October 4, 2024 • 23 mins
How do you usually react when you're angry?
Have you ever regretted saying something in the heat of the moment?
Today, Jay talks about the transformative power of the "90-Second Rule," a life-changing technique that can help you choose your response in moments of intense emotion. Have you ever acted in the heat of the moment and later regretted it? Jay explores how 90 seconds can be the difference between reacting impulsively and responding with intention.
Inspired by Viktor Frankl's quote, "Between stimulus and response, there is a space," Jay unpacks the concept that this small window of time holds the key to our growth, freedom, and ability to create better outcomes in our lives. He shares personal stories, practical tips, and scientific insights to help you harness the power of this technique, including deep breathing exercises, mindfulness practices, and ways to recognize and label your emotions.
In this episode, you'll learn:
How to control your emotions in stressful moments
How to apply the 90-second rule to avoid impulsive reactions
How to recognize and label your emotions accurately
How to practice mindfulness in moments of frustration
How to take a 90-second break to reset your mindset
By allowing yourself those 90 seconds to breathe, reflect, and choose your response, you create the space to align with your values and intentions.
With Love and Gratitude,
Jay Shetty
What We Discuss:
00:00 Intro
02:17 It’s About How You Respond to Situations
06:27 The 90-Second Rule
11:55 #1: Set a Timer
13:05 #2: Do an Internal Weather Report
13:47 #3: Check-in with Your Body
18:01 Sadness Last Longer than Other Emotions
20:53 We Repeat What We Reward
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Let's be honest. Life is stressful, its work, its relationships,
and the state of the world. But there's a way
to bring that stress level down. Calm. It's the number
one app for mental wellness with tons of content to
manage anxiety, promote concentration, and help you unwind. There's music, meditation,
a more Calm makes it easy to de stress. You
(00:23):
can literally do a one minute breathing exercise. Personally, I
love the soundscapes. Nothing like a little rain on leaves
to help soothe my nervous system. I've actually been working
with Calm for a couple of years now, and I'd
love for you to check out my series on reducing
overwhelm eight short practices Quick Relief. Right now, listeners of
(00:44):
On Purpose get forty percent off a subscription to Calm
Premium at Calm dot com. Forward slash j that's c
LM dot com Forward slash jay for forty percent off.
Calm your Mind, Change your life. Ninety seconds could be
the difference between saying what you mean or saying something mean.
(01:09):
Ninety seconds could be the difference between losing someone you
love or showing someone how you want to love them.
Ninety seconds could be the difference in what the next
nine weeks or nine months may look like. Ninety seconds
of sitting with the emotions in your body allowing them
(01:32):
to settle will actually give you an awareness of what
you're actually experiencing. The number one health and Wellness podcast,
Jay Setty, Jay Settyjon. Hey everyone, welcome back to Honor Purpose,
the place you come to become happier, healthier and more healed.
(01:53):
My name's Jay Shetty, and I'm so thankful to be
back with you now. I recorded this theme for an
episode of My Daily Jay on Calm. If you're not
using calm to find balance, to find meaning, to meditate
and practice mindfulness daily, definitely check it out and it
(02:13):
inspired a longer episode over here. So there's a quote
that I absolutely love from Victor Frankel, the groundbreaking psychologist
and Holocaust survivor, and the quote goes like this, between
stimulus and response, there is a space in that space.
(02:34):
Is our power to choose our response. In our response
lies our growth and our freedom. Let me say that again,
between stimulus and response, there is a space in that space.
Is our power to choose our response. In our response
(02:56):
lies our growth and our freedom. We've heard this principle
probably a few times before, the idea that it's not
about what happens to you, it's about how you respond.
It's not about what's going on around you, it's what
you're able to do with it. It's not about what
(03:17):
the world throws at you, but what you decide to
do with it. And if you think about it, if
someone throws something at you, you have a choice. You
can catch it and almost make it a part of yourself.
You can dodge it and allow it to flow past you,
or you can catch it and throw it back to
(03:38):
try and create pain on the other person's behalf as well.
We always have a choice. But what happens is that
as time goes on, as we get busier, as we
reflect less, as we focus less on why these things happen,
what's happening around us, and as we just feel more overwhelmed,
(04:00):
we lose the ability to choose our response. And when
we lose the ability to choose our response, we potentially
lose our ability to According to Victor Frankel, have growth
and freedom, two things that I think are extremely important now.
In the Daily Jay episode, I talked about an experience
(04:23):
I had where I was driving home. It was a
beautiful day, the sun was out, and I was playing
some awesome music, and then all of a sudden, a
car came out in front of me, truly just cut
me off by surprise, Like I was really scared that
we were about to have an accident. I breaked really
really hard. I could feel some anger because it was
(04:45):
so like I can't tell you how close it was,
and I really really felt like it was, you know,
seconds apart, tiniest space from leading to a big accident
which not only would have affected me, but would have
affected them as well. And I'm sure you've had this experience, right,
I'm sure you've had this experience where someone cuts you off.
(05:06):
Something happens, maybe in traffic, you get really really angry,
and you're feeling this tension. You're feeling this stress, and
you might even want to, you know, like get out
and talk to the driver. Some of you may get
really angry. And maybe you've felt this before and maybe
you've acted on it. Now I didn't act on it
(05:27):
that day, but maybe you've acted on it. And I
find that maybe you've acted on it. Maybe you've said
something you didn't mean, maybe you've made a comment that
you didn't want to say. Maybe it was with your partner,
Maybe it was with your child, right, maybe your child
was just annoying you and you said something that you
wish you didn't say, and then after that you regret it,
(05:47):
you feel bad about it. It's not how you wanted
to act, it's not what you wanted to do. But
how do we stop that from happening? How many terms
have you had it where you got angry, passionate, aggressive
and said something you didn't want to or did something
you didn't want to because of the heat of the moment,
because of the emotion you were feeling, and the emotion
(06:10):
felt real in the moment, and it was, but you
acted on it. And now you look back and think,
I wish I never said that, I wish I never
did that. Maybe some of you have this voice in
your head before you go to bed saying, could have
done that better? Right, it could have been better? Now.
Neuroanatomist Jill Balty Taylor describes something she calls response ability,
(06:36):
meaning we largely have the ability to choose how we
respond to what's happening in the outside world, and she
says it helped her understand something called the ninety second rule.
Now I love this, and this is what this episode
is about. This ninety second rule. Now, when I was
driving and my brain sends danger, my body released adrenaline,
(06:58):
which is designed to help me focus and get ready
for action. That's how I was able to avoid an accident.
But after I took action, I still felt agitated because
my emotions were triggered along with my survival instincts, and
all the chemicals associated with those emotions take about ninety
seconds to dissipate as long as I didn't feed the emotion.
(07:23):
If I stopped myself from amping it up further, then
the chemicals would die down. On the other hand, if
I'd started yelling and screaming, my brain would have released
more anger signals and the feeling would have continued. So
what changed for me is I took some deep breaths
and allowed the chemicals and the feeling to pass. Right now,
(07:46):
as I dive into this topic, I want to be
really clear. This isn't about avoiding emotions. This is about
subverting those knee jerk responses that don't represent the person
we want to be when we say or do things
we regret. This is about buying time so we can
be more conscious and intentional, so that the action we
(08:07):
do take aligns with our values and beliefs. So here's
how I want you to think about it. What we're
trying to do in this moment is we're trying to
buy ourselves time so that we don't go and create
more pain, So that we don't go and create more stress. Right,
If you catch something that someone throws at you and
throw it back at them, it continues the cycle. If
(08:30):
you catch it and make it a part of you,
it continues the cycle. If you dodge it, you allow
it to go past you, although it does have an
impact on you. So how do we do that? In
a real life situation? Three deep breaths take about ten seconds,
So in ninety seconds, we can take twenty seven deep breaths.
(08:52):
This is a great number to count up to, to
put it in your mind's eye. Count to twenty seven
as you breathe in and breathe out. This ninety second
rule allows you to understand that chemically, if you allow
this to pass in ninety seconds, you have the ability
now to truly choose how you respond. It's almost like
(09:15):
for ninety seconds you're controlled you're influenced. You're going to
act in a way that may not be you, that
may not be aligned with who you are, or what
you prioritize, or what you believe to be valuable. It's
just ninety seconds, and so many of us give away
amazing relationships, break or blemish partnerships, friendships, whatever it may be,
(09:41):
because we don't want to wait. Ninety seconds. That's how
I want you to think about it. Ninety seconds could
be the difference between finding a solution and losing a friendship.
Ninety seconds could be the difference between saying what you
mean or saying something mean. Ninety seconds could be the
(10:03):
difference between losing someone you love or showing someone how
you want to love them. Ninety seconds could be the
difference in what the next nine weeks or nine months
may look like. Ninety seconds of sitting with the emotions
in your body, allowing them to settle will actually give
(10:26):
you an awareness of what you're actually experiencing. You may
find that what was first anger is actually disappointment. You
may find that what was first frustration is actually now angst.
You may find that was once quite aggressive is actually
a still and calm emotion, and when we're able to
(10:49):
master those ninety seconds, we can actually cope better with surprises. Now,
listen to this. If you prepared. Next time you hear
a surprise, something comes along and shocks you, let it
settle for ninety seconds, because chances are your initial response
won't be helpful. Now, this is different in a fight
or flight situation. Right in the car accident situation, I'm
(11:13):
happy that this kicked in and that I didn't have
time for ninety seconds to think through this. Similarly, in
a place of physical danger, it's great to avoid this,
but when it comes to more mental emotional challenges, this
can save us a lot of headaches. Ninety seconds could
save you from ruining the next nine weeks or nine
(11:36):
months of your life. Ninety seconds could save you from
ruining one of your best relationships. Ninety seconds could protect
you from reacting in a way that isn't aligned with
who you are and who you want to be. Now
(11:57):
here is the way I want you to think about
how to actually put the ninety second rule into practice.
The first thing is set a timer. When you're going
through something like this, set a timer and watch that
count down. It's almost like doing a plank if you've
ever done plank position in a workout and you know
you've got sixty seconds ninety seconds to do it, and
(12:19):
you're just waiting there, you might be in pain, you
might be sucking in your core and then trying to
loosen it. You might be trying to cheat a little
bit on the sides, but you're sticking it out for
those ninety seconds. Treat it that way. Turn on a timer,
have a ninety second timer ready to go, so that
you know you're allowing the chemicals to go down naturally,
(12:42):
because chances are in those first ninety seconds you called
someone up, you tell them how it's going, You now
exacerbate it. Right, you start texting someone frantically, you now
exacerbate it. So we're constantly extending our overwhelm. We're constantly
extending our anxiety, extending our stress, advancing our pain, when
actually we could deal with it in a much more
(13:03):
healthy way. The next thing is take a moment to
do what I call an internal weather report. Right, where's
it feeling cloudy, where's it feeling rainy. Remember, we're not
avoiding our emotions, We're feeling them. We're letting them be there.
We're just not acting on them. That's the difference, right,
(13:23):
We're just not reacting. We're allowing time to go pass
so that we can respond. If you act straight after
experiencing something, that is a reaction to what happened. If
you allow the ninety seconds to pass, you now received
(13:44):
it and now you're responding. I think another great tool
is to check in with your body. It's asking yourself,
what's going on in my body right now? What am
I thinking about? Right how am I feeling? You're almost
learning to observe your body and mind. This also allows
us to not make it personal. Often the reason why
(14:07):
we react so frantically, aggressively, passionately is because we take
everything very personally. These ninety seconds allow for you to
not make it personal and just observe yourself experiencing these emotions,
and especially notice the physical and mental emotions you experience.
(14:30):
A lot of us don't realize when we pretend like
we're not experiencing anything, it actually gets stored in the body,
and we don't want that to happen. We don't want
stress to get stored in the body. I've already mentioned
inhaling and exhaling can actively relax tense areas of the
(14:51):
body and mind, and this is probably one of my
favorite ways. Noticing and naming the emotion is a really
important thing. I found that being able to label how
you feel, especially things that come about more often than others,
is a really healthy way. Like, for example, I know
that before I go on stage, I often feel nervous,
(15:14):
but I call that my stage nervousness. I know that
that's my anxiety that I'm experiencing because I care about
what's happening. So I've labeled it care anxiety anxiety for
when I care. People always ask me, Jay, do you
still get nervous before you go on stage? And I
say yes, always because I care. I get nervous when
I care. So when I get nervous, now I know
(15:35):
it means I care, and I've labeled it that way,
and that way I know that I'm safe because I
care about what I'm doing. I believe in what I'm doing,
and that's a beautiful thing for me to remember. It's
the same feeling, but the labeling has helped me understand
it differently, and I want you to think about how
(15:55):
you can label your emotions differently as well. We don't
notice how these ninety seconds require a lot of stillness.
If you're driving fast, you can't spot anything on the road.
You may miss a sign, you may miss the animals
in the field, you may miss a billboard. When you're
driving fast, you miss everything. When we're moving fast, when
(16:18):
we stay busy, when we ignore these ninety seconds, we
keep moving fast, you will miss so many signals from
your body. Every day, we miss so many signals from
our body. Every day, we miss so many signals from
our mind because every day our body and mind is
(16:41):
trying to protect us, trying to help us, and trying
to encourage us to learn. But we miss out on
all of that because we're moving fast, because we're moving
at a pace where we believe we can't slow down.
And for this night ninety seconds, when you choose to
(17:01):
just slow down for ninety seconds, you stop yourself reacting
from a fast car, and instead you learn to respond
in slow motion. It's almost like when you're in slow
motion you can actually see things for what they are. Right.
If you're driving slowly, you can see what's in the distance,
(17:25):
you can see what's in the foreground, you can make
out the distance between things. Just slow down for ninety
seconds before you react or respond to. Maybe get a
message and it triggers you. You get an email and
it makes you feel nervous and anxious. Instead of responding immediately,
instead of reacting, instead of taking a screenshot and sending
(17:47):
it to someone and reacting to it, take ninety seconds.
That's all you need to do. Take ninety seconds and
let it slowly dissipate organically. Now, some emotions are different
than others. I saw a study on the melon line
that said sadness lasts two hundred and forty times longer
(18:10):
than other emotions. In this reset study that I read
on the melonline, researchers surveyed two hundred and thirty three
young adults from a Belgian high school with an average
age of seventeen and found emotions very widely in duration.
They said, of the twenty seven emotions studied, sadness lasted
the longest, where a shame, surprise, fear, discust, boredom, feeling touched, irritation,
(18:39):
and relief were the shortest duration emotions. Emotions that lasted
longer were associated with more important event triggers, as well
as more reflection about the feelings and the consequences of
the event that prompted the emotion. Now why am I
sharing this? I'm sharing this because I realized this a
(19:00):
while ago. When something bad happens, we cry for a month.
When something good happens, we celebrate for a night. Remember
to share your wins as much as you share your losses.
If something goes bad, you're likely to tell ten people.
If something goes well, you might tell one. There's a
(19:23):
reason why we submerge ourself in sadness more than we
immerse ourselves in greatness. It's because we've practiced over and
over and over again to dive deep into our pain
and swim shallow in our pleasure. Right, we actually swim
(19:45):
shallow when it comes to amazing experiences. Maybe you'll post
on social media, maybe you'll share one line you have
a very shallow experience with the good things in your life,
and a very deep experience with the bad things in
your life. Try to take a moment to acknowledge today
(20:06):
the good that you've done. I'm sure it was so
easy at the end of the day to judge yourself,
to shame yourself, and to guilt yourself. At the end
of the day. I'm sure it was so easy to
make yourself feel bad. I wish I did that better.
I could have done that better. I made a mistake
on that I should have been smarter, I should have
been faster, I should have been quicker. Why didn't I
(20:27):
know that? Right? This is how we talk to ourselves.
We're so good at making ourselves feel bad, but making
yourself feel bad will never lead to you doing good. Right,
let me tell you that again. We're so good at
making ourselves feel bad, but making ourselves feel bad will
(20:50):
never create good in our lives. We repeat what we reward.
We repeat what we reward. If we reward ourselves for
good action at the end of the day, we'll repeat it.
If you recognize that today you made it to forty
five seconds before responding, you'll repeat that you're moving in
(21:14):
the right direction. But if you make it all about
the mistakes you made today and how you're so far behind,
guess what, you'll repeat that. Because we become familiar with
that emotion, we become familiar with that action. So what
I want you to do when you're having a tough
conversation tell your partner, hey, let's just take a ninety
(21:36):
second break. If you receive an email from your boss
and you're struggling out to respond, take a ninety second break.
If you woke up in the morning and you're feeling
a certain way, give yourself a ninety second break. A
ninety second break could be the difference between you breaking
(21:57):
and responding. With these It's literally all it will take,
and I really really hope that you'll try out the
ninety second rule. I want you to reflect on how
you normally respond to a stimulus that stirs up challenging emotions.
Do you usually just rush into a reaction? Do you
(22:18):
allow those emotions to build? What could you do to
create more space so you can respond with intention. I
think this will make a huge difference in your life,
will make a huge impact on what's possible, and it
will save you from so much stress and pain. Remember
(22:40):
I'm forever in your corner and always rooting for you.
If you love this episode, you're going to love my
conversation with Matthew Hussey on how to get over your
ex and find true love in your relationships.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
People should be compassionate to themselves that extend that compassion
to your future self, because truly extending your compassion to
your future self is doing something that gives him or
her a shot at a happy and a peaceful life.
Let's be honest. Life is stressful, its work, its relationships,
and the state of the world. But there's a way
to bring that stress level down. Calm. It's the number
one app for mental wellness with tons of content to
manage anxiety, promote concentration, and help you unwind. There's music, meditation,
a more Calm makes it easy to de stress. You
(00:23):
can literally do a one minute breathing exercise. Personally, I
love the soundscapes. Nothing like a little rain on leaves
to help soothe my nervous system. I've actually been working
with Calm for a couple of years now, and I'd
love for you to check out my series on reducing
overwhelm eight short practices Quick Relief. Right now, listeners of
(00:44):
On Purpose get forty percent off a subscription to Calm
Premium at Calm dot com. Forward slash j that's c
LM dot com Forward slash jay for forty percent off.
Calm your Mind, Change your life. Ninety seconds could be
the difference between saying what you mean or saying something mean.
(01:09):
Ninety seconds could be the difference between losing someone you
love or showing someone how you want to love them.
Ninety seconds could be the difference in what the next
nine weeks or nine months may look like. Ninety seconds
of sitting with the emotions in your body allowing them
(01:32):
to settle will actually give you an awareness of what
you're actually experiencing. The number one health and Wellness podcast,
Jay Setty, Jay Settyjon. Hey everyone, welcome back to Honor Purpose,
the place you come to become happier, healthier and more healed.
(01:53):
My name's Jay Shetty, and I'm so thankful to be
back with you now. I recorded this theme for an
episode of My Daily Jay on Calm. If you're not
using calm to find balance, to find meaning, to meditate
and practice mindfulness daily, definitely check it out and it
(02:13):
inspired a longer episode over here. So there's a quote
that I absolutely love from Victor Frankel, the groundbreaking psychologist
and Holocaust survivor, and the quote goes like this, between
stimulus and response, there is a space in that space.
(02:34):
Is our power to choose our response. In our response
lies our growth and our freedom. Let me say that again,
between stimulus and response, there is a space in that space.
Is our power to choose our response. In our response
(02:56):
lies our growth and our freedom. We've heard this principle
probably a few times before, the idea that it's not
about what happens to you, it's about how you respond.
It's not about what's going on around you, it's what
you're able to do with it. It's not about what
(03:17):
the world throws at you, but what you decide to
do with it. And if you think about it, if
someone throws something at you, you have a choice. You
can catch it and almost make it a part of yourself.
You can dodge it and allow it to flow past you,
or you can catch it and throw it back to
(03:38):
try and create pain on the other person's behalf as well.
We always have a choice. But what happens is that
as time goes on, as we get busier, as we
reflect less, as we focus less on why these things happen,
what's happening around us, and as we just feel more overwhelmed,
(04:00):
we lose the ability to choose our response. And when
we lose the ability to choose our response, we potentially
lose our ability to According to Victor Frankel, have growth
and freedom, two things that I think are extremely important now.
In the Daily Jay episode, I talked about an experience
(04:23):
I had where I was driving home. It was a
beautiful day, the sun was out, and I was playing
some awesome music, and then all of a sudden, a
car came out in front of me, truly just cut
me off by surprise, Like I was really scared that
we were about to have an accident. I breaked really
really hard. I could feel some anger because it was
(04:45):
so like I can't tell you how close it was,
and I really really felt like it was, you know,
seconds apart, tiniest space from leading to a big accident
which not only would have affected me, but would have
affected them as well. And I'm sure you've had this experience, right,
I'm sure you've had this experience where someone cuts you off.
(05:06):
Something happens, maybe in traffic, you get really really angry,
and you're feeling this tension. You're feeling this stress, and
you might even want to, you know, like get out
and talk to the driver. Some of you may get
really angry. And maybe you've felt this before and maybe
you've acted on it. Now I didn't act on it
(05:27):
that day, but maybe you've acted on it. And I
find that maybe you've acted on it. Maybe you've said
something you didn't mean, maybe you've made a comment that
you didn't want to say. Maybe it was with your partner,
Maybe it was with your child, right, maybe your child
was just annoying you and you said something that you
wish you didn't say, and then after that you regret it,
(05:47):
you feel bad about it. It's not how you wanted
to act, it's not what you wanted to do. But
how do we stop that from happening? How many terms
have you had it where you got angry, passionate, aggressive
and said something you didn't want to or did something
you didn't want to because of the heat of the moment,
because of the emotion you were feeling, and the emotion
(06:10):
felt real in the moment, and it was, but you
acted on it. And now you look back and think,
I wish I never said that, I wish I never
did that. Maybe some of you have this voice in
your head before you go to bed saying, could have
done that better? Right, it could have been better? Now.
Neuroanatomist Jill Balty Taylor describes something she calls response ability,
(06:36):
meaning we largely have the ability to choose how we
respond to what's happening in the outside world, and she
says it helped her understand something called the ninety second rule.
Now I love this, and this is what this episode
is about. This ninety second rule. Now, when I was
driving and my brain sends danger, my body released adrenaline,
(06:58):
which is designed to help me focus and get ready
for action. That's how I was able to avoid an accident.
But after I took action, I still felt agitated because
my emotions were triggered along with my survival instincts, and
all the chemicals associated with those emotions take about ninety
seconds to dissipate as long as I didn't feed the emotion.
(07:23):
If I stopped myself from amping it up further, then
the chemicals would die down. On the other hand, if
I'd started yelling and screaming, my brain would have released
more anger signals and the feeling would have continued. So
what changed for me is I took some deep breaths
and allowed the chemicals and the feeling to pass. Right now,
(07:46):
as I dive into this topic, I want to be
really clear. This isn't about avoiding emotions. This is about
subverting those knee jerk responses that don't represent the person
we want to be when we say or do things
we regret. This is about buying time so we can
be more conscious and intentional, so that the action we
(08:07):
do take aligns with our values and beliefs. So here's
how I want you to think about it. What we're
trying to do in this moment is we're trying to
buy ourselves time so that we don't go and create
more pain, So that we don't go and create more stress. Right,
If you catch something that someone throws at you and
throw it back at them, it continues the cycle. If
(08:30):
you catch it and make it a part of you,
it continues the cycle. If you dodge it, you allow
it to go past you, although it does have an
impact on you. So how do we do that? In
a real life situation? Three deep breaths take about ten seconds,
So in ninety seconds, we can take twenty seven deep breaths.
(08:52):
This is a great number to count up to, to
put it in your mind's eye. Count to twenty seven
as you breathe in and breathe out. This ninety second
rule allows you to understand that chemically, if you allow
this to pass in ninety seconds, you have the ability
now to truly choose how you respond. It's almost like
(09:15):
for ninety seconds you're controlled you're influenced. You're going to
act in a way that may not be you, that
may not be aligned with who you are, or what
you prioritize, or what you believe to be valuable. It's
just ninety seconds, and so many of us give away
amazing relationships, break or blemish partnerships, friendships, whatever it may be,
(09:41):
because we don't want to wait. Ninety seconds. That's how
I want you to think about it. Ninety seconds could
be the difference between finding a solution and losing a friendship.
Ninety seconds could be the difference between saying what you
mean or saying something mean. Ninety seconds could be the
(10:03):
difference between losing someone you love or showing someone how
you want to love them. Ninety seconds could be the
difference in what the next nine weeks or nine months
may look like. Ninety seconds of sitting with the emotions
in your body, allowing them to settle will actually give
(10:26):
you an awareness of what you're actually experiencing. You may
find that what was first anger is actually disappointment. You
may find that what was first frustration is actually now angst.
You may find that was once quite aggressive is actually
a still and calm emotion, and when we're able to
(10:49):
master those ninety seconds, we can actually cope better with surprises. Now,
listen to this. If you prepared. Next time you hear
a surprise, something comes along and shocks you, let it
settle for ninety seconds, because chances are your initial response
won't be helpful. Now, this is different in a fight
or flight situation. Right in the car accident situation, I'm
(11:13):
happy that this kicked in and that I didn't have
time for ninety seconds to think through this. Similarly, in
a place of physical danger, it's great to avoid this,
but when it comes to more mental emotional challenges, this
can save us a lot of headaches. Ninety seconds could
save you from ruining the next nine weeks or nine
(11:36):
months of your life. Ninety seconds could save you from
ruining one of your best relationships. Ninety seconds could protect
you from reacting in a way that isn't aligned with
who you are and who you want to be. Now
(11:57):
here is the way I want you to think about
how to actually put the ninety second rule into practice.
The first thing is set a timer. When you're going
through something like this, set a timer and watch that
count down. It's almost like doing a plank if you've
ever done plank position in a workout and you know
you've got sixty seconds ninety seconds to do it, and
(12:19):
you're just waiting there, you might be in pain, you
might be sucking in your core and then trying to
loosen it. You might be trying to cheat a little
bit on the sides, but you're sticking it out for
those ninety seconds. Treat it that way. Turn on a timer,
have a ninety second timer ready to go, so that
you know you're allowing the chemicals to go down naturally,
(12:42):
because chances are in those first ninety seconds you called
someone up, you tell them how it's going, You now
exacerbate it. Right, you start texting someone frantically, you now
exacerbate it. So we're constantly extending our overwhelm. We're constantly
extending our anxiety, extending our stress, advancing our pain, when
actually we could deal with it in a much more
(13:03):
healthy way. The next thing is take a moment to
do what I call an internal weather report. Right, where's
it feeling cloudy, where's it feeling rainy. Remember, we're not
avoiding our emotions, We're feeling them. We're letting them be there.
We're just not acting on them. That's the difference, right,
(13:23):
We're just not reacting. We're allowing time to go pass
so that we can respond. If you act straight after
experiencing something, that is a reaction to what happened. If
you allow the ninety seconds to pass, you now received
(13:44):
it and now you're responding. I think another great tool
is to check in with your body. It's asking yourself,
what's going on in my body right now? What am
I thinking about? Right how am I feeling? You're almost
learning to observe your body and mind. This also allows
us to not make it personal. Often the reason why
(14:07):
we react so frantically, aggressively, passionately is because we take
everything very personally. These ninety seconds allow for you to
not make it personal and just observe yourself experiencing these emotions,
and especially notice the physical and mental emotions you experience.
(14:30):
A lot of us don't realize when we pretend like
we're not experiencing anything, it actually gets stored in the body,
and we don't want that to happen. We don't want
stress to get stored in the body. I've already mentioned
inhaling and exhaling can actively relax tense areas of the
(14:51):
body and mind, and this is probably one of my
favorite ways. Noticing and naming the emotion is a really
important thing. I found that being able to label how
you feel, especially things that come about more often than others,
is a really healthy way. Like, for example, I know
that before I go on stage, I often feel nervous,
(15:14):
but I call that my stage nervousness. I know that
that's my anxiety that I'm experiencing because I care about
what's happening. So I've labeled it care anxiety anxiety for
when I care. People always ask me, Jay, do you
still get nervous before you go on stage? And I
say yes, always because I care. I get nervous when
I care. So when I get nervous, now I know
(15:35):
it means I care, and I've labeled it that way,
and that way I know that I'm safe because I
care about what I'm doing. I believe in what I'm doing,
and that's a beautiful thing for me to remember. It's
the same feeling, but the labeling has helped me understand
it differently, and I want you to think about how
(15:55):
you can label your emotions differently as well. We don't
notice how these ninety seconds require a lot of stillness.
If you're driving fast, you can't spot anything on the road.
You may miss a sign, you may miss the animals
in the field, you may miss a billboard. When you're
driving fast, you miss everything. When we're moving fast, when
(16:18):
we stay busy, when we ignore these ninety seconds, we
keep moving fast, you will miss so many signals from
your body. Every day, we miss so many signals from
our body. Every day, we miss so many signals from
our mind because every day our body and mind is
(16:41):
trying to protect us, trying to help us, and trying
to encourage us to learn. But we miss out on
all of that because we're moving fast, because we're moving
at a pace where we believe we can't slow down.
And for this night ninety seconds, when you choose to
(17:01):
just slow down for ninety seconds, you stop yourself reacting
from a fast car, and instead you learn to respond
in slow motion. It's almost like when you're in slow
motion you can actually see things for what they are. Right.
If you're driving slowly, you can see what's in the distance,
(17:25):
you can see what's in the foreground, you can make
out the distance between things. Just slow down for ninety
seconds before you react or respond to. Maybe get a
message and it triggers you. You get an email and
it makes you feel nervous and anxious. Instead of responding immediately,
instead of reacting, instead of taking a screenshot and sending
(17:47):
it to someone and reacting to it, take ninety seconds.
That's all you need to do. Take ninety seconds and
let it slowly dissipate organically. Now, some emotions are different
than others. I saw a study on the melon line
that said sadness lasts two hundred and forty times longer
(18:10):
than other emotions. In this reset study that I read
on the melonline, researchers surveyed two hundred and thirty three
young adults from a Belgian high school with an average
age of seventeen and found emotions very widely in duration.
They said, of the twenty seven emotions studied, sadness lasted
the longest, where a shame, surprise, fear, discust, boredom, feeling touched, irritation,
(18:39):
and relief were the shortest duration emotions. Emotions that lasted
longer were associated with more important event triggers, as well
as more reflection about the feelings and the consequences of
the event that prompted the emotion. Now why am I
sharing this? I'm sharing this because I realized this a
(19:00):
while ago. When something bad happens, we cry for a month.
When something good happens, we celebrate for a night. Remember
to share your wins as much as you share your losses.
If something goes bad, you're likely to tell ten people.
If something goes well, you might tell one. There's a
(19:23):
reason why we submerge ourself in sadness more than we
immerse ourselves in greatness. It's because we've practiced over and
over and over again to dive deep into our pain
and swim shallow in our pleasure. Right, we actually swim
(19:45):
shallow when it comes to amazing experiences. Maybe you'll post
on social media, maybe you'll share one line you have
a very shallow experience with the good things in your life,
and a very deep experience with the bad things in
your life. Try to take a moment to acknowledge today
(20:06):
the good that you've done. I'm sure it was so
easy at the end of the day to judge yourself,
to shame yourself, and to guilt yourself. At the end
of the day. I'm sure it was so easy to
make yourself feel bad. I wish I did that better.
I could have done that better. I made a mistake
on that I should have been smarter, I should have
been faster, I should have been quicker. Why didn't I
(20:27):
know that? Right? This is how we talk to ourselves.
We're so good at making ourselves feel bad, but making
yourself feel bad will never lead to you doing good. Right,
let me tell you that again. We're so good at
making ourselves feel bad, but making ourselves feel bad will
(20:50):
never create good in our lives. We repeat what we reward.
We repeat what we reward. If we reward ourselves for
good action at the end of the day, we'll repeat it.
If you recognize that today you made it to forty
five seconds before responding, you'll repeat that you're moving in
(21:14):
the right direction. But if you make it all about
the mistakes you made today and how you're so far behind,
guess what, you'll repeat that. Because we become familiar with
that emotion, we become familiar with that action. So what
I want you to do when you're having a tough
conversation tell your partner, hey, let's just take a ninety
(21:36):
second break. If you receive an email from your boss
and you're struggling out to respond, take a ninety second break.
If you woke up in the morning and you're feeling
a certain way, give yourself a ninety second break. A
ninety second break could be the difference between you breaking
(21:57):
and responding. With these It's literally all it will take,
and I really really hope that you'll try out the
ninety second rule. I want you to reflect on how
you normally respond to a stimulus that stirs up challenging emotions.
Do you usually just rush into a reaction? Do you
(22:18):
allow those emotions to build? What could you do to
create more space so you can respond with intention. I
think this will make a huge difference in your life,
will make a huge impact on what's possible, and it
will save you from so much stress and pain. Remember
(22:40):
I'm forever in your corner and always rooting for you.
If you love this episode, you're going to love my
conversation with Matthew Hussey on how to get over your
ex and find true love in your relationships.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
People should be compassionate to themselves that extend that compassion
to your future self, because truly extending your compassion to
your future self is doing something that gives him or
her a shot at a happy and a peaceful life.
Host
Jay Shetty
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