How Mindfulness Shifts Our Perception of Time
Unravel the intriguing connection between mindfulness and our perception of time. Discover how being present can alter our sense of temporal reality, offering a fresh perspective on the ticking clock and the fleeting moments of our lives.
Edmon de Haro
Our sense of the passage of time speeds up as we age
- How can I have been working here for 10 years, when it feels like employee orientation was only yesterday? you ask.
- Where did the summer go? you wonder?
- And in your darker moments, Where did my life go?
The Melting-Pot of Memory
As we get older, we “chunk” the experiences we’ve had into broad categories, bundling individual moments into larger, more generic groups in our minds
- It may be possible to use mindfulness meditation, or even casual applications of that way of observing thoughts and experiences, to heighten awareness of them in a way that keeps the passage of time from accelerating
- Our perception of how quickly time passes varies according to numerous factors, some as changeable as emotion
- Dozens of studies have found that positive mood and high arousal seem to make time seem to pass more quickly in the moment
- If we ask people in the winter of 2021 to reflect on time’s passage over the previous 12 months, their retrospective judgment might differ from their in-the-moment perception
Why Does Time Seem to Speed Up with Age?
By understanding the reasons why “time often seems to pick up momentum, going faster and faster as we get older,” we might be able to prevent a feeling they call “unpleasant, demotivating, and possibly even hostile to the sense that life is meaningful.”
- The scientists suspected that the different subjective experiences of the grandmother’s and grandson’s beach walk might be driving our retrospective judgment of time passing more quickly with age.
- If we focus on processing a moment, rather than letting it slip by mindlessly, we can better apprehend its uniqueness.
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