Ever feel like time is going faster and faster? You blink and another month has gone?
The days themselves feel full, but when I look back, it all feels like a blur.
I was pondering why this happens and wondered how I could slow it down.
The science behind fast-forwarded time
Your brain doesn’t experience time like a clock. It uses memory as a rough guide to how long something felt.
When you experience something new – environments, information, even new emotions – your brain creates richer, denser memories.
This is why childhood summers felt endless. Everything was new.
But as adults, we fall into routine. The brain gets more efficient and stops paying close attention. Fewer new memory “bookmarks” get made so when you look back over a month or a year all the time gets compressed.
The reminiscence bump
The reminiscence bump is the reason you can still remember what song was playing at your school prom or who you kissed at 17, but you can’t remember what you had for lunch three Thursdays ago.
Researchers have found that adults over 40 tend to recall far more memories from their teenage years and early adulthood (roughly ages 10 to 30) than from any other period in their lives. And it’s not just nostalgia, it’s how our brains work.
That time of your life is when so much is happening for the first time: first love, first job, first time living away from home. These moments are emotionally intense and rich with novelty, which means your brain records them in high definition.
So those years don’t actually last longer – but in memory, they stretch out. They take up more space in our mental timeline.
And it’s not just about the big things. Even hearing a song from your teen years can instantly transport you back because you were more impressionable.
The oddball effect
There’s another phenomenon I stumbled across while trying to figure out why time feels like it’s zooming by. It’s called the oddball effect.
When something unexpected shows up in a sea of sameness, your brain zooms in and the moment feels longer.
In a 2004 study, participants were shown sequences of identical things – like a series of gray circles – flashed briefly and rhythmically. Occasionally, a colorful oddball, such as a blue or red circle, would appear in the same spot and for the same duration as the others.
Despite being shown for exactly the same amount of time, participants consistently rated the oddball-colored circle as lasting longer than the gray ones.
Novel or unexpected stimuli capture more attention, which alters our subjective experience of time.
Your brain wasn’t prepared for it, so it paid more attention. More attention = more perceived time.
The oddball effect shows up everywhere once you know to look for it.
Think about a typical workweek: Monday to Thursday might blur together, but Friday – when everything is slightly different (deadlines, energy, plans) – often feels longer.
Or the day you actually meet a friend on your lunch break instead of eating at your desk can suddenly make the whole day feel bigger and more memorable.
How to slow things down
So if time is speeding up, it’s probably not because your life is too busy – it’s because your brain is too used to it.
Here’s how you can slow things down.
Inject novelty
Even small changes – like rearranging furniture, exploring a new park, or cooking a new dish – activate more brain regions. Novelty boosts dopamine and makes time feel richer.
Practice mindfulness
Studies show that mindfulness and being fully present actually alters time perception. When you’re present, time feels slower and fuller.
You don’t need to meditate for 30 minutes – just noticing the texture of your morning tea can do it.
Journal daily
Recording experiences helps solidify memories, and creates mental bookmarks which extends your perceived time span.
You don’t need to write loads, just a few words about the key things that happened that day is enough.
Break the script
Routine is the enemy of time perception.
Do something slightly uncomfortable or out of the ordinary to creates “temporal landmarks” your brain can latch onto.
Here’s to slowing down,
Emily xx
References
Tse, P. U., Intriligator, J. M., Rivest, J., & Cavanagh, P. (2004). Attention and the subjective expansion of time. Nature Neuroscience, 7(10), 1037–1038. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15751474/