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Feel like time accelerates as you get older? You're not alone, but you can slow it down.

At some point, you swear the math between decades is wrong.

Photo credit: Canva

Time is really all about perception.

You're scrolling along, minding your own business on the internet, when this little chestnut comes across your timeline: "1980 and 2023 are as far apart as 1937 and 1980. Sleep tight, old fogies!"

Wait, what? Your first reaction is, "That can't be right," so you pull out the calculator and do the math yourself—several times because you're sure you must've missed a number somewhere each time. You remember how long ago 1937 seemed in 1980, and there's absolutely no way that much time passed between 1980 and 2023. Buy you're wrong. As the warped reality of time washes over you, you sit in stunned silence, contemplating the existential crisis you've just been thrown into.

Why does time work this way? Why does it seem to get faster and faster and condense to make decades seem shorter and shorter as we age? And perhaps more importantly, how the heck do we stop time from feeling like a runaway freight train?

Here are a few theories about what creates the freight train phenomenon and what to do about it.

Time perception is relative—and kids perceive it differently

"Time flies when you're having fun" is a saying for a reason. Time also drags when you're doing drudgery work and feels like it stands still in moments of significance. And yet the ticking of seconds as they go by doesn't change tempo. We measure it with steady, unchanging beats, but how it feels changes constantly.

kids playing, time passing, perception of timeTime moves more slowly for kids.Photo credit: Canva

This relativity exists in every passing moment, but it also exists in the bigger picture as well. The years felt like they passed by much more slowly when we were children, and by middle age, they feel like they pass in the blink of an eye. The pandemic gave us an even greater sense of this relativity as disruptions to our normal routines and the stress associated with the COVID-19 years messed with our sense of time. (On an odd side note, surveys show that our time perception during the pandemic varied a lot from place to place—people in some parts of the world felt that time moved more slowly, while others felt time moved more quickly.)

According to a 2023 Hungarian study published in Nature Scientific Reports, very young children perceive time differently than older children and adults. Researchers split 138 people into three age groups—pre-kindergarten, school-age and adults 18 and over—and showed them two videos of the same duration, one that was "eventful" and one that was "uneventful." Interestingly, the pre-K group perceived the eventful video to be longer, while the older children and adults saw the uneventful video as longer.

The way the study participants described the length of the videos in gestures was also telling. Young children were much more likely to use vertical hand gestures, connoting volume or magnitude, to indicate a length of time than the other two age groups. School-aged kids and adults tended to use horizontal gestures, indicating time as linear, increasing with age.

Our neural processing slows down as we age

Professor Adrian Bejan has a theory based on how neurons process signals. As we age, our neural networks increase in size and complexity and, as a result, process visual information at a slower rate. That slower processing means we create fewer mental images each second than we did when we were younger, thereby making time seem to slow down.

time, time perception, science of time, aging, neural processing, youth, lifespans, female aging, woman's face over the yearsA woman slowly ages over about 15 years.assets.rebelmouse.io

“People are often amazed at how much they remember from days that seemed to last forever in their youth, Bejan shared with Harvard University. "It’s not that their experiences were much deeper or more meaningful; it’s just that they were being processed in rapid fire.”

In other words, processing the same number of mental images we did in our youth takes longer now, somewhat counterintuitively making time seem to pass more quickly. So goes the theory, anyway.

It might simply be about time-to-life ratios

Another popular theory about why time feels different as a child than it does as an adult is the ratio of any given day, week or year to the amount of time we've been alive. To a 5-year-old, a year is 20% of their entire life. For a 50-year-old, a year only is 0.2% of their life, so it feels like it went by much more quickly.

hands, clocks, passage of time, age aging, old age, time perception, time fliesAn elderly person's hands holding a small clock.Photo credit: Canva

It's also a matter of how much change has happened in that year. A year in the life of a 5-year-old is full of rapid growth and change and learning and development. A year in the life of a 50-year-old probably isn't a whole lot different than when they were 48 or 49. Even if there are major life changes, the middle-aged brain isn't evolving at nearly the same rate as a child. A 50-year-old looking back at the past year will have a lot fewer changes to process than a 5-year-old, therefore the year will seems like it went by a lot faster.

“Our perception of days, weeks, years and that kind of time seems to be especially influenced by our perspective: Are we in the moment experiencing it, or are we looking backward on time?” psychology professor Cindy Lustig told the University of Michigan.

The key to slowing it all down? Be mindful of the present moment.

Lustig has a point. When we are in the moment, our perception of time is much different than when we look back. So, being fully conscious in the present moment can help us rein in the freight train effect.

One way to do that is to be mindful of your physical existence in this moment. Feel your heart beating. Feel your breath going in and out. Cornell University psychology professor Adam Anderson, Ph.D., conducted a study that found our perception of time may be linked with the length of our heartbeats. (Study participants were fitted with electrocardiograms and asked to listen to a brief audio tone. They perceived the tone as longer after a longer heartbeat and shorter after a shorter one.) He suggests starting a stopwatch, closing your eyes and focusing on your breathing for what you think feels like a minute. Then, check your time to see how accurate your estimation was.

Breathe World Series GIF by MLBGiphy

“This can give you a sense of how much your experience of your body is related to your experience of time,” Anderson told WebMD. “It will help teach you to enjoy the pure experience of time.”

You can also use focused breathing to purposely slow down your heart rate, and thus slow down your time perception. “We show that slow heart rates—that is, a longer duration between heartbeats—dilates time, slowing it down," Anderson said.

We can also alter our perception of time by taking in novel experiences, such as traveling to new places. According to Steve Taylor, author of Making Time: Why Time Seems To Pass at Different Speeds and How to Control It, people who go on adventurous trips report that their vacations feel longer than those who choose a predictable destination. You can also make small changes to your daily routine, such as trying new foods or taking a new route home from work to take in some new stimuli and slow your perception of time.

A study in 2024 found that people who do intense exercise experience a time warp, feeling like they exercised longer than they really did, so if you want to temporarily slow down time, you can push your body hard during a workout.

- YouTubeyoutu.be

Finally, try to take in the world the way you did as a small child. Take note of life's wonders. Engage fully in whatever you're doing. Notice details and take mental pictures as much as you can. Time goes by fast when we're distracted, so training our attention on the here and now can help. Ultimately, we can strive to perceive time more like we did when we were little, in its full depth and magnitude instead of a narrow, straight line.

This article originally appeared last year.

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Newlyweds land paid job living for free on gorgeous, uninhibited Irish island

They beat out 80,000 other applicants for the job of a lifetime.

Camille Rosenfeld; Alice Hayes

It's their dream of a lifetime.

What’s your dream job? President of the United States? A famous influencer with millions of followers and brand partnerships? A former NBA player who now cruises the airwaves with his besties, à la Charles Barkley? No? Well, what about this: Moving to a remote, uninhabited island in Ireland where there’s no running water, no hot showers, and no electricity? Sound enticing?

While that may not exactly sound like “heaven” to most folks, for newlywed couple Camille Rosenfeld (26) from Minnesota and James Hayes (37) from Tralee, Ireland, this version of the island life is exactly what they signed up for. From April 1 to September 30, the newlywed couple will become the caretakers of Great Blasket Island, a remote and uninhabited island off Ireland’s coast in the Atlantic Ocean.

stone homes near the ocean The beautiful, brutal Great Blasket IslandGreat Blasket Island

Once there, they’ll be trading modern conveniences for candlelight and the constant company of seagulls—an existence not terribly dissimilar from the one depicted in Robert Eggers’ 2019 movie, The Lighthouse—and the couple couldn’t be more delighted.

“Oh my gosh…it seems like such a dream come true,” Rosenfeld gushed to CBC Radio. “You wouldn't even think it would be a possibility. We feel really lucky that we were chosen.”

But make no mistake: this is not a vacation. Like Jack Torrance in The Shining, Rosenfeld and Hayes will become Great Blasket’s live-in caretakers, tasked with attending to the principal island of the Blaskets in County Kerry, Ireland. They will live in a small stone house on a windswept hill overlooking the gray, stormy seas at night. By day, they will run five holiday cottages and a coffee hatch for day-trippers visiting the island. “I genuinely think we will fall in with the rhythm of our new life and sense of freedom,” said Hayes, who has been to the island once before. “We won’t have the responsibilities of our jobs or day-to-day life, so it’s a chance to live a simpler life.”

“It looks like something from The Wizard of Oz”

Located about a mile off the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, Great Basket Island— or in Irish, An Blascaod Mór—is a place of stunning natural beauty, where emerald hills glisten and below the cliffs lie sparkling turquoise waters. “It’s just so green, the greenest grass you’d ever see,” Rosenfeld said. “During a few weeks in the summer, there’s these beautiful purple flowers that bloom all across the fields. It looks like something from The Wizard of Oz.”

seals on beachHello, seals Start Travel

Once a flourishing fishing and farming outpost, Great Blasket Island was previously home to a tight-knit Irish community. For centuries, residents ate wildly caught fish and rabbits and harvested potatoes. In its heyday, the island nurtured a vibrant literary culture, with voices like Peig Sayers, Tomás Ó Criomhthain, and Muiris Ó Súilleabháin immortalizing the raw beauty and hardship of life there. However, by 1953, the island’s remaining inhabitants were forced to evacuate due to dwindling numbers and the lack of emergency services there during storms. Now, the island is a living museum of Gaelic heritage and a place where wildlife thrives.

While the island may not have many humans these days, Great Blasket Island is home to a great number of marine life: Gray seals (also known as “horseheads”) are the island’s star attraction, with their short flippers and hidden ears (gray seals lack ear flaps). During the late spring, thousands of gray seals come to Great Blasket to congregate, where they can be spotted among sharks, dolphins, whales, and seabirds. “We have no fears of anything around island life, not even the large number of seals that make their home on the beaches there,” the couple said. “We will deal with any issues as they come along.”

Landing the job

Billy O’Connor and his wife, Alice Hayes (no relation to James), who own the small collection of holiday cottages Camille and James will soon oversee, first advertised the live-in position in 2020. Initially, they were awash with over 80,000 applicants. Now, for their own sake, they’ve capped the number of applications to a mere 300. To deter hopefuls looking for a pleasant holiday, Billy and Alice try to stress the grueling nature of the job: “First, we try to put them off because if anything, it is quite romanticized,” says Alice. “But during the season, it can be quite intense for the caretakers. Most people, when they finish work, go home to their safe haven and relax. But I often say to people going out there that they won’t have that. You close the half-door where you were serving coffee, and you are home.”

Camille and James, on the other hand, are excited to trade a life in the fast lane for one that's much simpler. The two met in 2021 at the Burren College of Art, where Hayes was in residency as a visual artist, and Rosenfeld was studying abroad at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where she studied art and business. They’d actually applied for the caretaker position the year before, but the timing didn't work out because of their scheduled wedding.

couple, selfie by the waterMeet your new stewardsCamille Rosenfeld

When they reapplied the following year, Alice and Billy were ecstatic. "When we saw that Camille and James had applied again for the positions for this year, we were delighted as they are just so enthusiastic and committed to outdoor life," says Alice.

Stewardship: A growing interest in Europe

Besides being an excellent adventure for a newlywed couple, this hands-on approach to land stewardship is part of a growing trend in Europe. Land stewardship is increasingly being recognized as a practical and rewarding tool for nature and biodiversity conservation, often found at the intersection of environmental protection and sustainable economic practices. In the United Kingdom, for example, such land trusts play a significant role in managing protected areas and sites of natural importance. Ahead of their new jobs, Camille and James reflect on the part they’ll play in this larger context. "I think both Camille and I feel that we have been living our lives on aeroplanes travelling over and back to the US and out of suitcases with no set familiarity to our lives over the past three years and longer," James explains. Camille adds: "It will provide the time to take stock, immerse ourselves in island life and start the next chapter or new book of living our lives together in one place.”

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A hard-to-watch experiment demonstrates that babies aren’t naturally afraid of snakes

Letting snakes loose in a room full of babies? Fascinating, but soooo uncomfortable.

Photo credit: Canva

Babies are more curious than afraid when it comes to snakes.

As someone who's been afraid of snakes for as long as I can remember, I've often wondered where that fear came from. I've never been bitten or harmed by a snake. I've had close encounters with rattlesnakes out in the wild, but no actual strikes. I've had friends with pet snakes that were perfectly docile, and I've even held and petted snakes before (with no small amount of trepidation). While I think a healthy respect for snakes is wise, as some can be dangerous or even deadly, my fear goes way beyond that. I know lions, tigers, and bears are dangerous as well, but don't feel like I'm going to jump out of my skin when I see them like I do when I see a snake.

Why, though? Is that reaction something I learned when I was little, or is it an instinctive, evolutionary fear I inherited from my ancestors?

gif of woman reaching out to hold a snakeReality Reaction GIF by Married At First SightGiphy

Theoretically, the question of whether fears are innate or learned can at least somewhat be answered by seeing how babies react to things. Every baby is different, of course, and some are more sensitive to certain things than others, but researchers have found that babies in general do not exhibit a natural fear of snakes. In their infancy, children largely learn what to fear by observing the reactions of the people around them, whether their parents or others have a negative or positive reaction to something. A fear of snakes might develop early on if a caregiver demonstrate that fear themselves. But without observing that, if you put babies in a room with snakes, they won't be afraid.

And yes, we can actually see that theory tested. In an episode of Secret Science on ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company), a handful of babies sat on the floor surrounded by toys and a couple of well-trained, non-venomous snakes. If you have a fear of snakes, brace yourself but give it a chance—it's as informative and fascinating as it is mortifying.

Watch:

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

The host's reaction is so relatable, especially the shudders and the gagging. But clearly the babies were unfazed by the serpents slithering around them. One of them even tried to bite the poor snake, for goodness sake. (It hardly seems necessary, but I should probably insert an obligatory disclaimer here: This is a controlled environment with snakes that are known to be safe with handlers right there, so please do not attempt this with any snakes and babies at home.)

Measuring fear in babies is, of course, a bit of a challenge. It's not like an infant can say, "I'm scared," and babies are known to cry or startle for all kinds of reasons that might not be related to whatever stimuli is around them. An analysis of studies done on babies and fear published in the journal Developmental Psychology in 2020 found that babies react more quickly to commonly assumed fear triggers, but the evidence doesn't show that they are actually afraid of them.

Steve Irwin handling two large snakesSteve Irwin Snakes GIF by BustleGiphy

"Most infants are not afraid of snakes, spiders, heights, or strangers," write study authors Vanessa LoBue and Karen E Adolph. "Instead, they differentiate these stimuli from others, they explore these stimuli to learn about them, and they evaluate the meaning of these stimuli relative to the environment. Although fear of snakes/spiders, heights, and strangers might be adaptive in some instances, heightened attention to these stimuli, the ability to perceive affordances for action when presented with these stimuli, and the ability to evaluate their meaning based on context is far more adaptive: These behaviors encourage infants to explore new things while maintaining the flexibility to develop a fear if they discover that a stimulus is truly threatening."

Learning what to fear from caregivers is an important adaptation, not just among humans but among many animal species as well. Rescued baby orangutans had to be taught to fear snakes by human caregivers at Borneo Orangutan Survival, for instance. Snakes are actually dangerous sometimes, so it's wise to instill some sense of fear of snakes in the wild.

Learning to fear something fear-worthy is a tricky business for humans, though. People are complex and an overreaction might lead to an irrational anxiety response rather than a healthy fear. We may have the cognitive abilities to understand the context and circumstances in which fear is warranted or not, but that doesn't mean we are always able to access those abilities in the face of a fight, flight, or freeze response.

Keeping fear in the reasonable realm is important, and knowing that babies start off without fear of snakes might help inform the way we should react in front of them in order for them to learn the wisdom of fear without it going too far.

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Crows are shockingly smart. Here’s how to make friends with one in four steps.

All it takes is a little food and patience.

via Krari The Crow/YouTube

How to befriend a crow.

When it comes to keeping birds as pets, people usually think about parrots or canaries. Nobody ever considers having a crow. But research has shown that crows are incredibly clever, curious, and self-aware.

They recognize the faces of people they like or don’t like, have the ability to use tools, and can even mimic human speech. Looking to experience the magic of crows yourself? A YouTube user named Kräri The Crow from Germany made a video on how you can befriend the crows in your neighborhood in four easy steps. All it takes is “some food and some patience."

1. Find a pair of crows

Crows tend to live in areas populated by humans, so chances are there are crows in your neighborhood. The best place to start is to find a pair with a fixed territory that you see on a regular basis. That way, you're cultivating a relationship with the same animal day after day and you can "slowly get to know each other."

2. Offer food

Crows will eat just about anything from insects to invertebrates to meat. They also enjoy nuts, worms, and vegetables. If you offer the food in the same place at the same time of day, you'll establish a routine.

3. Be mindful

When interacting with the crow, make sure they aren't anxious or displaying signs that they are prepared to fly away at any moment. Approach the birds with an open, indirect gaze so as to not cause alarm. Sit quietly while you wait for the bird to approach and avoid quick movements.

4. Let the birds come to you

This requires patience. The crow will be shy at first, but they know you better than you think. They will remember your face and your kindness. Give them a chance to observe you and earn your trust.

A the end of the video, Kräri The Crow reminds everyone that while we should make friends with crows, they are supposed to live free in the skies and not be stuck in a cage.

If you succeeded in befriending a feathered genius, tell your new crow friend we say hi!


This article originally appeared three years ago.

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