Real time and internal clock: why do they run differently?

Why do we experience the passage of time differently? Scientists from the University of Liverpool John Moores recently found that this is due to heart rate, that is, the faster the heart beats, the faster time seems to run. Is this the only reason? Can I customize my internal chronometer? We talked about this with a medical psychologist, candidate of psychological sciences Artur Timofeev.

– Artur Dmitrievich, according to Einstein’s theory, time is a relative concept. Tell me, is this true from the point of view of psychology?

– Psychology knows nothing about objective time, so for psychology it is not so much relative as subjective. That is, each person has an individual sense of the passage of time.

“And it is changing. It happens that when you are really looking forward to some event, it seems that time stretches incredibly long, and if you are busy with something exciting, then, as they say, “time flies by.” Why is this happening? What else slows down or speeds up the flow of time for us?

— The effect of slowing down and speeding up subjective time depends on physiological and psychological processes. Unfortunately, there is as yet no conclusive, repeatable evidence of exactly what markers our brains use to keep track of time. There are only hypotheses. For example, indeed, there is a hypothesis that our internal time counter is based on the speed of the heartbeat. It can also be assumed that the speed of subjective time is associated with the acceleration and deceleration of processes occurring in the central nervous system.

As for psychology, we can talk about two important indicators. The first is the emotional saturation of events (the richer, the faster the event passes), there is also a connection with the emotional vector (negative emotions – such as fear, longing, anger – are quite difficult to withstand for a long time, and time drags on, positive emotions are easily tolerated and time as if “collapses”). The second indicator is the cognitive saturation of events, that is, the extent to which our processes of attention, thinking, memory, and perception are included. If attention is focused on the present moment, then time will be subjectively slow, if attention is focused on thoughts or memories, we do not notice how time passes, we can “think” and skip a large piece of it, because our perception did not track the surrounding reality and markers time records appear to have been lost.

– There is also such a phenomenon: it seems that every day passes slowly, and then – lo and behold, the year has flown by imperceptibly. What is it connected with?

– This question is no longer about the subjective perception of time, but about the structure of our memory. The fact is that usually a person does not have free access to the entire amount of memory, but only to the moments that we specially recorded, as if saying to ourselves: “this is very important, I need to remember this,” or those moments that were automatically recorded by our bright emotions. Try now to remember what you did 47 days ago. To do this, you will probably look at the calendar and look at the day of the week. After that, you will think about whether it was my day off or a working day, what I usually do on such days and so on.

– Indeed, sometimes you don’t immediately remember what happened yesterday …

– Exactly. Our memory highlights only the main, significant pieces for us, and everything else becomes irrelevant, and “time compression” occurs.

The sense of the flow of time also changes with age. The older a person is, the faster the years seem to fly by. Scientists attribute this to a change in the speed of perception and information processing. Is it really true?

– Here I can make the following assumption: when a person concentrates on the present moment, subjective time flows more slowly. When we are young, we are very focused on the present moment, because what happens in our lives is new. Yes, and the emotional life in youth is more intense, due to the effect of novelty as well. But with age, we lose this novelty effect, because so many of our actions are automated, while the abundance of life experience constantly throws us memories of how it was before. And we already know that the “collapse” of time occurs when we are not focused on the present moment and our attention goes towards memories.

And also about age. Many people in years say that, according to their subjective assessment, they are much younger than what is written in the passport. And the older the person, the greater the gap between subjective and physical age. And it happens the other way around: when young people say they feel like old people. How do you explain it?

– This question, oddly enough, is no longer about the subjective perception of time, but about the assessment of one’s own life prospects. Here, too, not everything is clear. First of all, we are talking about the stereotypes of “youth” and “old age” learned during life. If I ask our readers to name the first associations with the word “old age”, then for someone the first associations will be decrepitude, helplessness, imminent death, and for someone – wisdom, rest, free time. Accordingly, in order to feel young or old, it is necessary to associate your current state with the stereotype of “youth” or “old age”.

Is it possible to bring your internal clock into line with the real course of time? What advice would you give to those who are in a hurry and to those whose internal chronometer has “run out of battery”?

– The inconsistency of the internal clock is a normal condition, so there is no need to deliberately rush it or slow it down. However, it is worth saying that if the “battery of the village” has long been and the passage of time seems slow, unsaturated or even frozen, it is worth asking yourself questions: “How do I feel in general? Am I doing well?” Because such a feeling of slow time may indicate the presence of psychological distress, for example, a depressive state, and then you should seek the advice of a psychologist or psychiatrist.

The interview was conducted by Alena Bodrienko.

Photo from Kultura.RF website