Feel Like Your Life’s Moving Too Fast? Here’s 1 Way To Slow Down Time.

As you’ve gotten older, you’ve probably noticed that time seems to go by faster and faster.It’s not just you: our perception of time does change dramatically as we get older.

Alicea Ardito ), an older adult therapist in Northern Virginia, says one of the most common topics she hears in therapy is that her clients feel like their lives are going by too fast.”A common phrase used to describe this feeling is that life goes by ‘in the blink of an eye.”

First, it’s important to understand why many of us feel like time is flying by.One reason, says Ruth Ogden, a professor of psychology who studies time at Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom, is that as we get older, a calendar unit such as a year becomes a smaller and smaller portion of our entire lives.

Another reason has to do with how our memories affect our experience of time.

Our brains don’t monitor time all the time, so when we need to make judgments about longer time periods like days, months, or years, we use the number of memories formed during those time periods to judge the duration of those time periods.

For example, if someone asks you how long you’ve been doing something, your brain looks back at how many memories were formed during a certain period of time and uses that as a guide to duration.The more memories we form in a given period of time, and the more vivid and emotional those memories are, the longer the period will feel to us.

It’s also important to consider that we form far fewer new memories in adulthood compared to when we were younger.When you were a child, you were constantly learning new skills in extracurricular activities, learning new things at school, making new friends in the classroom, and doing all sorts of exciting things in your daily life.However, as you get older, your novel experiences usually diminish and you may get stuck in the same daily routine for years on end, which makes life feel even more stagnant and uninspiring.

So when we use memory as a guide to time, it feels like we haven’t done much, so it must be a short period of time, so time passes quickly.

Knowing this, we can help slow down our perception of time by pursuing novelty and new experiences throughout our lives.

Seeking novelty is the key to slowing down time

In his book Moonwalking with Einstein: the Art and Science of Remembering Everything, journalist Joshua Foer writes, “Monotony compresses time, while novelty unfolds it.”

So why do new experiences have this effect?According to Ogden, when we engage in novel activities, we form new, vivid memories that come to mind and make us feel like time is passing more slowly.

Similarly, the cognitive load required to learn a new skill affects the way we perceive time.

Imagine driving to a new place – the trip there always seems to take longer than the trip back.This is because, on the road, we don’t know where we’re going, we see a lot of new things, there’s a greater degree of planning and uncertainty, and these things slow down our experience of time.The same is true of new activities and experiences.

The novelty of the experience also allows us to escape the “hamster wheel” of everyday life.

They disrupt our daily lives and thus our sense of time.In addition, deciding to do something new can put you in control of how you use your time.When we feel in control of our time, we don’t feel like time is slipping away from us.This helps to slow down.

It’s worth noting that in that moment, the new experience can actually feel like time is flying by.But when you think back on that time, it can feel like it lasted much longer.This is what British psychologist and author Claudia Hammond calls the “vacation paradox” – the idea that vacations seem to go by quickly when you’re not there, but in hindsight, you feel like you were on vacation much longer than you actually were..

How to add more novelty to your life

There are many ways to embrace the unfamiliar in your daily life.It can be something big, like planning a trip to a faraway place, or something small, like driving a different route after work.It could also mean taking up a new hobby, like signing up for art or tennis lessons.

Meeting new people is another way to stay fresh.Maybe you can invite an acquaintance from your fitness class to a new breakfast place in town, or start striking up conversations with strangers when you’re out and about.

Another option?”Give back to causes that are important to you,” suggests Adito.”Is there any way to volunteer your time or skills?”

When you want to add more freshness to your life, you also need to consider the amount of time you spend on screens, “observing the freshness, but not necessarily engaging with it.”It is recommended that online interests be translated into real-world experiences.

We know that engaging in real-world activities is a better use of time than online activities – so transforming online activities into offline ones could be a way to get fresh and slow down time.

If you want to pursue new and exciting things, then set aside time on your calendar.Otherwise, it’s easy to give up on these new activities when life gets busy.

Setting aside a dedicated time each week to try something new will help ensure that you get to do something new.This may reduce spontaneity, but it will ensure you get it done.

Then keep track of the new things you’ve tried.Many of us create to-do lists to keep track of what needs to be done, but rarely do we take the time to create “done” lists to celebrate those victories.

Keeping track of “what I’ve done” helps us to recognize all the accomplishments in our daily lives.This also helps us to remember all of our actions – prolonging the feeling of time passing.Eventually, by paying close attention to what we are doing, we may realize that we are doing more than we realize.

Finally, in the pursuit of new experiences, don’t forget to set aside time to do the things you know and love.

Time is limited.Spending time on things you enjoy is vital to happiness.

While there is a tendency to think that a fulfilling life is one that is full of “freshness”, freshness is not always the key to bringing fulfillment.There needs to be a balance between doing what you love and trying new things – someone else’s grass isn’t always greener, and we shouldn’t waste our lives because new things are always better.