Daily Gratitude: This is why it takes awhile for the agitated appearance to dissipate when someone who says they’ve changed their mind and now agree with you. If you let yourself, you’ll find yourself questioning the validity of their statements and not believing them. You have to give their body time to metabolize and release those chemicals. Haven’t you ever noticed that you might be frightened of something, let’s say a loud noise in the house, and your heart rate skyrockets. Then you find out that the cat just knocked something off the counter and it wasn’t someone breaking in after all. Now your thought will be “dumb cat – scared the dickens out of me”. But your heart rate, although starting to slow, is still faster than normal. You’ve heard the expression- “just take a deep breath and relax” (while you’re thinking “yeah right, buddy, you can have my cat and then see how calm you are”). It isn’t just an expression- the deep breath will help to soothe your vagus nerve which then helps soothe all of you. Next time you are in a heated discussion just try to remember that thoughts are electricity and can change in the blink of an eye. But emotions are chemical reactions and they take time to change.