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all right so last year I did a lot of
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traveling and it felt like time really
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slowed
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[Music]
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down I was doing so much stuff in the
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space of just a few months and I
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actually remember a lot of what happened
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but there's is very different to my life
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in London where every day seems to sort
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of blend into all of the others and when
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I look back over the last few months it
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feels like time passed super quickly and
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I actually can't remember much of it so
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I wanted to dive into the research
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behind what we know about our
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perceptions of time why does it speed up
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or slow down or even sometimes feel like
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it's come to a complete step stand still
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and are there ways that we can learn to
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really feel time passing and really make
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the most of it because if you've built a
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life you love then you really don't want
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it to go by in a Flash so in this video
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we're going to look at firstly the
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different ways time is distorted for us
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secondly something called the holiday
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Paradox which is going to help us
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understand how we perceive time and
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thirdly we're going to go through three
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actionable and evidence-based things
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that we can all do to slow down time so
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that we experience more of life oh and
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by the way if you're new here my name is
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Ali I'm a doctor turned entrepreneur and
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author and when I was in med school I
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did an a degree in Psychology and I love
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researching this stuff and trying to
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figure out what are the evidence-based
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things that we can do to build a life
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that we love and just generally enjoy
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ourselves more and feel more happy and
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fulfilled part one time distortions okay
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so there's this cool study called how
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time flies a study of novice skydivers
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in the Journal of behavior research and
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therapy and the researchers here wanted
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to find out how time is distorted when a
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bunch of people complete their first
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ever Skydive now before these people
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jumped out of the plane they were asked
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how scared and excited they were on
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scales from zero to 100 then they got
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ready they put on all the gear and they
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went up in the plane and did the Skydive
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and afterwards they had to estimate how
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long they thought the whole experience
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lasted basically the people who were
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more scared thought that time slowed
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down but the people who were more
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excited thought that time sped up so
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what this research shows us is that
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firstly it's good to do things that
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scare you because it slows down time but
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secondly that the way that we experience
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time is subjective there is objective
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time which is objectively how long
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something took but then there is
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subjective time which is how long we
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perceive the thing took and subjective
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time can be distorted by a bunch of
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things so firstly subjetive time can be
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distorted by strong emotions like when
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you're happy or excited time seems to
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pass pretty quickly but when you're
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scared and about to jump out of an
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airplane time passes really slowly
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secondly boredom can affect the
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subjective perception of time so
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obviously time slows down when you're
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bored waiting in a line in the
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supermarket or whatever and thirdly when
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you're in a state called flow you often
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don't even notice the passing of time
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because you are in the zone you're in
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your Flow State you're working on
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something that is sufficiently engaging
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and sufficiently challenging okay so we
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know that emotions affect the subjective
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passing of time but what about age like
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if I look back on my childhood and I
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think of the long summer holidays I get
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the sense that time passed really slowly
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back then but as I'm getting older I
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have this Sensation that like time is
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speeding up but I want to show you what
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the research actually tells us about
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this so here's a question for you how
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fast did the last 10 years pass for you
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and you have this scale that you can
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rate your answer to this question on
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from min-2 to plus2 now this is exactly
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what researchers asked people back in
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2005 in a questionnaire for 500 people
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between the ages of 14 and 94 and they
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were looking at how our age influences
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our subjective perception of time now in
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answer to this question how fast did the
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last 10 years pass for you this is what
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the graph looked like so if we look at
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the graph we can see that generally as
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people get older there seems to be a bit
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of an increase in the speed of
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perception of passing of time like if we
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look at the 14 to 19 year olds their
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sort of average is between 0 and 1 so
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they feel like the last 10 years passed
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from like neutral to fast whereas if you
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go look to like age 50 you know that the
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average is sort of 1 point something
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which means they felt time passed fast
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rather than neutral interestingly you
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can see that it sort of levels off
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Beyond about age 50 so it seems like 60
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70 and 80y olds don't think that the
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last 10 years passed any quicker which
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is kind of good but there does seem to
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be a general slow increase in the
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perception of passage of time as we get
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older so why does this happen why do we
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have this feeling that as we get older
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time passes by a little bit faster now
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one theory around this is around the
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percentage of our lifespan so for
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example if you are 10 years old then 1
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year is a whole tenth of your life but
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if you're 50 years old one year passing
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is only 2% of your life and so 10%
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versus 2% you would sort of Imagine a
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10-year-old would feel the subjective
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passing of time slower than someone
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who's 50 and actually one other way to
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slow down time is to learn something new
00:04:07
and a great way to do that is by using
00:04:09
brilliant who are the sponsor of today's
00:04:10
video brilliant is an interactive
00:04:12
platform where you can learn maths and
00:04:13
programming and AI they've got thousands
00:04:15
of lessons and their focus is on
00:04:16
learning by doing rather than just by
00:04:18
consuming I've been using brilliant now
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for the last 5 years and they've been
00:04:21
supporting the channel during that time
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as well they've got a first principles
00:04:24
approach to learning which helps you
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build understanding from the ground up
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and it's all crafted by an award-winning
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team of teachers and research Searchers
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and professionals from places like MIT
00:04:31
and ctech and Microsoft and Google and
00:04:33
many more cool places brilliant helps
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you build your critical thinking skills
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through problem solving not just
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memorizing things so while you're
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building Real World Knowledge on
00:04:40
specific topics you also become a better
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thinker the new courses on programming
00:04:44
are particularly good they help you get
00:04:46
familiar with a language like python so
00:04:47
you can start building programs on day
00:04:49
one with their built-in drag and drop
00:04:50
editor if that sounds good and you'd
00:04:52
like to try out everything that
00:04:53
brilliant has to offer for free for a
00:04:54
full 30 days then head over to
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brilliant.org Al abdal or click on the
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link in the video description and that
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will also give you 20% off the annual
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premium subscription so thank you so
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much brilliant for sponsoring this video
00:05:05
so that's one possible solution to this
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conundrum but the other one is something
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interesting and that is the holiday
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Paradox so I want you to imagine that
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you're going on holiday for a week and
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you are at the airport ready to leave
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but there has been a big delay on your
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flight so you end up having to wait at
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the airport for like 3 hours now in that
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moment especially if your phone is out
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of battery time is going to feel like it
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passes really slowly because you're just
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stuck at the airport with nothing to do
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and you're really bored and all you can
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think about is how slow time passing
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eventually though you Bard the plane you
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get to your destination and for the rest
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of the holiday time seems to pass really
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quickly because you're not thinking
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about time and you're always doing
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something new now this is where things
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get a little bit interesting and a
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little bit complicated because there's
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actually two different types of time
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perception there is in the moment time
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perception and then there is remembered
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time perception so in the moment the
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airport delay feels really long and the
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holiday itself feels really short but
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then when you get back home and you look
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back on your holiday the airport delay
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which felt very long in the moment
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actually feels very short and the
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holiday holay which felt very short in
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the moment actually feels kind of long
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in retrospect and this is what we call
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the Holiday Paradox and this comes from
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a book called time warped unlocking the
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mysteries of time perception written by
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the psychologist Claudia Hammond okay so
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why do we have this holiday Paradox why
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is it that sometimes the perception of
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time in the moment is different to the
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perception of time when we remember it
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and the theory here is that it's all
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about memory so when it comes to
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retrospective or remembered time it's
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our memories that help us judge how fast
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or slow we thought something happened in
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the past so uneventful periods of time
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with without a lot of change pass really
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slowly in the moment but then when we
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remember them it feels really short
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because in terms of memories we didn't
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make that many memories but on the other
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hand if you're doing something very
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stimulating and there is a lot of change
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and a lot of novelty that absolutely
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flies by in the moment cuz there's a lot
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going on it's very exciting but then
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when you remember it it feels very long
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because you have all these novel
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memories and this might explain why as
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we get older it feels like time is
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passing by faster cuz generally when
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we're younger we are doing a lot of new
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things we are learning new stuff we're
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developing new skills we're creating
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lots of new memories but then as an
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adult most of us tend not to do that
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many new things we tend to get into our
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routines we tend to have the same job
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for an extended period of time we tend
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not to have those novel new experiences
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so what the holiday Paradox tells us is
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that time in the moment and remembered
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time work in opposite ways where
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expanding one makes the other one feel
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shorter and vice versa so essentially we
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need to strike a balance between these
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two sorts of time perception if we want
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to feel like time is not passing too
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quickly in the moment and we want to
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look back and feel like everything
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didn't just pass by in a flash memory is
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our way of reliving our past experiences
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and reexperiencing our time and it
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follows them that the more discret
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memories you have from a prior
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experience that that experience becomes
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expanded in time oh by the way I've got
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a completely free resource the
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journaling Hub that has a bunch of
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prompts my favorite journaling prompts I
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like to collect those it's completely
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free there'll be a link down below if
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you want to check it out part three how
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to slow down time okay so we're going to
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look at three ways that you can create
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more memories to make it feel as if
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you've expanded time and idea number one
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here is anchors of novelty so to
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understand this we can look at this
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study from the American Psychological
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Association that used a simple task to
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understand the relationship between
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routines and subjective time so here the
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researchers randomly split a bunch of
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students into two groups group one was
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the routine group and group two was the
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non-routine group and all they had to do
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was complete a simple task which is they
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were given a bunch of these different
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rows of numbers and in each row a
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specific number was underlined and the
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students just had to count how many
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underlined numbers there were but the
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difference was that in the routine group
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it was always the number five that was
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underlined whereas in the non-routine
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group it was a different number in each
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row now all of the students were given 2
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minutes to do the number task and
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afterwards they were asked to estimate
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how long they thought they were doing
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the task for and this is where things
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get interesting the average for the
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routine group was 129 seconds but the
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average for the non-routine group was
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1068 seconds and this 25% increase was
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statistically significant so what this
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test shows is that when someone is doing
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something that's routine without much
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novelty for example the routine group
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always looking at for the number five
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they feel like time has passed faster
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whereas when someone is doing something
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with a little bit more novelty and out
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of routine i counting different numbers
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each time they feel like time passes
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slower as we get older we find ourselves
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going through the same routines every
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day we often wake up at the same time we
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wear the same clothes we take the same
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route to work we sit at the same desk we
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buy the same food for lunch and yeah
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routines are great because they help us
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increase our productivity and get things
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done and mean that we don't have to
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think too much about the routine which
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is why like Steve Jobs wear the same
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outfit every single day you know that
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kind of idea but routines are very
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repetitive and they don't contain a lot
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of novelty so they don't let us create
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as many memory anchors and so our time
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is going to feel much shorter in
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retrospect when we're following routines
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so the key takeaway here is to seek out
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novelty as much as you can and it
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doesn't really have to be big things you
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could for example try learning a new
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skill like a new musical instrument or
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something you could experiment with
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taking different routs to work each day
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in my case I go for a walk in the local
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park every morning and I normally just
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follow the same route because I'm a
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creature of routine but you know what
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I'm going to exppress expent with
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following a different route each time
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maybe trying out different coffee shops
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different restaurants different places
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to work for example the more of these
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anchors of novelty we can add into our
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life ideally without like blowing our
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lives up the more we're going to feel
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like time is passing by in a more
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elongated fashion idea number two
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anchors of reflection so there is this
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guy called John kig and he is the
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founder of the dictionary of obscure
00:10:19
sorrows and this is basically a
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dictionary that has words to describe
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emotions that many of us feel but those
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that are very hard to put into words and
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one of these words is oika which means
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the awareness of how few days are
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memorable John writes your life is a
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highlight reel you'd like to think that
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every moment has potential that there's
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something Transcendent hidden all around
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if you'd only stopped to seize the day
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you could hold on to it and carry it
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with you but the truth is most of life
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is forgotten instantly almost as it's
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happening chances are that even a day
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like today will slip through your
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fingers and dissolve into Oblivion
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washed clean by the tides okay so what
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can we do about this how can we prevent
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all of these different days from just
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dissolving into Oblivion well option
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number one is journaling writing about
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what actually happened in your life and
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crucially your thoughts and feelings
00:11:03
associated with it there's loads of
00:11:05
evidence about how journaling expressive
00:11:07
writing especially doing it by hand is
00:11:08
really good for your working memory but
00:11:10
essentially the more you write about
00:11:11
this stuff the more you have these
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anchors of reflection or these little
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memories that are associated with the
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thing I personally use the app day one
00:11:17
for journaling and it's nice because
00:11:19
today I'm filming this on the 24th of
00:11:20
July 2024 and I actually can look at my
00:11:23
last 3 years worth of journaling entries
00:11:25
where this morning I was reading a
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journaling entry that I did on the 24th
00:11:28
of July 2021 and it's interesting to
00:11:30
look at that because I have absolutely
00:11:31
no idea what I was doing on the 24th of
00:11:33
July 2021 but I wrote about it in my
00:11:35
journal I took a little photo and in my
00:11:37
journal I talked about how you know we
00:11:38
were just about to hire some new people
00:11:40
and how I was really worried I was also
00:11:41
taking dating seriously and i' met this
00:11:43
girl who I really liked that i' been on
00:11:44
a handful of dates with and I was trying
00:11:45
to convince myself not to be too
00:11:46
attached to the outcomes and all that
00:11:48
kind of stuff and that's the thing with
00:11:49
journaling that it doesn't it often
00:11:51
doesn't feel useful in the moment cuz
00:11:52
you're like oh what's the point of
00:11:53
writing about it's like h i I already
00:11:55
know what happened today but when you
00:11:56
look back on the stuff then it's
00:11:58
incredible to be like
00:11:59
that's what my life was about this is
00:12:01
this is what was going on and it really
00:12:02
just helps you appreciate the passage of
00:12:04
time a little bit more there's also a
00:12:05
really good technique called homework
00:12:06
for life which is from Matthew dicks
00:12:09
who's written the book storyworthy which
00:12:10
is really good and essentially the idea
00:12:12
of homework for life is that it is a
00:12:13
daily journaling habit where the end of
00:12:15
each day you just ask yourself what was
00:12:17
the most storyworthy moment that
00:12:19
happened in my life today now I followed
00:12:21
this for about 3 months in like 2020
00:12:24
back when I read the book and I still
00:12:27
have all of these different like
00:12:28
homework for life bits where when I look
00:12:30
at that period of my life and I look
00:12:31
through my homework for Life entries I'm
00:12:32
like oh I remember these days I remember
00:12:34
a lot more because I just wrote down
00:12:36
just a single oneliner about what
00:12:38
happened that day the other really good
00:12:39
thing that I always recommend to
00:12:41
everyone is take more photos we all have
00:12:43
incredible phones in our pocket you can
00:12:45
take photos with your phone you can also
00:12:47
get
00:12:49
a you can also get a proper camera if
00:12:52
you would like I got this one recently
00:12:54
fits in my pocket I have this one that
00:12:56
flash floats around this one you know
00:12:57
all that kind of stuff you don't need
00:12:58
fancy cameras but one thing I generally
00:13:00
do recommend to people is that there is
00:13:02
something really really nice about
00:13:04
having a proper camera that's not just
00:13:05
your phone that you can use to take more
00:13:07
photos cuz if you're like walking around
00:13:09
with an actual camera and you're like
00:13:10
taking pics with it then those pics get
00:13:12
added to your Google photos your or your
00:13:14
Apple photos they get geot tagged with
00:13:16
location they get tagged with the date
00:13:18
and then you know I've been doing this
00:13:19
sh for the last like 15 years just
00:13:21
taking well not 15 like 10 to 12 years
00:13:23
taking photos of absolutely everything
00:13:25
with a proper camera and now my Apple
00:13:27
photos featured featur feed memories are
00:13:30
incredible like every single day I see
00:13:32
that on this day 7 years ago this is
00:13:33
what happened and it's so nice to look
00:13:35
back on it's one of my favorite things
00:13:36
to do when I'm on toilet is just flick
00:13:38
through whatever Apple photos has
00:13:39
surfaced for me that day and then idea
00:13:41
number three is anchors of mindfulness
00:13:43
so when you ask people who are very
00:13:44
experienced in meditation questions
00:13:46
about how they perceive time they
00:13:47
generally say that time feels slower in
00:13:50
their everyday lives and actually this
00:13:52
study in 2015 took a group of 42 people
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with an average of 10 years of
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meditation experience and I asked them
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questions like how far do time usually
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pass for you and they compared their
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answers to 42 people of the same age and
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sex but who didn't have any meditation
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experience and they found that the
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meditation experts experienced less time
00:14:09
pressure more time dilation and a
00:14:11
general slower passage of time which is
00:14:13
pretty cool now we don't yet have
00:14:15
evidence to show what's actually
00:14:16
happening inside the brains of these
00:14:17
people who do a lot of meditation and
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how this changes the way they perceive
00:14:20
time but what we think is happening is
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again all to do with memory formation
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and this idea of mindfulness at the most
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basic level basically means increasing
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your focus on the present moment so
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being fully aware of your bodily
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Sensations being aware of your emotions
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and what's happening within your body
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being more aware of the environment that
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you're in and the one thing that you're
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currently doing and generally the things
00:14:39
that we focus on is what we create
00:14:41
memories of and so if you focus on these
00:14:43
things and you are more present on the
00:14:45
present moment that in theory helps
00:14:46
create more memories which help to
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expand your perception of time and so
00:14:49
the key takeaway here is to consider
00:14:51
practicing meditation or mindfulness in
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some way or another obviously there's
00:14:55
loads of apps that help with meditation
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and mindfulness but it could be
00:14:58
something even simpler like going for a
00:15:00
walk without your phone with you or
00:15:01
without your headphones with you it
00:15:02
could be something like yoga which is
00:15:03
sort of Meditation Plus movement or it
00:15:05
could just be that when you're doing
00:15:06
something really giving your entire
00:15:08
attention to that thing that you're
00:15:09
doing rather than multitasking and
00:15:11
distracting yourself with and eating
00:15:12
your food while watching a YouTube video
00:15:14
while scrolling Tik Tok on the other
00:15:15
hand and you know all the stuff that we
00:15:16
tend to do those tend to create a lot
00:15:18
fewer memory dividends than just
00:15:20
focusing on one thing and one thing at a
00:15:22
time if you've gotten to this point in
00:15:23
the video firstly thank you for watching
00:15:24
secondly I'd love to hear in a comment
00:15:25
down below what is one action point
00:15:27
you're going to take as a result of
00:15:28
watching this video and if you like this
00:15:29
video you might like this video about
00:15:31
how to guarantee that you'll regret your
00:15:32
life which is a video about all the
00:15:34
things you should do to make sure that
00:15:35
you look back on your life with regret
00:15:36
so thank you so much for watching and
00:15:37
I'll see you next time bye-bye
