How to make time slow down

Time speeds up as you get older. Almost everyone I know says this is true. I sure do. And it's damn unfair.

Why should children, who have their whole lives ahead of them, experience time moving more slowly than semi-geezers like me (I'm 59), who don't have anywhere near as long to live?

I frequently feel like screaming, Hey life! Flip things around! Those kids should be the ones who sense time flying by, while older people get to string out the days they have left.

One of my best friends from elementary and high school died recently. He was, obviously, my age. I was sad to learn about his death from cancer. And I was jerked into a realization that what happened to him could happen to me.

Dying anytime. You never know how long you've got. So slowing down time to make my remaining moments seem like they're lasting longer strikes me as an excellent proposition.

So today I ventured onto Google, figuring that it would be easy to take my first step: learning why time speeds up the older we get.

Once I knew that, I'd be closer to understanding how to slow time down. But I was surprised by the dearth of solid information Google's results brought me.

I found quite a few references to the obvious notion that when we're three years old, another year adds a third to our life experience, so it seems like a long time. But by the time we're fifty, a year is just 2% of the life we've already lived, so it isn't noticed to nearly the same degree – flitting by as a mere 1/50^th would.

However, even though there likely is some truth to this, there's nothing that can be done about it. I can't change how long I've lived. So I Googled on.

And came to a promising-sounding book title: "Why Life Speeds Up as You Get Older: How Memory Shapes Our Past."

You'd think that the author would have an answer to the "why." But another review of the book by a physician said:

So why does life appear to speed up as we get older? This is a perception that most of us who are older than 50 regularly experience—particularly at anniversaries of varying sorts such as birthdays, holidays, weddings, and residency graduations. The author acknowledges that this question, which involves two highly complex and ephemeral concepts—memory and time—cannot be answered with certainty.

Oh, great. Even an expert on time can't tell me why my life is speeding by faster and faster. Disappointing, but I didn't give up on Google.

I was rewarded with a blog post by someone who, like me, had made the rounds of Internet theories concerning this question. "The Speed of Time" ended with a suggestion that mindfulness – being here now in the present – is a way to make time slow down.

Makes sense. As did the best writing I found on this subject, Steve Taylor's "The Speed of Life: Why Time Seems to Speed Up and How to Slow it Down."

When you've got time, read it. Taylor is a good writer. I liked his take on the "proportional theory" that I mentioned above (as we grow older, every additional period of time is a smaller proportion of our life).

There is some sense to this theory – it does offer an explanation for why the speed of time seems to increase so gradually and evenly, with almost mathematical consistency. One problem with it, however, is that it tries to explain present time purely in terms of past time. The assumption behind it is that we continually experience our lives as a whole, and perceive each day, week, month or year becoming more insignificant in relation to the whole. But we don't live our lives like this. We live in terms of much smaller periods of time, from hour to hour and day to day, dealing with each time period on its own merits, independently of all that has gone before.

Seems true. As does Taylor's preferred explanation for why time speeds up with advancing years:

In my view, the speeding up of time we experience is mainly related to our perception of the world around us and of our experiences, and how this perception changes as we grow older. The speed of time seems to be largely determined by how much information our minds absorb and process – the more information there is, the slower time goes.

He says that things around us come to seem more and more familiar the longer we live. We travel the same streets, go to the same places, talk to the same people, engage in the same activities.

With all this sameness, we begin to ignore perceptions that used to be oh so fascinating. Familiarity breeds disinterest, if not contempt.

One way of increasing the flow of information into our psyches is to do new things. Travel to a different location; take up a fresh hobby; shake up old habits. Good ideas, but the way I see it, this runs the risk of making us a slave to time.

We end up dashing from newness to newness, addicted to the rush of unfamiliar perceptions. Look, the Louvre! I know how to waltz! Golf is fun!

I prefer Taylor's mindfulness approach:

A second way in which we can slow down time is by making a conscious effort to be 'mindful' of our experience… Poets and artists often have this kind of 'child-like' vision – in fact it's this that usually provides the inspiration for their work. They often have a sense of strangeness and wonder about things which most of us take for granted, and feel a need to capture and frame their more intense perceptions.

Read the end of his piece for more on mindfulness. Good stuff. As more perceptions, more information from the outside world, courses into consciousness, time slows down.

I hear the crisp clicking of my ThinkPad's keys. I feel my hands resting on the palm rest. The sound of the heat pump going on outside our kitchen window enters my awareness as I watch these letters appear on my laptop's screen.

Life is always happening all around us, and within us. To pay close attention to it, here and now, that's key to slowing time down.

Mindfulness means stopping thinking and starting to be aware, to live in the here and now of your experience instead of the 'there and then' of your thoughts. It stretches time in exactly the same way that new experience does: because we give more attention to our experience, we take in more information from it.

In other words, to some extent we can control time. It doesn't have to speed up as [we] get older. Some of us try to extend our lives by keeping fit and eating healthy food, which is completely sensible. But it's also possible for us to expand time from the inside, by changing the way we experience the moment to moment reality of our lives. We can live for longer not just in terms of years, but also in terms of perception.

Comments

[Minh]

Great research, I really enjoyed reading this post. If it's any solace, I'm only 27 and I've been thinking about death a lot too!

[Rain]

Interesting post. I have seen death come to young ones around me; so haven't seen it as just an old age thing. I never expected to live past 30 and when I did, I quit wondering how old I'd get to be. The question i have had is suppose time is really speeding up for everybody? Maybe the perception it is faster as we age is because it is but not just for us who are old. What do we have to measure it really when it possibly doesn't exist at all-- using quantum physics thinking that all is here at the same time-- and is merely a tool we use to function. But your ideas for mindful living are how to make the most of what is here regardless.

[Condor]

In school time passed very slowly. As I kept looking at the clock for each class to end, 45 min. was an eternity.

Once I had a job as a security guard at the gate of a condo complex. I sat in this little booth for eight hours a day. These were very, very long days. But when I was with a girlfriend or something pleasurable, time went way too fast.

When you're in great pain, each moment lasts too long. When you're having fun, it can't last long enough.

It's as simple as that, and not, but this is one way to look at it.

Now is always now. For many people, it's the content of now that determines its apparent duration.

Brian, you're enjoying life.

[Bpaul]

Great post sir :-)

[Ashley]

Very Thoughtful article, i found it very interesting, but as Rain said, time does fly when we are having fun, which basically means, if you want time to slow down then do something that you do not enjoy doing. I believe it is as simple as that.

Enjoy your life as you only get one of them!

[Stephanie]

A friend of mine once said that time speeds up because each moment takes up a much higher percentage of time in a younger person's life. So, a day is a really long time if you're only a day old, but a really short time if you are 18,250 days old. For me, meditation and turning off the tv slow down time a little bit.

[Bob]

Time slows down

This perception for me is not about age but change. I wanted to quit smoking and was having little success. I went to a hypnotist, just a scam for me, anyway it did not work. I was trying to reprogram myself.
I did learn one thing from this experience that hypnosis changes your perception of time. Time did slow down for me, a trick of the mind?

My mother has Alzheimer's and her perception of time is unusual. It was surreal when it started. She would go to work 8am come home at 7pm. Then just a few times at first. She would sleep 10-15 min and getup take shower and go to work at 8pm. By 9pm it was dark and she would realize what she had done. Scared and mystified she would go to bed and could not sleep. Now for her every day is the same day. Time does not exist the way it use to for her. Her short term memory is almost gone. Her long term is fragmented. The brain cells are trying to map around the damaged areas. There is no cure, omega 3's and ester c, clean water distiled help.

I had better luck with subliminal reprogramming she likes to play games on the computer as do I. Subliminalblaster is a good program for this. I can customize the messages for a particular task I want her to complete. There is no other way to get through to her. You could talk all day for
weeks and she forget it 5 min. I use it on
myself as well with great success.

[alonzo]

if you fly around the earth for 50 years would people on earth age faster than you if so could someone explain it

[Kathy]

Hello! I just happened by this post of yours and it reminded me of a series I watched on the Science Channel sometime in the past year. It's originally a BBC4 series on Time written and hosted by string theory pioneer Michio Kaku. Part one in the series is exactly what you pose here .. "He discovers our sense of time passing and the clocks that drive our bodies."
Here is a link to the series ...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/time.shtml
You might be able to find it playing on the Science Channel here in the states as well.
I remembered it immediately when I read your post as it posed several different experiments in terms of how our brains work throughout our lifetimes in terms of perception of time and the passage of time.
VERY interesting ... hope you can find it to watch!

Great blog btw :)

[Rooks.]

Well im only 16, and I think there is seriously something wrong when someone my age is having to look up ways to make time slow down for them. This obviously proves there is too much stress in our society today. Great read, unfortunately time is flying way to fast for me to even attempt to catch up with.

[BoAe and Loma]

You will be charmed by the fact that I found your post after my 9 year old daughter, Loma cried, exclaiming that she did not want to grow up. She insists that time has flown for her. I offered several theories as I have put much thought into this topic ever since my father told me when I was little that each decade is progressively shorter than the last. Later, as he was turning 72, he repeated this thought only added that all the time after about 40 can be encapsulated in a flash. To add to what you stated I profess that this past year has been one of the happiest and longest of my 34 years. I believe that mindfulness is an abreviated version of what I experienced. A few years ago I had cause to reassess my life. This happens periodically but this last time was far more profound than ever. I discovered that I wanted to slow down, enjoy life and truly live it. To address the idea that time flies when you are having fun, it can also slow down if the fun is consciously appreciated. I told my daughter that she was having way too much fun and not paying enough attention. She and I both enjoyed your post very much. I am greatful that my father warned me at an early age to seize each moment and hold onto it before you let it fly away.

One other note: I learned once that when you are in familiar territory, your eyes take a fraction of the number of "pictures" as it would in a new environment. I believe that the perception of time is many layered. It can be slowed on the mechanical level of ones ocular activity as well as on the chemical level of one's brain/mind (not to start a whole new chapter) processing that information as well as all associating information.

[Brian]

BoAe and Loma, I enjoyed your comment. Wise advice -- to slow down and enjoy each moment. I agree with your father about time speeding up after 40. Now that I'm 60, I see even more the truth of that.

It does seem unfair, that as you get older and have fewer years of life left, they seem to pass more quickly. But like you said, doing new things and looking upon life as freshly as possible should slow time down some (or a lot).

[griffin]

im only 14 years old and i have been trying to make my child hood/ life as a teenager feel as longer and I thank you for the answer.

[emil7878yahoo.com]

A persons mass and weight have some effect on time. lets say when someone weights very little like a 3 year old boy they expirience time more slowly, verses some one who is tall as well as large in size who might eperience time going fater. that is why as we get older and bigger time speeds up for us. lets say there was a machine and it would make it possible to shrink someone to quantim lever and leave them like that for several seconds and then bring them back to regular size. what suposed to happen is that a young person will come back as an senior citizen. lets say you reverse the machine and you are able to enlarge a person to a size of a galaxy and leave them there in that zise for 200 years. and afterwards shrink them into their regular size. what you will notice is that that person has only aged several minutes. unlike everyone on earth experienced full 200 years. it has not been proven yet but that is the way it is.

[Joe]

Last month, i stood thinking for about 10 minutes in the middle of my college campus trying to think how old i was. The answer is 22. I decided to investigate and this post was well done-thank you, because time seems to fly by. I used to think i had an awesome ability to make time fly especially in situations i disliked. I started being more "mindful" of my surroundings, while walking to class-analyzing the things around me. I soon discovered that there is always something happening. Always.

Sometimes, you come across something that gives you the ability to appreciate life a little more. Can you imagine, a blind person not knowing what the ocean or stars looks like? I can't imagine this. Can you imagine a person not being able to run, in which they dream of running? Can you imagine some people can't get out of bed, their whole lives? Or not being able to move their fingers? These questions teach me appreciation of life. One thing that made me ponder some of these questions was a movie called 'Seven Pounds', and the words i remember now from it, are simply live abundantly.

[Tein De Vries]

Hi everyone, thank you for your comments, I think they are all helpful.
I am now twenty years old. When I was younger I used to really enjoy watching the sky with the evening sun affecting it. About two years ago I realized that I could not really do so anymore, not in the way I would have. I could not find the rest for the enjoyment, perhaps what I look for is mindfulness, I do not know yet.
A feeling I am having about the experience of speed of time is that it is also influenced by how you remember your time. If you remember all days like you do today, than probably you will feel like you have lived for a long time.
Might it not be just the conscious awareness of the world, but might it be the memory of that awareness that effects ones perception of the speed of time as well?
Something inside me tells me that keeping a diary every day could help me consciously think over that day and fix it in my memory, I am going to try that, together with mindfulness.

I did some observations of my mind.
An important one is that sometimes when I wake up early, and I look at a clock, time almost literally goes faster. Instead of tick....tick....tick in the afternoon, I then experience the clock as tick.tick.tick, and rarely even tickticktickticktick.
A second thing I observe is that lately I do not remember certain conversations with people as well as the people I talked to do, it could be that I just have more conversations then those people, or it could be my memory. The latter is supported by the fact that usually when I try, I do not instantly remember what I did the day before. I have to consciously dig it up. Thinking what day it is and then calculating the day it was yesterday helps me figure out my usual tasks and then remember the deviations from those.

A last short thing, I feel like I can hold my thought for less long then I used to and that if I, at for instance a symposium, do not write down a question I take a serious risk of forgetting it. I also think the state of this "working memory" of me also determines my actual brain power.

I am very curious whether others can place themselves in my thoughts. Also, is there somebody who has a good training/trick to improve memory?
Bye! Tein

[Not telling my name]

You are wrong. Kids don't experience shorter time while old people experience flying times. Reading this only bit : How to make time slow down

Time speeds up as you get older. Almost everyone I know says this is true. I sure do. And it's damn unfair.

Why should children, who have their whole lives ahead of them, experience time moving more slowly than semi-geezers like me (I'm 59), who don't have anywhere near as long to live?

I frequently feel like screaming, Hey life! Flip things around! Those kids should be the ones who sense time flying by, while older people get to string out the days they have left.

One of my best friends from elementary and high school died recently. He was, obviously, my age. I was sad to learn about his death from cancer. And I was jerked into a realization that what happened to him could happen to me.

Dying anytime. You never know how long you've got. So slowing down time to make my remaining moments seem like they're lasting longer strikes me as an excellent proposition.

So today I ventured onto Google, figuring that it would be easy to take my first step: learning why time speeds up the older we get...

I already stop reading because the whole thing is untrue. kids do experience flying time you old guy. So don't go blabbering on any further.

[Blogger Brian]

Not telling my name, you should do some more research before calling me wrong. Most people do indeed feel that time goes by faster the older they get. For example...
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/questions/question/2150/
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081118163142AAAZ4jf

Naturally kids experience times when time seems to fly by. But on the whole, time goes slower for them. Years pass slower, probably because there are more novel experiences when you're young.

[tucson]

Blogger Brian hit it in his last sentence. When you are young, everything is new and experienced more vividly and intensely. There is more presence in the moment.

Adults are used to their daily routines and phenomena they have seen and experienced many times before. Life loses its intensity and specialness because what happens is "been there, done that". Much is taken for granted.

Life rushes by as we are distracted by a series of familiar events and this makes life seem more dreamlike. We are not fully present.

Want life to go by slowly? Turn off the electronics. Put away the books. Mothball your hobbies, interests, social contacts and just sit. Anywhere. Forest, beach or city. Just sit and do nothing but observe what presents itself from within and without.

Your days will be very long indeed.

But no matter how long you do this, for days, weeks or years you are always just present now, and the past is just a dream, a memory, an idea.

Where did the time go? It never went anywhere. It has always been now. Remove the distractions and just "be here now".

Your life will be an eternity.

[mind time machine]

omgsh. tucson. u just said precisely what i thought. the past is just a dream. a memory. time is so relative. past present future. things become so repetitive on a day to day basis.... that u can hardly distinguish the 3. im only 17. about a year ago.. all my friends abandoned me. one got in a gang. the other dropped out of school and my other best friend virtually my brother is facing 5 years in jail. me being alone has made the year go by so incredibly fast. however, when everyone left me.. i gave my life to god. and after reading this ive found a solution. be happy enjoy everysingle microsecond. make a second a minute and a minute a hour. dont rush anything. i just sat there one day and closely analyze 1 full minute. even the microseconds. its all in our mind. its all relative. time accelerates at a constant speed regardless of age. it is the way that u view it and experience it that is the true speedometer.

[mind time machine]

i typed that really fast. alot of things dont make sense hopefully its understandable

[Blogger Brian]

mind time machine, you expressed yourself well (oh, I'm showing my age; should have said, "u xprssd urself wel").

You sound wiser than 17. A lot of people, no matter how old they are, never learn how precious every single moment is.

It will never come again. It is unique, absolutely different from any other moment, past or future.

I like your method of focusing on microseconds, every little instant of time.

Whenever I leave the house and get in my car, suddenly wondering "did I turn the burner on the stove off?" I realize how much of the time I'm not paying attention to those moments.

[Artur]

Excellent post, very nice read.

[[email protected]]

maybe one thing to explain is:
the more experieced you are, the quicker you do things. same applies to life: the more experienced you are at life, the quicker you live the life.

[Eirik HM]

I am myself 19, but I really feel as Im still 16 because the last three years have rushed by. It really feels like many people feel the same way about their past. So it seems like a natural pattern. Certainly.

This is just great! Old or young, we can all in some way relate to this phenomena.

I love many of yours' "suggestions" on how to make life feel longer. Seizing the moment and all so.

But true. Seizing the moment, thinking different and new while, when percepting, doing new stuff (which leads to new perceptions and interests) might lenghten the life a bit.

Still, for me, the best out of the above suggestions is the one about just counting miliseconds. This together with just "turning of everything", listening to your own breath while just watching, makes you really feel alive!
... in the moment you are really doing this, and not thinking about that you are doing it, for what reason and what you are going to eat in a couple of hours. Or what your friends think about your new pants.

Interesting posts. I think most people enjoy it.

- Greetings, Eirik, 19 yo from Norway
Thinking person

[Brian Hines]

Eirik, you are wise beyond your years. Congratulations on having such a thoughtful approach to life at such a young age. (You sort of remind me of me, so there's some self-praise involved in what I'm saying.)

I like what you said about doing "just this" as much as possible during the day. As I've written about in the Scootering category of my blog, this is one reason I enjoy getting on my Suzuki Burgman. Riding on two wheels -- no seatbelt, no airbag, nothing between you and other vehicles -- grabs my attention.

I do little daydreaming on my scooter. When I catch myself not paying attention to everything that is going on around me, I get back to zeroing in on what's happening here and now on the roadway. Since life usually isn't so risky, we get complacent and distracted with the seemingly mundane things in life.

But who knows what the next moment will bring? One moment, that will be the last moment for us. We need to appreciate every bit of life while we're still living.

[Will]

I am 15 and have just been noticing that life is really starting to go by faster than it did 5 years ago, for example. It may be because I am busier with school and sports or the proportional theory. I really enjoyed the blog. I think the mindfullness approach is great. Sometimes it's just hard to make myself focus on the here and now. Thanks.

[Mike House]

Thank you for the article. On asking a younger colleague how to slow down time he replied. "In your case by the time you've mastered it, it won't matter any more".
Have read this article I wondered whether blogging itself, or keeping a diary, might help in that mindfulness with a special effort to put down soemthing you've seen or though for the first time. There's a problem wiyh that though:
A group of college friends had a ten year reunion. They always went to the same restaurant, but they always discussed which to go to. The guys who made it to their eighties chose the same restaurant because they'd never been there before.

[John Taylor]

Interesting post. You touched me with the idea of information and perception: "we begin to ignore perceptions that used to be oh so fascinating. Familiarity breeds disinterest, if not contempt." For some reason I feel so invigorated after a quick vacation abroad. It's not just the 'relax' zone effect, it's the fact that... at least in my past vacations... I'd venture out to experience new things, go out of my norm. And then, after it's done... not much new, exciting info flowing in from my environment (compared to vacation time).
John Taylor,
liverpool blinds quick tips on selecting the right shape and styling your room

[Liz]

This is brilliant. Lately I've been bothered by the fact that time is spinning out of control,and it literally seemed as if the past 5 years of my life have been stolen from me.It just doesn't feel right that I'm already entering my jr year of high school. And though I do agree that living in the moment will slow down time, doesn't that require so much pactience and effort? Is there really a way to speed down time subconsciously so that you don't have to persay,"work at it." Otherwise, it would be almost painful to slow down time,seeing as you would need to use every ounce of your strength to be constantly observant. Can anyone provide an explanation?

[megan myra]

wow this is badass. im 17 and time seems to be going sooooooooooooo fast but this article has helped me realize why it seems that way. reading this article has helped me in ways i cannot explain. thank you so much.

[Father Robin]

Megan Myra

I've just had my 69th birthday at a beautiful French restaurant with close friends.

At the age of 17 I was just starting University and I thought I knew everything.

Einstein was right.

"An hour sitting with a pretty girl on a park bench passes like a minute, but a minute sitting on a hot stove seems like an hour"

Time is a perception.

[dooby]

Just stare at the last number on the time it makes time slow way down...

[☆]

I'm so bemused by the fact that there are so many other people in the world who feel exactly the same way! I'm 15, and it scares me just saying it. All I can think of nowadays is how frightening it is that my life in school is almost over. As I reminisce about the past, I am left reeling by the realisation of how old I am, and how much of my life is over. I know I am hardly in my twilight years, but to me it really seems like I'm old! I just keep remembering people telling me to relish being a teenager, but that time's almost over! I'm going to be an adult soon! I am almost nauseated from that statement. It makes me ponder mortality as well. I hate it that soon I'm going to be in my twenties, looking back on my teenage years, bitter and filled with regret. I know that is how it will be, because it is how I feel now, and over the years the feeling will be amplified.
The one thing I am glad about is that this awful epiphany has struck me at a relatively early age, instead of say, fifty, so now I can start to use some of the methods proposed above to attempt to make time pass at a slower rate, and really open my eyes and become aware of the world and its people.

Also, I must say that if I had to rate them, one of the worst feelings out there is nostalgia. :(

[Also named Brian]

Hands down the best article Ive read on this subject, especially with all these insightful comments. I think I will favorite this page so I can come back to it and be reminded of all Ive read today.
I dont know how, at 23, I feel like my life is over, despite people's assurances otherwise. I thought this was a rare situation. So, many people, different ages, all with the same feeling. Id say its how fast the world is today but Im sure people felt the same way 500 years ago.
Recently I came to the rather simple conclusion that all we have is now. You can dwell on the past and wish for it to come back (I agree. As of late I hate the feeling of nastalgia-intentional mispelling. Makes me feel terrible.), but thats just a waste of time. Dwelling on the future and putting your head in the clouds, after a certain point (well, planning is one thing, daydreaming is another), all that does is give you less time to actually do those things. I feel, unless youre gonna make a time machine. (Believe me, Ive given it way too much thought.), you just have to be in the now. Besides, I know its kind of defeatist, but I figure way more dedicated, intelligent people have given it a go, and if they didn't make a time machine happen, why should I bother. Making the most of the day, while hard, is not impossible, and probably is totally worth it. Because I bet, it'd teach people to focus on and appreciate whats really important and not, say for instance, have a fit if the DVR didnt record their show or the power went out. Once again, I really enjoyed reading this and I am so rarely compelled to post, but this felt like a chat I just had to join in on. Thank you for posting this, good sir. And may all your pleasant moments feel like they last an eternity.

[Blogger Brian]

Also named Brian, I'm glad you enjoyed this post and the comments. Like C.S. Lewis said, "we read to know that we are not alone." Usually we don't encounter people who fret about issues like making time slow down, but we philosophical meaning-of-life fretophiles can find each other via the Internet.

It's interesting that so many young people worry about making time slow down. Believe me, when you get to my age (61) you'll almost certainly have a different perspective. I think I'm actually relaxing into the realization that my time will come to an end, which seems to be a natural part of human life.

After all, we rarely see old folks running around in a panic screaming "I'm going to die! Make time slow down!" (unless they're Woody Allen). More acceptance of what is, including the reality of death and the seeming end of personal time, appears to come with age. I can only hope that the trend continues for me.

[brandon]

I too searched Google looking for an answer to why my days fly by like minutes and found very little. my days are far from dull im always looking up to enjoy nature and smelling the roses yet time still flys by so quickly and im deathly afraid that this will only get worse as i get older. the sad thing is im only 16 and if time only speeds up i will live a brief life indeed. i look around at the children around me struggling to become adults yet at the same time acting worse than 4 year olds. teens at my school are destroying their body's with drugs and alcohol and then every one trying to legalize pot! oh please dont let that happen!!! and one need only to listen to rap music to know that society is slowly going down hill. maybe im a not optimistic enough but at least its nice to know some of the younger people on this page have some kind of sense. i came to this page hoping to find answers to why my days feel like minutes but instead i found out that i relate more to adults than i do children of my own age and i do say children because if you expect to live to lets say 50, 16 still isn't even half way there. I did however find that taking a whole day jest to watch things happen around you in every little detail does feel like an eternity but after its over i have to go right back to school and time passes by and i cant seem to find the time take a whole day off. I wish there was a simple answer of how to slow down time saddly their isnt.
that doesnt give my a reason not to make the best of it though and youll never catch me outside without a wide toothy grin on my face
:)
thanks for your post your neighbor from Washington
-Brandon

[Blogger Brian]

Brandon, you're a thoughtful guy for a 16 year old. But then, I was too. I just spent a lot of time in the early to mid 1960's listening to "classic" Bob Dylan, while your musical tastes are different, I'm sure.

All I can say, from my 62 year old perspective, is that almost certainly you've got a lot of living left to do. It won't fly by as quickly as you think. And if you ever find yourself in a boring job, it'll go even slower.

When I was in my late teens I was deeply pessimistic about life. I read a lot of Sartre and other existentialists. That's the nature of adolescence, for philosophical types like us. I suspect you'll come to feel more comfortable about life, no matter what speed it goes by at, before too long.

But who can say what "too long" is? (Guess I'm still a philosophical type.)

[leonrenege]

Wow, quite suprised to find that im not the only young person here worried about time flying past them. Definitely dont wish to regret much in my life, but at 21 the last few years have flown, and I fear that at some stage later on i will be thinkin, what a waste.
But lets hope that a bit of hyper awareness, and a change of scenery might help. If nothin else, the fact that I tried to figure out HOW to make the most of it, will in itself be enough to satisfy that whingin old bastard I may become!

Enjoyed readin this, was well written, so I may keep an eye on your blog lad. Not too closely though- might be a waste of time =P

[Rachel]

I thoroughly enjoyed this read and thank you for bringing attention to one of the many questions that often times fill my mind. I am a person who enjoys to anaylayze things and often times i do find myself thinking 'how do i make the time i have now last longer?'

I believe many people spend too much time preparing for a later moment than the one they are currently living. an example would be as you explained when you often times think "did i leave the stove on?"

Often times as you age you experience familiar things over and over again and you push them towards your subconscious and I think that this is another reason time seems to speed up. I believe it is not time itself that is actually being affected but it is how we perceive it. If people took the time to actually slow themselves down, such as their minds and activities, they would find their perception of time to be noticabley slower.

To me, perception is key to making this happen and a lot of the time distractions (such as books TV etc.) don’t allow us to actually take a moment to notice the time we actually do have. So as far as everyone else has stated I completely agree that if you just take awhile to live in the present and not for the future you will probably feel as if time has slowed down.

My main point is that it is not time itself that it is speeding it is how we spend that time.

I may sound completely foolish as I’m only 17 but this is what I have found in my life to be true. I hope that my ramble made sense even just a little. Thank you for the post! rachel

[Blogger Brian]

Rachel, you made plenty of sense. Thanks for sharing your ideas in such a clear and cogent fashion. It's great that you're pondering time at such a young age.

Us Social Security recipients, of course, REALLY, need to figure out how to make time slow down, because most likely we have a lot less to enjoy than you young folks do (death can come at any age, though, sadly).

[aries]

Hi I'm 15 and I've been becoming very chronophobic. I can hardly sleep at night because I just get so panicky. I don't feel like im15 at all! I find it shocking that I'm already finished with my freshman year of high school. I feel like my mind stopped aging at 12 and imwondering what happened to all the time.
I like your article a lot. I was wondering if any old people were scared too and it scares me that they are! I wasn't always so afraid, I used to be ok with it. Recently my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and that made me realize that one day I'm going to be old and weak and my parents will be dead and that is the most scary thing ever. I wish I could freeze time and stay young and energetic forever. And since that's impossible, ill to do the next best thing, enjoy my life! Your article has helped me understand but I still break down at thethought of being old. I think I need therapy.
Thanks, the article was awesome! Bye now...

[Blogger Brian]

aries, as I've said to some other adolescents who feel much the same as you, I'm impressed that you're so thoughtful at so young an age. Keep it up!

I'm not encouraging you to over-think your life -- just to ponder what is most meaningful to you, and to focus on that as you travel along on your life journey.

Yes, it's tough to face the reality of death. But life and death are two sides of the same coin. Without one, we wouldn't have the other. Be grateful for every moment, not worrying too much about what those moments consist of.

I mean, what you consider "good" and "bad" will change a lot over your lifetime. And people are going to disagree with you about what's desirable and undesirable.

From my 62 year-old viewpoint, the simple fact of being alive and being able to experience anything at all is something marvelous. Life doesn't always give us what we want, but so long as we're alive, it gives us something.

Pay attention to that. As this blog post says, make mindfulness as much a part of your daily moments as possible. This will slow time down to some extent, and make those moments more meaningful.

Plus, you'll be less likely to think "where did I put my car keys?" once you begin to drive.

[Tyler]

excellent article, i am 16 and i'm realizing that time moves at increasing speeds, there never seems to be enough time in a day so i would like to fix this issue before it gets worse.

i agree that more information slows the perception of time. You are forced to think faster to analyze all the information so when there is less information to analyze your brain would still be working at a faster pace making time seem to go by slower.

I don't generally watch tv because it bores me, but i am going to try an experiment, i am going to gradually increase the speed of a movie and see if my brain is able to adapt and fully comprehend it.

in theory my brain should eventually adapt to see a movie going at 2.0x but i would perceive it as a "normal" speed.

If it works, i will take it a bit further and try an experiment on my girlfriend, i will put in a single movie in that gradually increases at a low rate of .01x until it hits 1.3x (or something similar) and i will see if she notices.

i am ripping a movie right now so wish me luck!

[Luis]

Im 30 and im from Spain, i am very afraid of death to the point of having experiences of paranoia nearly once every year about that i might be sick and die till the blood tests come out and the doctors tell me im fine, i was a believer and that helped me but it seems now that if you are intellegent you are not suppose to believe in God, like when a child finds out Santa is not real that is how i feel. This thing about slowing time down i like im gonna try it hopefully it will workout.
Ps: Sometimes i look at my dog and i feel jealous of him as he doesnt think about death and worries like you saied he just live the moment.

[Ashton]

great article!

[Peter P]

Hi my name is Peter P...... i am facinated by time and the abilty people have to capture the moment and capitalize on it. i have done my research and what i have realized is that time is nothing more then how a certain person perceives Time.
Time in all sense does not exist but rather is a man made tool usefull only for daily life. people always want to chronicle there life for there own selfish reasons. but what most interests me is the ability people have under extreme moments of tension to superseed all odds and come out on the other side a winner or champion if you may. i am in the process of making a documentary about miracle moments and the process that formed these miracle moments. Any insight would be most valuable, maybe even an interview if you would like on your opinions.

Sincerely P.P

[Sebastian]

very good article I like it. I always wondered why time was going so slow when I was a child. And now is rushing so madly. Maybe because there was no responsibilities and more limits when I was a child (my world was limited).

[sepideh]

WoW it was nice

[Joe Connor]

Very nice.

[Joshua Smith]

Hey guys,

I'm 17. What I've noticed is that time seems to speed up when your having fun, but when you look back, it seems to have lasted much longer. When I'm stuck at home for the day, or in school the days go very slow. When I look back on those slow days, it seems to have happened in the blink of an eye.

[brandon]

If you rich time slows down if your rich time seems to stop but if your normal you always worry and have to move on"" so youll never see life like little wayne does he has all the time in the world you will die soon actually while he had no worrys ever and lives his life happy while yours will soon be comin to an end, you will wake up one day and it will be your last and you will feel it too. while lil wayne wakes up still feeling good sorry bruh thats jus how things are.

[Nicola]

Hey! I have read this article and all of these comments because I am still at school and am on holidays with only two days left till I have to go back to the learning environment. Two weeks really should be enough but when the time goes by so fast it's only unfair that that's how long we were given for studying hard, entering new facts into our brain and for pushing our mind capacity to hold more than the standard. I am merely scared by what the time speeding by means for us! The whole concept of death scares me a lot! And although I don't want to be scared by this it forces me to live my only life full of fear. I try to reinforce that ONE life is all I have! This life so why not live it to the fullest but it seems like everything I think about these days somehow makes me resort to death of a family member or myself and I pray so much because I am not ready for that! I live in fear everyday but shouldn't! But does shouldn't mean that I won't? Anyways your articles were very informative and somewhat helpful!

[Tamerlana]

Your article is very well written and it was exactly what I needed. Time perception is my new hobby) Also, I've heard of time-distortion hypnosys. Some experiences actually showed that a person can perceive time many times slower than it really is.

[Anne]

In mid-life you have to plan ahead in your mind all the time: what needs to be done by when to get work projects done, get the kids to school on time, take mom to the doctor's appointment, etc. You have to even plan vacations down to the minute to be prepared: getting the car ready for travel, bringing what the kids will eat each day for breakfast, making the reservations. Nothing is so new or surprising when you've already thought it through.

Time feels slower when you aren't the one doing all the advance planning. You can relax and just wonder what the day will bring and take it all in with excitement and surprise. This is how it was when I was a kid. (and when my husband took me on a vacation that he had planned out totally to surprise me!)

[joseph]

It appears to me that time has an opposite effect of what your desires may be. It never wants to give into your demands. If you wish time to pass quickly then it will slow it's pace. If you wish for it to halt it will flow like water. This is perception at it's finest. Perception rules our world andcontrols everything,not only time. Let me explain further.if you were on a river bank enjoying the water laying out the water would flow b gently as you enjoy the sun. Now, if you were in that same river grasping for air and fifty feet from a waterfall it would surly be flying by fast. Now with it being the same river, it is obviously going the same speed. The only thing changing is your perception. Life is the same way. As children we are on the shore of time because we are unaware we are actually in the water and the drop off is there(death). As we get older and come to realise we are in the water we now have something to gauge what's left. This fear of death perpetuates our perception and causes our time to flyby the closer we come to the drop off.

To slow time would involve losing the perception. Lessen our knowledge or eliminate it of death and you will see time expand. In the future we might resolve this prfoblem but to what resolve. The first resolution i see in the hopefully near future is the singularity of man and machine. Until we achieve this you can only appreciate life at every moment but tell time to speed up, hoping it will do the opposite.

[Brian Hines]

joseph, thanks for the interesting comment. A lot to think about in it. I like your waterfall analogy. Being 63, I can strongly identify with it -- more so the older I get.

I like your idea of telling time to speed up if we want it to slow down. This is sort of how I fall asleep, when I have difficulty doing so. The more I try, the more I don't succeed. Yet when I don't care about falling asleep, saying to myself "I"ll just stay awake for a while," I'm more likely to nod off.

[Dejoe]

Thank you for taking the time to write this - well written and easily digested. I`m sure that being mindful can be beneficial for more than just the unnecessary hastiness of time.

[Chuck]

I read that weed slows time down

[Anne]

One of the problems with the first theory (the mathematical one), eventho it seems to make sense, is that it is not really a mathematical issue, it is a psychological issue (in my opinion), as no matter how long you've lived you never know when you will die, not every older person feels that time goes by faster, not every younger person feels that time goes by slower, not to mention that time itself goes by at exactly the same speed (whether time is an illusion is another issue). I think the answer to the question is fairly simple, it is a matter of state of mind. Change your state of mind, you will change your perception of time. And living in the present, in the "here and now" (as in enjoying the moment, smell the fresh air, etc, rather than worry about something, anything, including time) is indeed part of the solution. And thank you for your article, it was very interesting.