While the \u201c90 second rule\u201d might initially come across as a passing TikTok hack, it\u2019s a concept coined by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor<\/a>, the neuroscientist who famously survived a severe stroke, which provided her a unique, firsthand perspective on brain function.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Taylor explains it: \u201cWe\u2019re only doing three things inside of our brain at any moment in time. We think thoughts, we feel emotion, and run physiological loops to what we\u2019re thinking and feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Taylor claims that it takes about a minute-and-a-half for any feeling\u2013be it anger, anxiety, or fear, etc.\u2014to pass through organically. So our job is to allow that feeling to metabolize, essentially. And by the end of that process, your brain has a nice reset. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Taylor added that she even tries to \u201cenjoy\u201d whatever she\u2019s feeling during those 90 seconds. \u201cI will celebrate every time the wave of emotion hits me\u2026and then it\u2019s gone,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In an interview with Bustle<\/a><\/em>, Djuan Short, LCSW<\/a>, a licensed trauma therapist and founder of Dahlia Rose Wellness Center<\/a>, added that another benefit of the 90-second rule is that it \u201cinterrupts the urgency\u201d of everyday life, and suggests intentionally incorporating them into \u201chigh-demand days.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMost people are not exhausted because they are doing too much. They are exhausted because they never fully stop,\u201d Short says. \u201cIn a culture built on notifications, deadlines, and visibility, even a brief pause can feel radical. Ninety seconds feels small enough to be possible, but meaningful enough to feel like something that belongs to you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At its core, the 90-second rule reminds us that many of our emotional reactions, while valid, are a cocktail of hardwired survival instincts and chemical processes. Learning to work with these sensations, rather than stuffing them down or being ruled by them, gives us power back in the only thing in life we do have control over: ourselves. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cI will celebrate every time the wave of emotion hits me\u2026and then it\u2019s gone\u201d Lives are getting busier all the time, making it feel impossible to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/652528579_1404663828361271_3022335615510450572_n.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6619"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6621,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6619\/revisions\/6621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How the 90-second rule works<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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![\"90](\"https:\/\/www.upworthy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/03\/WP-Heather-TOP-SPLASH-18.jpg?w=1024\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nHow to practice the 90-second rule<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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