Stay ahead with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships, and more. Stay ahead with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships, and more. Stay ahead with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships, and more. “Time flies”. It’s a phrase you’ve probably heard (or said yourself) as the weeks, months and years add up and life moves quickly. But is there any truth behind the feeling that time speeds up as we age? Researchers have spent years investigating why time seems to pass faster with age. A 2019 study published by Cambridge University Press identified a “scientific misalignment between mental image time and clock time.” “The reason is that measurable ‘clock time’ is not the same as time perceived by the human mind,” the study revealed. While clock time literally refers to a 24-hour day, “mental time” is determined by the images and experiences we accumulate throughout our lives. Mental health care company ReachLink has identified five possible reasons why time seems to speed up as we age, the first being something known as proportional theory. At age 10, one year of life represents 10 percent of everything you’ve experienced. But at age 50, that same year represents only two percent of your life experience. That’s what proportional theory is all about: the idea that each new year of life decreases as a fraction of the total. Multiple studies have looked at why days feel shorter as we age (AFP/Getty) The company also pointed to the deficit of novelty as another factor contributing to the acceleration of time. Novelty deficit is the idea that memory does not record time uniformly, but instead remembers distinct events. When your routine seems largely the same week after week and month after month, there are fewer new memories to distinguish one period from another. As a result, time can feel compressed when you remember it. Then there’s attention absorption, which occurs when your brain goes on autopilot during familiar or habitual tasks, making you less aware of the passage of time. When you’re engrossed in a task, your cognitive resources are focused elsewhere, which means checking the clock takes a backseat. Emotional flattening is another factor. Experiencing big emotions (fear, anxiety, and excitement, for example) leaves a lasting impact. Feelings of exhaustion, stress, and monotony compress time because they form thin, interchangeable memories. The fifth factor is dopamine, a neurotransmitter involved in motivation, reward, and time processing by the brain. Dopamine levels can change as we age, and ReachLink suggests this may contribute to our perception of time passing faster. There are legitimate reasons why days feel shorter as we age (EPA). With all this in mind, there are steps you can take to try to slow down time and create moments and memories that break up established routines later in life. Mechanical engineering professor and author of Time and Beauty: Why Time Flies And Beauty Never Dies, Adrian Bejan, previously told The Independent: “Slow down a little more, force yourself to do new things to get out of your routine. “Treat yourself to surprises. Do unusual things,” continued Bejan, author of the Cambridge University Press study. “Have you heard a good joke? Tell me! Do you have a new idea? Do something. Do something. Say something.”
