Strong Emotion = Errors

Why is it that when there is a patient or family member who is overly concerned with every little detail, they are more likely to have mistakes made on them, even mistakes that hardly ever happen? Well, after some contemplation, I've determined it must have something to do with the person making the error being in a heightened emotional state of some type. Those patients are the ones that make we as nurses more nervous or worried that we will make a mistake or even fearful. We find ourselves in the room with our hearts beating a little faster than normal and firmly placed up in our throats.
Isn't that how it is in life as well? Think about some of the errors you've made recently or over the last several years. How many of them happened when you were more emotional? If I allow myself to get too angry, that is when I am more likely to say or do something I will later regret. A close friend of mine made a mistake recently, that after discussion, we decided happened because she was feeling very afraid of retaliation right at that moment.
We've all heard to count to 10, take a few moments to compose ourselves, etc., etc. when we are angry or especially upset for any reason. I really do believe that a lot of errors/mistakes could be avoided if we all took a few moments to compose ourselves prior to acting. If we would purposefully act on something rather than quickly react to something.