The Power of Time Perception
Page 21
Our bodies aches, our skin sags, we have poor eyesight, and we realize that our end is drawing near. When that happens, most of us will not be ready. We ask ourselves, “What happened to all that money I was supposed to make, all those great times I was meant to have, and all those dreams? Is that really it?” Sadly, there is probably no satisfying answer to that question. And so we react, each in his own way, to this awareness of the impending end that is creeping up on us. Some of us try to confront it by tackling the age-related symptoms. We go on a diet, join a gym, or endure plastic surgery. We do anything to make us feel young again. Some might lose themselves to alcohol, drugs, or exotic pleasures—anything to keep their mind of that nagging question. Still, some of us will try to ignore it altogether and renew our efforts to achieve whatever can be salvaged from these unrealized dreams, trying to get some time back in a last attempt to do something with what is left. This leads to more time pressure than what was experienced in the past, reinforcing the notion that time is speeding up as we grow older. 160 It is a race against the clock and it gets worse if, as we saw earlier, we happen to be living in a fast-paced city.
Fortunately, time does not speed up forever. When we finally reach 70 or 80 years old, and this is certainly a privilege denied to many, the speed of time actually starts slowing down again. This is because we start experiencing “role losses.” As children leave home, our parenthood role is diminished, we lose our professional role when we retire from work, and we eventually lose our role as a husband or wife with widowhood. The roles we began acquiring at the start of adulthood are lost, one-by-one, until, like in teenage years, we are back to one role only, a ‘senior citizen’ whose active contribution to society is no longer possible. With fewer things to do, time essentially slows down. We would have gone through a complete cycle, from childhood where time ran slow, to adulthood where it speeds up, and finally old age when it slows down again. Assuming you are in the middle of that cycle, where time is speeding up, what can you do to slow it down? That is the topic of our next and final chapter. For now, let us just summarize what we have covered here.
Recap
In brief, time appears to speed up as we grow older for a variety of reasons. Familiarity that leads to inattention is one of the chief reasons. The slower information processing speed of an ageing brain, aggravated by an increase in routine that reduces the quantity and intensity of mental snapshots, is the main culprit. Another reason is the time pressure created by the increase in responsibilities and roles that come with adulthood. All those factors produce a nagging feeling that there is not have enough time to do all the things we want to do, and that has tremendous negative implications for the way we live our life and our overall well-being.
In his book, On the Shortness of Life, written about 2,000 years ago, the Roman philosopher Seneca was amazed by how people were terribly busy, running around, wasting their time carelessly, and belittling the time they have for living. He observed that, “People are so prudent in protecting their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.” Everyone seemed to be trading their time for something, but in exchange for what? Seneca’s advice is: “Life is long if you know how to use it.” The message is clear. Our time on Earth is limited and uncertain and, though we may live a very healthy life, we cannot really add any real time to its span. But we can make it seem long if we know how use our time to live in a more fulfilling way. Rather than looking back at the years, wondering how they passed by so quickly, we can reverse the consequences of the age-related time-speeding effects, and truly start seeing the passing years as time that was well spent. The next chapter will bring together a lot of we have covered so far and provide some ideas on how to make next year the longest year of our life.
Part Four
How to Make Every Second Count?
Putting it into Practice
Chapter 13
Crafting the Longest Year of Your Life
The two most important days of your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why
― Mark Twain
If I were to begin life again, I should want it as it was. I would only open my eyes a little more
― Jules Renard
It is how we choose what we do, and how we approach it, that will determine whether the sum of our days adds up to a formless blur, or to something resembling a work of art
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Living in the Moment
In this last chapter, we will look at some useful tips on how to slow down time so that both the time we have already spent living, and the time that we have left, is perceived to be long. These are not intended as rules on how to live our lives, but examples of how adopting just some of this thinking will help us to look back at our life and feel it was long and fulfilling. Let us start with living in the moment.
Life is a series of moments. It is not lived in daily or monthly increments, but one moment at a time. When we are planning things, we tend to use large chunks of time, such as imagining a dinner party that will last four hours, a three-month school term, a one-year lease, a two-day weekend, etc. But to expand our experience of time, we should try to live with the smallest interval of time possible, say one minute at a time. When we are aware that life is lived at that time scale, we will consciously make an effort to focus on the present and make the most of each moment. But how can we make ourselves more aware of these moments?
A simple trick to help achieving that is to plan your calendar using odd times. You can set your alarm clock to wake you up at 6:23 a.m. instead of the usual 6:30 a.m. Your reminder to go to the gym goes off at 8:48 a.m. When you plan a meeting at work that starts at 10:30, you can put 10:26 a.m. in your calendar, so not only you make it on time but you break away from the common 30 or 60 minute view.
Sometimes, the moments when we are fully alert and aware of the present occur by pure chance. It could be a car crash, a glance from a stunning woman (or man), a shooting star, a sunset or a sunrise, or the birth of a baby. Whatever it is that captures our full attention and leaves us speechless. We saw previously how feelings of awe achieve the same effect of slowing down time. In those rare moments, we become fully alert and our brains start recording every bit of detail. But we do not have to wait for such events to occur by chance. Rather, we should train our minds to focus with that same intensity that allows us to control and slow down the speed of time at will. Boosting alertness does not require the drug stimulants or mind-enhancers that we saw in Chapter 9, but can be achieved with a healthy brain diet supported by a reduction in stress levels, enough sleep, and physical exercise. Those factors have been shown to be vital to a healthy, alert brain that is capable of recording reality at the speed needed to slow down time.
It also helps to organize your life around your chronotype concentration curve that we saw in Chapter 8. Depending on whether you are a morning or a night person, you should engage in the important activities that matter most to you during your prime time, when your alertness levels are at their peak. Life unfolds in the present, so we should seize that precious moment before it slips away unobserved.
Living in the moment is all about being fully alive “now.” It occurs when you take a step back, meditate, or take a deep breath. Have you ever been to a forest at night? Have you ever had a chance to listen to its enchanting sounds? Maybe it was at a camping trip with some friends, or on a visit to your grandpa’s house in the mountains? When I was in cub scouts, we used to go camping in forests near rivers or lakes. When it got late at night, we would gather around a bonfire to roast marshmallows and tell scary stories. We would play a game that consisted of keeping extremely quiet just to listen and identify every forest sound that we could possibly hear—a cracking fire, a chirp, wolves howling or owl screeching, the rustling of leaves in the wind, or a gentle stream trickling nearby. During those few minutes of playing that game, time almost came to a halt
. Those fascinating moments stretched and became truly unforgettable, largely because they were spent fully alert to that present moment, allowing rich memories to be recorded. In the same way, our brain can absorb many more memories that otherwise would have gone unnoticed by simply focusing on the present. To slow down time, it is therefore important to be mindful and focused on the present moment in everything we do.
Paying attention to tiny details unfolding around us, whether eating a delicious cake, enjoying the scenery, basking in the warm sunshine, or just feeling a gentle breeze, will create memorable moments that will stretch that time in our mind. Stop to look at that weird cloud in the sky or at that beautiful sunset. If you are having a meal, rather than reading the newspaper or checking the latest on social media, concentrate on the taste of the food. Savor your meal, at least the first three bites. Just soak in as much of today as you possibly can—the sights, sounds, smells, and emotions, and when you look back at the time spent, it will feel much longer.
We live in the moment when we stop living in the past, enjoy the present, and look forward to the future. Novelist Paulo Coelho notes, “We think so much about the future that we neglect the present, and thus experience neither the present nor the future.” Our brain’s default mode of operation is future thinking and so we all worry about things that might happen. But most worries are exaggerated scenarios that never end up happening. When we are at work, we dream about being on vacation and when on vacation, we worry about all the work that is stacking up for our return. We also tend to dwell on the intrusive memories of the past and things we should have done or not done, or things we should have said or not said. Past and future thinking is an immense and useless drain to our energy and time.
By living in the present moment instead, we can channel all our energy on what we are doing now or on whom we are with. Living the perfect moment and experiencing the state of “flow” that we covered in Chapter 5 can only happen when we are mindful and fully immersed in what we are doing. By being “in the zone,” the experienced durations will feel short, but the remembered durations will feel long because of all of the collected memories and that is extremely gratifying. Moreover, when experienced durations shrink, we will judge that as being pleasant (remember the reverse relation between time and having fun). Consequently, the remembered durations will stretch with those rich mental snapshots, which in turn stretches the view of our past.
“We live in the moment when we stop living in the past, enjoy the present, and look forward to the future”
Live Long and Prosper
We all want to live a long and happy life. Longevity and happiness are two aspects of our being that we all strive to achieve. An important factor contributing to our happiness is the feeling that we have lived a long life and the feeling that we still have enough time in our life to fulfill all of our dreams. Psychologists describe happiness as ranging from simple contentment to intense joy. We all tend to evaluate the quality of our life primarily by how happy we are. But what makes us happy has been the subject of many theories.
The “comparison theory” claims that we judge the quality of our lives by estimating the gap between the reality we are living and what we think of as the “common standard of good.” In this view, happiness largely involves keeping up with the Jones. The “need theory” states that happiness is indicated by whether or not certain needs are satisfied. In this view, experiences will add to our happiness only if they gratify some need or desire. Closely related to that is the fact that we all tend to have a vague idea of what we would like to accomplish before we die. If we come close to attaining that goal or partly achieve it, we are happy. If it remains beyond our reach, we grow bitter. Finally, the “set-point theory” maintains that our level of happiness is a somewhat constant personality trait and we cannot change our level of happiness by much. Some people are naturally just happier than others. Accordingly, happy experiences can only offer a brief mood uplift, which eventually fades away as we return to our inherent happiness set-point. This is evident, for instance, from the fact that the positive effects of a holiday do not last very long, and people normally return to their pre-vacation happiness levels within two to three weeks. But what defines this happiness set-point? Is it something genetic or can it modified?
In an interesting study, neuroscientist Dr. Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin found that people were more happy and energetic when the left part of their brain was highly active, and were more depressed and anxious when the right part of their brain was more active. This is supported by evidence that extroverts are generally happier than introverts, as the left part of their brain has been shown to be more active than their right part. The ratio of left-to-right activity therefore indicates the happiness set-point level that people tended to always return to, regardless of whether they have just won the lottery or lost a loved one. Using an fMRI machine, Dr. Davidson scanned the brains of Buddhist monks. The results of the brain imaging studies showed that, during meditation, the left part of the monks brains became highly active and tended to overrule the right part, thus raising the happiness set-point levels. Further studies with normal participants, indicated that eight weeks of a one-hour daily mindfulness practice can significantly increase the left-side brain activity and happiness levels, for up to four months from when the training program ended. As we already saw in Chapter 4, mindfulness is a meditation technique that helps people live in the moment and remain aware of the present. This enhanced focus on the present creates the feeling that there is ample time to achieve the things we want to do. That positive outlook is what boosts people’s happiness levels.
Mindfulness is easy to learn even for people who have never practiced meditation. In one study, people who were trained to do it for just 20 minutes a day and for just five days, showed a significant improvement in concentration skills and had lower anxiety and stress symptoms. 161 Studies have also shown that mindfulness reduces stress, boosts the immune system, lowers blood pressure, and reduces the risk of heart disease. Mindfulness meditation can also teach us the kind of focus and concentration that brings more intensity to our experiences, thus making them more memorable. By practicing mindfulness meditation, we enhance our ability to live in the moment, which is critical for collecting the necessary mental snapshots that our mind will later use to recreate the perceived span of our life.
With enough practice, mindfulness can become a permanent mental state known as “presence of mind,” where we are clearly aware of our inner and outer world, including our thoughts, sensations, and emotions as they occur. By being mindful of the present, we will not allow life to pass by without living it. Moreover, by slowing things down, we will perceive time as more abundant and will be able to do all the things we want to do. Therefore, by focusing on the present moment through mindfulness, time slows down and, in turn, our overall happiness levels surge. 162
Collecting Memorable Moments
In addition to aspiring for a happy life, we all wish to live a long one. A healthy lifestyle is necessary for prolonging the total number of years we live, but that is not sufficient enough to increase our perceived life span. A man who dies at the age of 40 might have subjectively lived a longer and more fulfilling life than a man who dies at the age of 90, if he has lived a life that is rich with memories of sensational experiences. Worse still for the man of 90 would be reaching a point in his life when, for whatever reason, he simply stops living, in the true sense of the word. “Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75,” said Benjamin Franklin. In that sense, the meaning of life is life itself. Life is for living and you are truly alive when you are living your dreams.
When we look back at our life from our present moment, we become aware of its span, starting from our earliest childhood consciousness, right through to all of those experiences that make us “us.” We have seen that we perceive the length of our life in terms of the number of memories we have accumulated. But as we grow older, the amount of routi
ne in our daily lives increases, the speed of time accelerates, and the remaining years get shorter and shorter. When we were children, life stretched before us as though it would never end. But, upon reaching adulthood we feel like there is not enough time left to achieve all of our hopes and dreams. When this is combined with fading memories, our life span starts to shrink in our mind and we reach a point when we ask that dreadful question: “Is that all there is?”
The answer to perceived longevity lies in our ability to collect pleasant memories. As we saw in Chapter 10, to improve our perception and perceived duration of the past, we will have to increase the number of memories we capture and retain in our minds. There are a few things we can do to help us achieve that. As a start, the greater the variety of experiences we have and the more vivid the memory of them, the longer our life will seem. A varied, diverse, and fulfilled life is also a long one. Our brains love novelty. An action-packed weekend filled with interesting new activities compared to a weekend that you spent sick with flu at home doing nothing, will be perceived as having a long in duration when you recollect it. You might have been away for only two days, but it feels that you have been gone forever. That adventure weekend will last longer in your mind and become part of your life story whereas the time when you were sick will quickly be forgotten, as if it was never a part of your life. You do not have to participate in extreme sports such as skydiving, rock climbing or surf boarding to create excitement and novelty. You could simply take a salsa class or take a new route to work. The key to slowing down time is to avoid routine tasks as much as possible and to instead introduce novelty and diversity in your activities.