Emotions run a 90-second physiological cycle, but women's responses can linger 24 hours while men's fade in 9 hours. To interrupt a trigger: open your chest, take a deep belly breath, and name objects around you. This signals safety to your nervous system and lets the emotion pass.
Emotions happen in 90-second cycles. Let's say I'm in an interaction with, let's say, a significant other, or it's conflict. And I always see it like a thermometer, like in an old-school cartoon where like your head's the bulb at the top, or like the mercury is going up and then it just explodes. When you start noticing that feeling in your body, you have about 10 seconds from the moment you start to trigger to the point where your system actually kicks in. And for women, once you're activated, it can stay active for up to 24 hours, and men up to 9 hours. This is why a man and a woman can get into an argument, go to bed, wake up the next day, And the guy's like, how's everything going? And the woman's like, I'm going to kill you. Because like, why are you still so hung up on it? Because her system is literally still perceiving the threat, whereas yours has reset as the man. So first thing I can do is open my body up physiologically, the way I hold my body, shrugging my shoulders, closing off in front. This is primal. Like, oh, my organs are all right here. Let me protect myself from my husband, my wife, my kids, my friend who's pissing me off right now, this person online. We're closed off, which is sensing to our body going, man, like I have to protect myself. Think of a boxer, the way the boxer stands, tucks everything in, protects himself. Open your body up, lower the shoulders. Think breath, inhale, fill that belly up. If you can do a belly breath where you truly extend your belly and you don't shortchange it, that's going to do wonders for you as it is. Then orientate yourself to the room. Orientation is the number one way that your system recognizes I'm safe. If there's a threat in front of me, I'm tunnel vision on it. But if I can take a breath, I'm safe. If my body's opened up, I'm safe. And if I'm looking around the room and I'm just naming things in my head, light switch, light, camera, and you're actually focusing on these things, your system is not focusing on the threat. You're giving yourself this window and you can choose to do this, do this for about 90 seconds and that emotion will pass.
