Time feels like it’s slipping away faster than we expect, and there are some surprising reasons why this happens. It’s not just about clocks ticking; it’s about how our brains experience and remember time.
When we’re young, everything is new. Our brains get flooded with fresh sights, sounds, and experiences every day. This flood of new information makes time feel rich and long because each moment is packed with novelty. Think back to childhood summers that seemed endless—each day was full of firsts, so the days felt stretched out.
As we grow older, life often becomes more routine. We see fewer new things daily because our habits settle into patterns: work, home, repeat. When days blend together without much change or excitement, our brains don’t create as many distinct memories for those periods. Without these unique markers in memory to look back on later, the past seems compressed—like years have flown by in a blink.
Our mood also plays a big role in how fast or slow time feels right now. When you’re bored or waiting around (like stuck at a red light), seconds can drag endlessly. But when you’re deeply engaged or having fun—lost in conversation or an activity—the hours can vanish before you realize it.
There’s an irony here: the moments we want to savor most are often the ones that pass quickest because being fully present means losing track of time altogether.
Scientists studying this say that personal growth and satisfaction influence how quickly past periods seem to have passed too. If you look back on a phase of your life feeling nostalgic and fulfilled, it might feel like it sped by—but if you felt stuck or unfulfilled during that time, it might seem shorter still because your brain didn’t register meaningful progress.
Another way to think about this is proportionality: one year for a 10-year-old feels huge compared to one year for someone who is 70 years old since each year represents a smaller fraction of their total life lived so far.
The takeaway? To slow down your sense of time passing too fast—and make your memories richer—you need fresh experiences throughout life instead of falling into repetitive routines alone. New adventures stimulate your brain with novel images and feelings that help stretch out subjective time both now and when looking back later.
So if life seems like it’s rushing by faster than you’d like lately—that’s partly because your brain has fewer surprises left each day than before—and partly because you’re naturally comparing current moments against all those years behind you where novelty was abundant but now less frequent.
Finding ways to break routines with new activities can help reclaim some control over how quickly—or slowly—you feel life’s precious moments unfolding around you before they slip away again unnoticed.
