched the surface. We tried biting them but they were too hard. We dueled with them like swords, but our mother yelled at us. Finally, we abandoned them on the kitchen counter and ran off to fill the rest of the day with activities we considered more fun.

That’s how it is with anger and me these days. It is no longer an all-day event. Seething, simmering, ruminating, and arguing make my jaws hurt, wear me out, and take me away from things I’d rather be doing with my life.  So I keep the “90-second” rule in mind.

Neuroscientists say it takes only 90 seconds for this entire process to take place: an initial trigger happens (the thing that made me angry), my brain releases a chemical, it surges through my body, creates a physiological experience (the feeling of being angry), and then completely dissipates from my blood. At that point, my automatic response is over.

All within 90 seconds.

How is it then that throughout my life I’ve often remained angry long after 90 seconds have passed—sometimes stewing about something for days?

I learned the answer in my DBT class. Turns out, it’s because I choose at the end of that 90 seconds to have another triggering thought, hence, re-triggering the brain circuit with yet another anger response and so on and so on. Experience has shown me that 90 seconds can stretch into minutes into hours into days.

So yesterday, when I felt anger overwhelm me, I quickly excused myself for a moment, walked to a chair in a sunny window, sat down and stretched out my arms with my palms up. I focused on the warming sensation on my skin from the late afternoon sun while waiting out the anger’s temporary rise, cresting, falling, and dissolving away.  

Within moments, I felt it subside. But to completely let it go, I had to consciously decide to turn my thoughts to a positive memory of the person with whom I was angry. From this less aroused/emotional state, I was able to forgive and stop judging.

I’ve decided that anger, just like that unrewarding lollipop, is just no fun to spend “all day” on. Besides, there are jelly beans.