How To Slow Down Time (Seriously)

Where’d the time go?

That’s something I find myself wondering more and more the older I get.

But it wasn’t like this when we were kids, was it?

I remember how each year, each vacation and each summer would pass slowly growing up.

But then you get older and days turn into months and months into years and before you know it you’re 30 and you get way too excited to open mail, Now That’s What I Call Music! 86 is on the shelves and your first reaction upon entering a bar is “this music is way too loud”.

Neuroscientists note this quickening of time as we age is a common experience.

In fact, it’s quite possible to exercise daily, eat healthy and live a long life – while experiencing a short one.

Luckily for you and me, the opposite is also true – we can mold our perception of time to some degree.

In other words, we can slow time down.

***

When you’re young, everything is new – you’re constantly figuring out how the world operates and learning all the unspoken rules that shape society.

You’re also regularly engaging in “first moments” – first job, first day of school, first kiss, first…everything.

Time passes slowly for children in part because everything they’re seeing, doing, experiencing, smelling, hearing and tasting is new and takes up a larger portion of their memory.

Their brains are working overtime to process a high volume of novelty.

Compare that to the average adult working a 9-5.

They get up at the same time every morning. They eat the same breakfast. They take the same route to work. Throw on the same music or podcast. Finally, they sit down at their desk and perform essentially the same tasks they performed yesterday and every day before that.

Then, they drive home. Eat dinner – the same meal they’ve had many times before. Maybe go to the gym before throwing on an episode of The Office for the 1,000^th time and calling it a night.

Everything is routine.

Sound familiar? I’m sure it does for many.

The brain doesn’t have to work to process much of anything or remember the specifics. It’s the same thing day in, day out.

“Nothing to see here,” it says. Slowly but surely, entire days are lost and your life is one big fleeting blur.

“This explains why we think that time speeds up when we grow older,” David Eagleman, a neuroscientist at Stanford said — why childhood summers seem to go on forever, while old age slips by while we’re dozing. The more familiar the world becomes, the less information your brain writes down, and the more quickly time seems to pass. “Time is this rubbery thing…it stretches out when you really turn your brain resource on, and when you say, ‘Oh, I got this, everything is as expected,’ it shrinks up.”

Our brains process familiar information quickly. But new experiences cause the brain to write down more memory, making them not only more memorable, but when that memory is read back out retrospectively, the event will seem like it lasted longer than it actually did.

In other words, when experiences are varied, new and novel – time can appear as if it’s slowing down. When you fall into routine and predictable patterns, time appears to speed by.

Hence, the reason why time seems to move faster as we age. There’s less play, less exploration and less creativity – less newness.

People typically tend to have fewer novel experiences.

***

But, wait. Hold on a second.

I know what you might be thinking – doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun?

Take a fun vacation, for example.

First, yes, it is true that time typically seems to move faster when we’re busy or enjoying ourselves than when we’re bored or in a bad mood.

But, when we look back on a vacation, our judgment of time isn’t based on the actual number of hours we spent on the trip. Instead, we base it on the individual new memories created during that timeframe.

Dr. Eagleman explains it this way: there are two types of time perception –prospective and retrospective.

Prospective time occurs when you’re in the moment and your brain is anticipating what will happen next. When you’re busy and a lot is happening, “your mind is no longer attending to time at that moment — you’re not checking your phone or watch — so it seems like time is going by fast.”

On the flip side, when you’re in a boring meeting, “your mind is deeply attuned to time because you’re checking your phone every 10 minutes”. You have little else to do besides watch the time tick by, so time seems to slow way down.

When you reflect on what you’ve been doing, you enter into retrospective time. A boring meeting? Your brain won’t have recorded much footage from the experience.

A vacation with new experiences though? Your mind has plenty of detailed footage for you to go through.

The brain thinks about it this way: “that must have taken a long time because I don’t normally retain that much detail about events.”

So, yes, that vacation likely flew by in the moment. But later, in retrospect, you had a bundle of unique memories tied to it – making it feel like the vacation lasted longer than it really did.

The real losers here? Those living a dull, repetitive life.

Get this: while living out their boring day-to-day routines of eating, sleeping, working and watching TV – time will seem to drag slowly. But, when they look back and reflect on their lives, time will have seemed to have sped by!

Where’d the time go?

I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Routine – it appears you sped up your perception of time by eating that same turkey sandwich for lunch 40 years in a row, staying in that same soul-sucking cubicle passing papers for far too long and sitting your ass in that same recliner every night and watching re-runs of The Simpsons.

You never picked up a book after college, Mr. Routine. Hell, the last new skill you learned was how to drive a car – that was AGES ago!

Your memory-making brain checked out after a while.

Hell, it appears that you did too.

***

I don’t mean to pick on you, Mr. Routine. The real truth is this – you’re far from alone. It’s easy to settle into a life of repetition.

This type of lifestyle isn’t all bad either. You’ve experienced the benefits of it, I’m sure.

But, one major downside is this: it makes life feel as if it’s constantly passing you by.

How can we slow things down?

Let’s once again turn to Dr. David Eagleman.

“In my mind there is only one way to slow time: seek novelty,” Eagleman said. “That’s why it’s important to change routines regularly, and take vacations to exotic locales, and have as many new experiences as possible that can serve to anchor our memories. Creating new memories stretches out psychological time, and lengthens our perception of our lives.”

Try new things. Meet new people. Learn a new skill. Visit new places.

Be the adventurous, spontaneous, fun spirit your dating profile says you are.

If not, you’ll look back on your life and feel as if you were just 16 yesterday and the subsequent days passed by in the blink of an eye.

Or, you can rewind the tape on a long and full life – one filled with adventure, new and interesting experiences and a wealth of skills and knowledge.

Luckily, the choice is yours to make.