Karen Koenig, psychotherapist and author of the Rules of Normal Eating, recently wrote a post about what Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor calls the "90 second emotion rule." The idea is that it takes 90 seconds or less for each emotion to be automatically triggered, surge through the body, and dissipated. Once the emotion (chemical component) is gone physiologically, it then becomes a choice to continue as she puts it the "neurocircuitry" to run or not. In this sense, we become more attuned to the emotion in the current moment versus continuously cruising on autopilot. We become aware to what we are feeling, learning to yes, choose whether to take it, leave it , or change it.
http://betweenlivingandexisting.blogspot.com/2009/08/90-seconds-of-emotion.html