So late? How we can influence our sense of time

Time is a crazy thing. When we wait for the bus or sit on the treatment chair at the dentist, a minute quickly feels like an hour. And then there are moments again when several hours feel like a fingers or activities, where we ask ourselves afterwards where the time actually stayed.

So one minute is not a minute. As we perceive time, this is extremely individual and depends on several factors. You also know the feeling that time seems to pass faster and faster with increasing age. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that we are increasingly doing new things. And – research is now certain – if we experience new things, then it seems to us in retrospect as if the time had passed more slowly.

Memory plays a major role in our perception of time. The psychologist Marc Wittmann wrote an entire book called “felt time”. In it, he describes, among other things, that experiences that are new, exciting or emotional memorize in our contemporary memory. This is also the reason why adults can often remember their youth, while thinking about what they actually did last week.

In the course of growing up, when more and more routines creep in and slowly replace the many “first times” of the youth, time goes away faster and faster – because the memory does not save habits as meticulously as new stimuli. Instead of a detailed film, we only get the highlights of our lives. And have the feeling that time really runs away from us.

In addition to the fact that we simply don’t experience so much anymore, neurobiological factors also play a role in postponing our time perception. According to a study by Duke University, the increasing complexity of our nervous system ensures that we no longer absorb as many stimuli as at a young age. And the lower sum of impressions that make it remember gives the impression that time goes by, as if in a flash.

But not only the adulthood per se affects our perception of time. Our genes also do this. “Animals and small children can already perceive differences in the duration of stimuli. Therefore, one can assume that the perception of time is innate,” writes scientist Isabelle Winkler from the Chemnitz University of Technology in a contribution on the university’s website. She has been researching our time perception for years.

However, their explanatory approach revolves around much more than the increasing age: “One factor is the so -called arousal, i.e. physical or emotional activation. If someone is very activated, the person occurs longer.” This is the case, for example, when we have stress or physical activity. A high arousal means that our internal clock produces more bars. “However, if attention is in time, then the sense of time is more intense.” For example, when we wait and keep looking at the clock.

We usually focus on the clock when we are bored. In moments when we are happy, it almost never occurs. On the contrary: we often get a fright when we look at the clock because we have completely lost the sense of time. The happiness hormone dopamine is to blame. The more we enjoy a moment, the faster it goes away.

In summary, one can say that time passes faster when we do something that makes us happy, is new to us or demands us physically and emotionally. But these are also the moments that will remember us later for much longer than those in which we watch the second hand in his round and the time seems to pull like chewing gum. If in doubt, they don’t even end up in long -term memory and are so quickly forgotten.

But how can we influence our sense of times so that the lifetime does not run away from us? The first step is certain to leave space for new experiences and experiences in addition to important and right routines and habits. For example, make up for you to try something new once a month or to get to know new people in a targeted manner. That can delay the felt time.

Sometimes there are moments when we would only like to stop time. But then it goes away all the faster. Since our body feeling is closely linked to the sense of time, there are two simple methods that allow at least short stopover. On the one hand, it can help consciously breathe for a few seconds and listen to his heartbeat. This gives yourself emotionally out of the situation and also ground the subjective perception of time.

If that’s not enough, you can make a mental snapshot. You try to perceive the moment with all your senses and take a photo of it in your head. Due to the intensive examination of the situation, time remains – at least for this one moment.

Don’t worry, we have not forgotten the caustic waiting times in which time plays a prank and just don’t want to pass. In these situations, one thing helps: distraction. When we play on the smartphone, talk to other people or listen to music, then we put at least a small thrust in the right direction. And if that doesn’t work, then we will soon be able to cover up the whole thing in our memory again with nice moments.