As you get older, the production of mental images slows, giving the sense that time passes more rapidly. Fatigue also influences saccades, creating overlaps and pauses in these eye movements that lead to crossed signals. Their processing powers get muddled and their sense of timing is off.
As the brain and body grow more complex and there are more neural connections, the pathways that information travels are increasingly complicated. They branch like a tree and this change in processing influences our experience of time, according to Bejan. Finally, brain degradation as we age influences perception. Studies of saccadic eye movements in elderly people show longer latency periods, for example. The time in which the brain processes the visual information gets longer, which makes it more difficult for the elderly to solve complex problems.
Bejan became interested in this topic more than a half century ago. As a young athlete on a prestigious Romanian basketball team , he noticed that time slowed down when he was rested and that this enabled him to perform better. Not only that, he could predict team performance in a game based on the time of day it was scheduled.
He tells Quartz:. Early games, at 11 AM, were poor, a killer; afternoon and evening games were much better. At 11 AM we were sleepwalking, never mind what each of us did during the night. It became so clear to me that I knew at the start of the season, when the schedule was announced, which games will be bad. Games away, after long trips and bad sleep were poor, home games were better, for the same reason.
In addition, I had a great coach who preached constantly that the first duty of the player is to sleep regularly and well, and to live clean. The clocks will continue to tick strictly, days will go by on the calendar, and the years will seem to fly by ever faster.
The more information our minds take in, the slower time seems to pass. This partly explains why time passes so slowly for children and seems to speed up as we get older.
For children, the world is a fascinating place, full of new experiences and fresh sensations. As we get older, we have fewer new experiences and the world around us becomes more and more familiar. We become desensitised to our experience, which means that we process less information, and time seems to speed up. Another factor may be the "proportional" aspect, which is that as we get older each period of time constitutes a smaller proportion of our life as a whole.
It follows, then, that our experience of time should expand in unfamiliar surroundings, because this is where our minds process more information than normal. When you go away to a foreign country you are much more sensitive to your surroundings. Everything is unfamiliar and new, so you pay much more attention and take in much more information.
It's the same when you spend a day on a training course, learning new things with a group of unfamiliar people. It feels like more time has passed than would have done if you had stayed at home following your normal routine. Firstly, since we know that familiarity makes time pass faster, we can slow down time by exposing ourselves to as much new experience as possible. By travelling to new places, giving ourselves new challenges, meeting new people, exposing our minds to new information, hobbies and skills, and so on.
This will increase the amount of information our minds process and stretch out our experience of time passing. Meditation can help you slow down and focus and it comes with gobs of other scientifically-backed benefits , too. Focusing on the present is all about being more mindful. Aside from meditation, here are a few ways to harness mindfulness, as suggested by our own Melanie Pinola:.
A simple way to get started is to set up triggers or cues to pull you back into the present when your mind inevitably starts to wander throughout that day. For example, while eating, remember to savor each bite every time you put your fork down.
At work, you can set an hourly chime or other reminder to pause in the moment. Pausing before you respond to children —or adults—can also help you become more mindful in your relationships. More deceptively simple practices include practicing appreciation and letting go of control. The very idea of being on vacation is about being present: you leave behind your stress and worries and just focus on relaxing, exploring, and enjoying life. There are a few practical habits I try to practice to make my everyday life feel more like vacation :.
Being present helps with that whole time as a percentage thing. Ditching your comfort zone can make a big difference, too. Part of my resolution this year was to do one thing every week that forces me out of my comfort zone. As a result, I went to my very first conference, spoke at an event, and wrote about topics I was afraid of writing about.
They were challenging, but they were new, and when I think back on them, the past 10 months seem like a long, packed year. Generally, the idea is to give yourself new memories and new experiences so that you can get out of autopilot and change your perception of time.
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