Our average life expectancy has increased, but despite living longer and longer, paradoxically it feels as though time is passing faster and faster – and there are several explanations for why it feels this way. There are also tricks for how to slow down time again.

Actually, we know it: Time passes at the same rate regardless of how old we are. An hour is an hour whether we are ten years old or 60 years old. So why does it feel like time rushes by the older we get? One explanation is that the shorter time we have lived, the larger proportion of our lives a period of time represents. In short: for an 8-year-old, a year is a much larger proportion of their total lifespan than for an 80-year-old.

The older we get, the more likely it is that we will experience fewer new things each year. This is because the more things we have already experienced, the fewer new things there are to experience. Furthermore, as we age, we can get stuck in old habits and become less willing to try new things. But why are new experiences so important? Well, our brain ”measures” time through new and memorable events. Experiences help the brain distinguish one day from another, and this prolongs the feeling of time.

There is nothing else as generous and reliable as time itself. It just comes and comes, it just gives and gives. Until it's gone.

– When days and weeks are too similar, our brains lump time together. For an 80-year-old who essentially does the same thing every day, the year will blend together in their mind and it will feel like time passed quickly. The new and exciting things we do during a day make the days feel different, and
we can distinguish them in our minds, explains Bodil Jönsson, a physicist and professor emeritus at Lund University, who has written several books on time. If you want to get the feeling of having more time
It is often recommended that one undertake challenging activities, such as acquiring a new hobby, but these can also be small new experiences, such as taking a different route to the shop, listening to a new genre of music, or trying new foods.

– Another reason why it might feel like time is going too fast is that things take longer to do as you get older. Another explanation is forgetfulness. We forget more as we age and therefore have fewer memories to hang time on when we look back, says Bodil Jönsson. But she doesn't think we should lament the time that has passed:

– There is nothing else that is as generous and reliable as time itself. It just keeps coming and coming, it just keeps giving and giving. Until it's gone, she says. But until it's gone, we can do quite a lot to fill it in the best way. According to research, we can expand time with certain tricks. In addition to doing new things, big and small, you can choose to do things that feel meaningful and interesting. The reason time expands then is so that you have time to gain even more new knowledge about what you experience as
Interesting. We can also slow down time by living in the present and consciously paying attention to what we see, hear, or feel. In fact, when we are extra attentive in this way, time passes more slowly. But it's not just what we do that affects how we perceive time. It is also influenced by where we are. If we are in an urban environment, time passes more quickly than if we are in nature, according to new research at the University of Turku in Finland. There, researcher Ricardo Correia has found that nature experiences are particularly important for our perception of time.

– The fact that nature is important for our perception of time is linked to nature helping us to restore our attention after all the stimuli we are exposed to. And we are bombarded with stimuli in today's modern society. It's phones, screens, honking cars, public transport and people everywhere clamouring for our attention.
The impressions are many and it gives a sense that time is slipping away.

- The more impressions we have to process, the faster we experience time passing, says Ricardo Correia.
Spending time in nature also changes us emotionally.

– We feel less stressed and happier, which also affects our perception of time.

Regain Control of Your Time – Here's How

• Be a child again. Go on adventures, play and explore, and be creative. Do more unusual things, especially things you're a beginner at!
• Avoid dwelling on past mistakes or worrying about the future. This will cause you to miss out on the most important thing in your life: the present.
• Even though they say time flies when you're having fun, you should naturally continue to have fun! When we look back on enjoyable events, our assessment of time isn't based on how many hours we spent on them, but rather on the new memories we created during that time. Then we'll feel like the time lasted much longer than it did!
• Cut down on social media. Few things ”eat up” our time like TikTok or Instagram. The flow of information is fast, often meaningless and endless. All of this makes time fly by extra quickly when we scroll.