memory

When you’re a kid, the summers seem to last forever. As you get older, you’re amazed that “it’s summer already,” and soon enough, you can’t believe “it’s the fall again.” It’s a cruel trick of life, is that as you slow down, time speeds up. Why does time seem to move faster as we get older?

Our perception of time is fluid, either contracting or expanding. For most people, it contracts as we age because we imprint fewer experiences in our memories. We’ve seen a lot, and it is hard to be surprised. “Time is this rubbery thing,” says neuroscientist David Eagleman. “It stretches out when you really turn your brain resources on, and when you say, ‘Oh, I got this, everything is as expected,’ it shrinks up.”

David Eagleman is an American neuroscientist, author, and science communicator who teaches neuroscience at Stanford University.

How to slow the passage of time

“This is why you lay down fewer memories as you age: You’ve seen that situation before, you’ve met that personality before, you’ve done that job before. The memories you lay down are much thinner. They’re more impoverished,” Eagleman says, according to Inc.

“In contrast, when you’re in your childhood, everything is new, and so the richness of your memories gives you the impression of increased duration … but when you’re looking back at the end of an adult summer, it seems to have disappeared rapidly because you haven’t written much down in your memory,” Eagleman continues.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

While it may seem tragic that life becomes less memorable as we age, that wisdom also comes with a challenge. If we, as Eagleman puts it, “seek novelty,” then we will create more memories in the brain, and time will slow down.

Remember when you were a kid? Life was a series of firsts, whether you swam in a pool, rode a bike, slept at your friend's house, hit a home run, or kissed someone. The key is to continue to pursue more firsts as we age. That could mean hearing a new type of music, traveling to a new place, trying food you’ve never tasted, or considering a new philosophy or way of seeing life.

This is also a great way to avoid becoming stuck in your ways as an adult.

Eagleman says you can slow down time by shaking up your neural circuitry and making new memories through simple changes to your life, such as wearing your watch on a different hand, taking a new route home from work, or rearranging your office space. “Makes sure that you stretch your mental landscape by making sure that you are learning something new,” he says.

As Bob Dylan once wrote, “He not busy being born, is busy dying,” and although it’s natural for time to speed up as we age, if things are moving too quickly, it means that it’s time to stop and be mindful of your routines to keep things fresh. It could be a warning that life has become too routine, and there’s not enough novelty for your brain to notice. So, when that happens, it’s time to get busy being born or enjoying life like you did as a child by seeking out new experiences and making new memories.