Why does time speed up, and can it be slowed down?

In childhood, summer feels endless, the year until the next birthday drags on for an eternity, and a few months are capable of holding a vast number of events. In adulthood, almost the opposite happens: weeks fly by unnoticed, years turn into decades, and sometimes it seems that time is literally slipping through our fingers. Why can the exact same hour drag on endlessly when we are busy with boring work, yet fly by in a matter of minutes when we are having fun? And why does the feeling of time speeding up become even stronger with age?

Time moves the same for everyone, but feels different

The phrase "time flies when you're having fun" didn't appear by chance. When a person is engaged in something interesting, several hours can fly by almost unnoticed. Meanwhile, monotonous work or waiting can turn a few minutes into an eternity. Yet objectively, nothing changes: a second remains a second, and the hands of a clock move at the same speed. The difference lies in perception.

The COVID-19 pandemic became a kind of large-scale experiment showing just how fluid our perception of time can be. The disruption of normal routines, isolation, and stress altered the perception of the duration of days, weeks, and months in entirely different ways for different people. Studies showed that people in different countries perceived the passage of time during the pandemic inconsistently: for some, it seemed to have slowed down, while for others, on the contrary, it accelerated.

But why does the sensation of time speeding up become almost universal as we age?

Young children perceive time differently

One interesting attempt to understand this question was made by Hungarian researchers. In 2023, the results of their study were published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The experiment involved 138 participants divided into three age groups: preschoolers, school-aged children, and adults over 18 years old.

Participants were shown two video clips of equal duration. One was action-packed and event-filled, while the other was significantly calmer and more repetitive. The results were revealing.

Preschoolers perceived the event-filled video as longer. For older children and adults, the situation was the opposite: they felt the boring, uninteresting video was longer.

Researchers also paid attention to how participants described the duration of time using gestures. Young children were significantly more likely to use vertical hand movements—as if describing time through volume or size. Older children and adults predominantly made horizontal movements, perceiving time as a linear sequence.

This may indicate that the very concept of time gradually changes as we grow up.

The brain processes information more slowly with age

Another theory is linked directly to the functioning of the nervous system. Professor Adrian Bejan suggested that with age, neural networks become more complex, and processing visual information takes more time. As a result, the brain creates fewer new mental images per second.

In his view, this is precisely what may create the impression that time is beginning to move faster. At first glance, there is a paradox here. If the brain processes information more slowly, why does it feel like time is speeding up?

The explanation lies in the amount of new experiences the brain manages to register and store. In childhood, the surrounding world constantly presents something new. A child learns to walk, talk, read, meets new people, attends school for the first time, travels, and masters a massive number of new skills. Practically every day contains a multitude of events that the brain must actively process.

Therefore, childhood memories can seem very rich, and certain periods extremely long. In adulthood, much becomes routine. We already know how our job works, how a typical day goes, how to get home, and how to use familiar items. The brain requires less effort to process repetitive information. And when we look back, a period filled with familiar events can seem much shorter.

Another popular theory is related to elementary mathematics. For a five-year-old child, one year represents 20% of their entire life. For a 50-year-old person, one year is just 2% of the life they have lived. Therefore, the subjective "size" of a year gradually decreases. But it is not just about arithmetic; the difference in the number of changes is also key.

Can you make time go slower?

Stopping the clock is, of course, impossible. But you can change your own perception of time. One of the most obvious ways is to consciously bring your attention back to the present moment.

Instead of constantly operating on autopilot, you can pay attention to what is happening with your body and around you right now: your breathing, heartbeat, sounds, smells, and the physical sensation of clothes touching your skin. This is not merely philosophical advice. Research shows that our perception of time can indeed be connected to the body's physiological processes.

Adam Anderson, a professor of psychology at Cornell University, and his colleagues investigated the link between time perception and heart rate. Participants in the experiment had their heartbeats monitored via electrocardiogram while listening to short audio signals.

It turned out that the perceived duration of a signal varied depending on the cardiac cycle: after a longer interval between heartbeats, the sound was perceived as lasting longer, while after a shorter interval, it was perceived as shorter. According to Anderson, this indicates that the subjective feeling of time is tied not only to brain activity, but also to how a person senses their own body.

He suggests a simple experiment: turn on a stopwatch, close your eyes, and focus on your breathing. Try to identify the moment when you feel exactly one minute has passed, then open your eyes and look at the real time. Such an experiment allows you to literally feel the difference between objective and subjective time.

Slow breathing can alter the perception of time

Anderson’s research also points to a connection between heart rate and the subjective perception of duration.

With a slower heart rate—that is, with a longer interval between beats—time can subjectively be perceived as lasting longer.

That is why focusing on calm, slow breathing can be one way to change your perception of time.

This does not mean, of course, that breathing exercises actually slow down the hands of a clock. They simply alter our perception of what is happening.

Based on materials from Upworthy.