https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-alter-the-passage-of-time-to-feel-fast-or-slow
How to alter the passage of time to feel fast or slow
Knowing the psychology behind why moments drag or whizz by can give you a degree of control over your experience of time
by Martin Wiener, associate professor of psychology
Time pervades every aspect of modern life. Sometimes, we wish we could speed it up; other times, we crave the ability to slow it down. The other day I was driving with my family for a short vacation and we hit traffic. My GPS told me that the slowdown would last only 10 minutes, but the cars were barely moving. Hot and tired, the wait was agonising. I looked ahead for the end of the tailback and wished that I could somehow fast-forward to that point. Yet later that same day, once at our destination, I knew that time would start to fly by. Now I wished to slow life down, to squeeze more out of the precious moments to come.
When you think about it, our everyday talk is infused with references to time as a prized resource. We talk about being ‘time poor’ (if we don’t have enough time to do the things we want) or being ‘time rich’ (if we are young and have our whole lives ahead of us). We agonise over ‘time wasters’, who extend the torture of boring meetings, and we lament ‘time sinks’ when we find ourselves stuck scrolling through apps on our phones. If there is one thing we agree on, it’s probably that we don’t have enough minutes in the day. ‘If only I had more time,’ we say.
So what if you could have more time? Well, of course you can’t literally slow down the clock, but you can change how the passage of time feels. I research time perception, and in this Guide I’m going to share some ways you can intentionally alter your sense of time’s passing.
Your sense of time originates in your brain. Research over the past three decades has found there is no unitary brain structure or neural location in which time ‘resides’. Rather, time in the brain appears distributed across a variety of structures, from the cerebellum, which hangs off the back of the brain, to the outer cerebral cortex. Experimental evidence suggests there is a separate clock for each of our senses – a clock for vision and a clock for sound, and so on – and that all of them are coordinated and aligned so that it takes careful probing in a psych lab for us to notice their differences. There is even a separate neural clock influenced by bodily signals – for instance, speeding up and slowing down your sense of time around each heartbeat.
With your perception of time constructed from a variety of neural sources, it may not be surprising to learn that it can stretch and contract like a rubber band, as both external and internal factors exert an influence. Lab experiments have shown that time can ‘dilate’ (that is, its passing feels slower) when viewing images that are emotional, frightening, awe-inspiring and vast, but also images that are brighter, louder, more numerous, moving or flickering. Time can also ‘contract’ (that is, seem speeded up) when viewing scenes that are cluttered, receding or when stimuli have less contrast with their background.
Recent work from my lab has also shown that there’s a two-way relationship between memorability and time perception: not only do inherently memorable images (such as a face, rather than a bland landscape) seem to last longer when viewed, but this relationship works in reverse too – images that are perceived to have longer durations are more likely to be remembered later, regardless of their inherent memorability. This suggests a fascinating connection between how we perceive time and how our memory systems function.
These and other lab findings on time perception and memory hint at ways you can deliberately choose to alter your perception of time. However, as I walk you through some basic ways to do this, remember the situation is not entirely straightforward because of an important distinction between ‘prospective’ time and ‘retrospective’ time. That is, there is a difference between how time feels when you’re in it, and how it seems when you look back at what happened – this is worth keeping in mind as you read on.
Pay attention to time to slow down the present
The more attention we focus on the passing of time, the more stretched out it becomes – at least in the moment. This is what is known as ‘prospective’ time – looking at time ahead of us as it passes. When you’re watching the clock in a traffic tailback or waiting in line for a rollercoaster, time drags painfully slowly. This is why we have the adage ‘A watched pot never boils.’
Conversely, when you’re distracted and not paying attention to time, then it can seem to whizz by, hence the adage ‘Time flies when you’re having fun.’ Curiously, this effect can work in both directions. If time seemed to fly, then you might infer that you had fun. This observation is based on a research study where participants were required to engage in various tasks with a clock that was either accurate or artificially speeded up. Participants in the sped-up time condition believed the experience was more enjoyable, simply because they’d been tricked into thinking that time had flown by.
This perception of the past is an example of ‘retrospective’ time – thinking back in your memory to judge how fast time went. It is quite common for there to be a disconnect between prospective and retrospective time perception. Something that is long ‘prospectively’ can appear short ‘retrospectively’, and vice versa. To return to the rollercoaster ride, the wait in line might have felt prospectively like it lasted forever compared with the ride itself but, looking back, you will likely remember much more about the fun and exhilarating ride – and so it might end up seeming stretched out in time (whereas the uneventful wait in line, seen in rear view, feels constricted).
Put simply, if you want to slow down time prospectively, as it unfolds, then pay attention to it. Savour it. Whether you’re on a family holiday or enjoying a lovely meal out, bringing your attention to the moment could help to slow it down. Conversely, if time is dragging while you’re waiting for a flight or enduring a dull lecture, the worst thing you can do is to watch the clock. Whether it’s people-watching at the airport or doodling, try to find a fun distraction instead.
Seek new experiences to make the past seem longer
Many of us have that sensation of looking back at the past month, year or decade and wondering where all the time went. In retrospect, it can feel shorter than we might like. This is about retrospective time, and it’s where engaging in new and exciting events and experiences can make a difference. They whirl by prospectively like tornadoes, but they leave trails in our memory that loom larger than mundane ones. You can exploit this principle to make the past seem longer and avoid that feeling of a month or year zipping by in the blink of an eye.
The reason for this phenomenon has to do with memory consolidation. Habitual activities – those you’ve mastered and that might have become part of the daily grind – require little effort or conscious thought, and so are encoded only weakly into memory. In contrast, novel activities and situations demand attention and so are more richly encoded. Crucially, the remembered timelines for new experiences are then stretched, compared with everyday ones. This is why peppering your year with fresh and unfamiliar experiences – be they vacations, meeting new people or trying new activities – can make the year feel more enduring in retrospect.
At a physiological level, one reason for this effect on retrospective time perception might have to do with the greater neural encoding and metabolic cost required for forming richer memories (which might be why you get so hungry on vacation). It’s possible that the brain then interprets this extra processing and metabolism as meaning more things happened, which leads to extended subjective time when looking back.
To increase the length of retrospective time, while avoiding each day prospectively flying by, the best advice then is to seek new experiences periodically, while remembering to also return to the comfort of the routine. The more exciting moments may not last as long at the time, but the duration in memory will feel longer.
Use meditation to slow down the present in an enjoyable way
The gist of what I’ve told you so far might give you the impression that you must choose between either slowing down time in the moment (by clock-watching and engaging in routine, boring tasks) or slowing down time as it feels in the past (by engaging in fun, time-accelerating, exciting activities in the here and now). However, this isn’t strictly true. There’s a third way that involves stretching and dilating time in the present (that is, prospectively) in a way that can be enjoyable.
A clue to this approach comes from the way that time is briefly dilated when we get back into our routines after a vacation, not in a way that makes them drag, but in a way that makes them seem more enjoyable again.
The key may be finding situations where your focus on time’s passage leads to enjoyment rather than boredom. An activity where this can happen is meditation. Certain kinds of meditation, such as transcendental and mindfulness, allow the individual to experience time but without any discomfort. Some studies suggest that time dilates during meditation, yet practitioners find this to be a pleasurable experience.
Taking up a form of meditative practice could therefore give you a third way to manipulate time – to slow it down in the moment, but not in a way that drags. The mindful skills you learn in meditation could also help you to savour precious, pleasurable moments in life, so that they don’t seem to fly by too quickly.
Embrace the malleability of time
Besides the specific approaches above, a better way to get more control of time may be simply to be aware of it, what the geologist Marcia Bjornerud calls ‘timefulness’. Another term for this is ‘metacognition’, or being aware of your own thought processes. In this way of thinking, you are aware that time is a limited resource, but you also recognise that your perception of it is flexible and adaptable, according to your needs.
This awareness of time’s malleability can be helpful when you’re experiencing highs (you might think to yourself: ‘This day is passing fast, but long will it will be remembered’) and painful lows (you might think to yourself: ‘This is going slowly, but it too shall pass’). It can also serve as a way to get more from everyday situations: when you begin to notice the different ways that time’s speed seems to change, you can use it as a shortcut to knowing when you’re overly distracted, bored, impatient, excited or content.
Martin Wiener is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at George Mason University in Virginia, US. He is an expert in time perception and temporal processing. His work has been featured in The Economist, The Guardian and on the BBC.
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