READY
READY
Ninety seconds is the rest between rounds in boxing, and the number turns up wherever a body has to recover without going cold: between heavy sets, between intervals on a rower, between rounds of anything that leaves you breathing hard.
It is also, unexpectedly, the shelf life of an emotion. The neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor's figure is that the physiological part of an anger response, the chemistry actually in your bloodstream, clears in about ninety seconds. Anything past that is being kept alive by thinking about it.
The tip follows from that. When something lands badly, set this and do not reply until it rings. You are not suppressing anything, you are waiting for the chemistry to finish so the decision is yours rather than the adrenaline's, and it works far more often than it has any right to.
Press start or the space bar. Reset with R, and use the plus button if the rest needs to be longer than you thought.
It is a clinical observation rather than a law, and the number is approximate. As a rule of thumb it is still useful: the physical surge passes quickly, and what follows is rehearsal.
In amateur and much of professional boxing, yes: sixty seconds is also common, and rounds themselves are usually two or three minutes. Type over the readout for whichever your gym uses.
That is what the sound is for. Start it, put the phone down, and the alarm tells you when to go again, even if the tab is behind something else.