Time seems to speed up as we get older. A 60-second fix can slow it down.

Annie Reneau
Mon, 15 Dec 2025 23:35:18 +0000
Intense exercise effects, Neural processing changes, Novel experiences impact, Time perception theories, Timetolife ratios, Perception of time, Aging, Childhood, Time perception and age, Novel experiences, Meditation, Mindfulness, Space, Hourglass, Clock, Time

Imagine this scenario, if you will: You're scrolling along, minding your own business on the internet, when this little nugget comes across your timeline: "1980 and 2023 are as far apart as 1937 and 1980. Sleep tight, old fogies!"

Wait, what? Your first reaction is, "That can't be right," so you pull out the calculator and do the math yourself—several times because you're sure you must've missed a number somewhere each time. You remember how long ago 1937 seemed in 1980, and there's absolutely no way that much time passed between 1980 and 2023. Buy you're wrong. As the warped reality of time washes over you, you sit in stunned silence, contemplating the existential crisis you've just been thrown into.

— (@)

Why does time work this way? Why does it seem to accelerate and condense, making decades seem shorter and shorter as we age? And perhaps more importantly, how the heck do we stop time from feeling like a runaway freight train?

Here are several theories about what causes the freight train phenomenon and what to do about it.

Time perception is relative—and kids perceive it differently

"Time flies when you're having fun" is a saying for a reason. Time also drags when you're doing drudgery and feels as if it stands still in moments of significance. And yet the ticking of seconds as they go by doesn't change tempo. We measure it with steady, unchanging beats, but how it feels changes constantly.

Children playing with bubbles. via Canva/Photos

This relativity exists in every passing moment, but it also exists in the bigger picture as well. The years felt to pass much more slowly when we were children, and by middle age they seem to pass in the blink of an eye. The pandemic gave us an even greater sense of this relativity as disruptions to our normal routines and the stress associated with the COVID-19 years messed with our sense of time. (On an odd side note, surveys show that our time perception during the pandemic varied a lot from place to place—people in some parts of the world felt that time moved more slowly, while others felt time moved more quickly.)

According to a 2023 Hungarian study published in Nature Scientific Reports, very young children perceive time differently than older children and adults. Researchers split 138 people into three age groups—pre-kindergarten, school-age and adults 18 and over—and showed them two videos of the same duration, one that was "eventful" and one that was "uneventful." Interestingly, the pre-K group perceived the eventful video to be longer, while the older children and adults saw the uneventful video as longer.

The way the study participants described the length of the videos in gestures was also telling. Young children were much more likely to use vertical hand gestures, connoting volume or magnitude, to indicate a length of time than the other two age groups. School-aged kids and adults tended to use horizontal gestures, indicating time as linear, increasing with age.

Our neural processing slows down as we age

Professor Adrian Bejan has a theory based on how neurons process signals. As we age, our neural networks increase in size and complexity, and as a result, process visual information more slowly. That slower processing means we create fewer mental images per second than we did when we were younger, which makes time seem to slow down.

A woman slowly ages over about 15 years.via Canva/Photos

“People are often amazed at how much they remember from days that seemed to last forever in their youth, Bejan shared with Harvard University. "It’s not that their experiences were much deeper or more meaningful; it’s just that they were being processed in rapid fire.”

In other words, processing the same number of mental images we did in our youth takes longer now, somewhat counterintuitively making time seem to pass more quickly. So goes the theory, anyway.

It might simply be about time-to-life ratios

Another popular theory about why time feels different as a child than it does as an adult is the ratio of any given day, week or year to the amount of time we've been alive. To a 5-year-old, a year is 20% of their entire life. For a 50-year-old, a year only is 2% of their life, so it feels like it went by much more quickly.

An hour glass at sunset.via Canva/Photos

It's also a matter of how much change has happened in that year. A year in the life of a 5-year-old is full of rapid growth, change, learning, and development. A year in the life of a 50-year-old probably isn't a whole lot different than when they were 48 or 49. Even if there are major life changes, the middle-aged brain isn't evolving at nearly the same rate as a child. A 50-year-old looking back at the past year will have a lot fewer changes to process than a 5-year-old, therefore the year will seem like it went by a lot faster.

“Our perception of days, weeks, years and that kind of time seems to be especially influenced by our perspective: Are we in the moment experiencing it, or are we looking backward on time?” psychology professor Cindy Lustig told the University of Michigan.

The key to slowing it all down? Be mindful of the present moment.

Lustig has a point. When we are in the moment, our perception of time is much different than when we look back. So, being fully conscious in the present moment can help us rein in the freight train effect.

One way to do that is to be mindful of your physical existence in this moment. Feel your heart beating. Feel your breath going in and out. Cornell University psychology professor Adam Anderson, Ph.D., conducted a study that found our perception of time may be linked with the length of our heartbeats. (Study participants were fitted with electrocardiograms and asked to listen to a brief audio tone. They perceived the tone as longer after a longer heartbeat and shorter after a shorter one.) He suggests starting a stopwatch, closing your eyes, and focusing on your breathing for what you think feels like a minute. Then, check your time to see how accurate your estimation was.

A good way to focus on your breath is to pay attention to how it goes in and out of your nostrils. If, during that minute, your attention strays from your breath, focus back on the feeling of the air coming out of your nose.

“This can give you a sense of how much your experience of your body is related to your experience of time,” Anderson told WebMD. “It will help teach you to enjoy the pure experience of time.”

You can also use focused breathing to slow your heart rate deliberately and, in turn, slow your sense of time. “We show that slow heart rates—that is, a longer duration between heartbeats—dilates time, slowing it down," Anderson said.

We can also alter our perception of time by taking in novel experiences, such as traveling to new places. According to Steve Taylor, author of Making Time: Why Time Seems To Pass at Different Speeds and How to Control It, people who go on adventurous trips report that their vacations feel longer than those who choose a predictable destination. You can also make small changes to your daily routine, such as trying new foods or taking a new route home from work to expose yourself to novel stimuli and slow your perception of time.

The key here is to see the world as if it's constantly unfolding in front of you and that you are being born into it. As the great Bob Dylan once wrote, "He not busy being born is busy dying." As long as we keep being born by seeing the world through fresh eyes and a sense of adventure, we'll be busy being born, and time won't accelerate so quickly.

A study in 2024 found that people who do intense exercise experience a time warp, feeling like they exercised longer than they really did, so if you want to temporarily slow down time, you can push your body hard during a workout.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Finally, try to take in the world the way you did as a small child. Take note of life's wonders. Engage fully in whatever you're doing. Notice details and take mental pictures as much as you can. Time passes quickly when we're distracted, so training our attention on the here and now can help. Ultimately, we can strive to perceive time more like we did when we were little, in its full depth and magnitude, instead of a narrow, straight line.

This article originally appeared last year.