Halfpoint Images/Getty Images
If you feel like time is passing quickly, that’s normal: your perception of time changes as you get older.
AGE – Don’t know what year it is? Do you feel like 2023 has flown by? If you feel like the years are flying by, that’s normal. But for others, especially children, a year can seem like an eternity.
There is a reason why as a child you feel like the years have passed slowly, but today they pass quickly. Experts say our perception of time changes dramatically as we age, and certain periods of time seem to pass quickly.
“Our perception of days, weeks, years seems to be particularly influenced by our perspective: Do we live in the present moment or do we look back,” explains Cindy Lustig, professor of psychology at the University of Michigan.
She adds that the perception of time is also influenced by memories and lived experiences. For an 8-year-old, a week represents a large part of their life. For an 80-year-old, it’s a completely different story.
Days and years that are similar
The paradox is that a day in the life of an 80-year-old pensioner seems to pass more slowly than that of an 8-year-old child busy at school. But when the two look back over a month or a year, the older person feels that time has passed more quickly.
There are mutliple reasons for this. The everyday life of an 80-year-old probably doesn’t differ much from her everyday life at 78 or 79, “so they remember fewer events,” explains Cindy Lustig. “If your portrayal is less rich when you look back, you will be more likely to feel that time has passed quickly. »
In other words, when days or weeks are similar, our brain groups them together. It is the new experiences that make the days and months different and shape them in our memories. “Our brains are designed to sense change,” confirms Adrian Bejan, professor of mechanical engineering at Duke University and author of the book Time And Beauty: Why Time Flies And Beauty Never Dies.
Physiological factors
Therefore, the many experiences that young children have throughout the course of a day (e.g., learning new things at school, going to dance class, or visiting a new friend’s house) help to ensure that time is more plentiful and more activities are incorporated can a certain period of time.
This can also apply to adults. When we look back on a time full of new experiences, “we see many events and memories, which gives the impression that time is dragging… and it is very long,” explains Cindy Lustig.
There are physiological factors that influence our perception of time. The way we process what we see can therefore have an impact, explains Adrian Bejan. As babies, our brains are trained to receive lots of images. Because we take in so many new images as children, we may feel like the months and years are longer.
In adulthood, “the brain receives fewer images than it was trained to receive at a young age,” explains Adrian Bejan. This can cause time to pass more quickly.
Live new experiences to “slow down” time.
Adrian Bejan says many older people ask him how they can slow down time, “because everyone wants to live longer.” [et a] We want to make even better use of the time we have.”
In his opinion, one way to achieve this is through new experiences that go beyond the usual framework. That might mean taking up a childhood hobby (like dancing or playing the violin), taking a trip to a city you’ve never visited, or signing up for a cooking class. Learning new things is another good way to make time seem longer when looking back on life, he adds.
Adrian Bejan insists on the saying “Variety is the salt of life”: you have to break out of the routine and make the most of the time you have. In his opinion, living only in routine makes the year go by very quickly.
Another way to make moments last longer, according to Cindy Lustig? Be fully engaged and “in the moment.” Laboratory studies show that mindfulness exercises can expand our perception of time. So don’t try to concentrate on multiple tasks at the same time. Instead, focus on the experience at hand. “None of us knows how much time we have, but interestingly enough, we have a lot of control over how we experience that time,” she concludes.
—
This article is a translation made by the HuffPost France editorial team from an article published on HuffPost US on December 16, 2022. Original article to read here.
See also on HuffPost:
You cannot view this content because:
- By subscribing, you have opted out of cookies related to third-party content. You will therefore not be able to play our videos, which require third-party cookies to function.
- You are using an ad blocker. We recommend you disable it to access our videos.
If neither of these two cases apply to you, contact us at [email protected].