  It has been proposed that the $\Lambda$ and $\overline{\Lambda}$
polarizations observed in heavy-ion collisions are due to the interaction
between quark spin and thermal vorticity. In this work we report on a
computation of the relaxation time required for this alignment to occur at
finite temperature and baryon chemical potential, considering quarks with a
finite mass. The calculation is performed after modelling the interaction by
means of an effective vertex which couples the thermal gluons and quarks within
the vortical medium. We show that the effect of the quark mass is to reduce the
relaxation time as compared to the massless quark case. An intrinsic global
polarization of quarks/antiquarks emerges which is shown to be linked with the
$\Lambda$/$\bar{\Lambda}$ polarization.
