How To Slow Down Time - The Holiday Paradox

Summary

In this video, Ali explores the science behind our perception of time, discussing how it can feel like it slows down or speeds up. The 'Holiday Paradox' is introduced to explain the difference between how we experience time in the moment versus how we remember it. Ali then offers three evidence-based strategies to help slow down time: seeking novelty, practicing reflection through journaling and photography, and embracing mindfulness to create more vivid memories and a richer life experience.

Takeaways

• 🌍 Traveling and engaging in new experiences can make time feel like it slows down, as opposed to the monotony of daily routines.
• ⏳ The 'Holiday Paradox' illustrates that time can feel like it speeds up during enjoyable activities but slows down during boring or anxious moments.
• 🧠 Our perception of time is subjective and can be influenced by emotions, boredom, and the state of 'flow' we are in.
• 📈 As we age, time seems to pass more quickly, possibly due to the percentage of our lifespan that a year represents decreasing.
• 💡 Learning new things can help slow down our perception of time because it introduces novelty and creates more memories.
• 📝 Journaling and reflecting on our experiences can serve as 'anchors of reflection,' helping us remember and value our time more.
• 📸 Taking photos can act as visual memory anchors, allowing us to look back and relive experiences, thus expanding our perception of time.
• 🧘 Practicing mindfulness and meditation can lead to a slower perception of time by increasing focus on the present moment and memory formation.
• 🔄 Breaking routines and introducing novelty into our daily lives can create more memory anchors and make time feel like it's passing more slowly.
• 🗓️ The balance between 'in the moment' time perception and 'remembered' time perception is crucial for feeling like we are experiencing and making the most of our time.

Q & A

What does the video discuss about the perception of time?

The video explores the research behind our perception of time, why it may speed up or slow down, and how we can make the most of it.

What is the 'Holiday Paradox' mentioned in the video?

The 'Holiday Paradox' is a phenomenon where time seems to pass quickly while on vacation due to constant novelty and stimulation, but when remembered, the time feels extended because of the rich memories created.

How does the video suggest that emotions can distort our perception of time?

The video explains that strong emotions like fear or excitement can distort our subjective time, making it seem to slow down or speed up depending on the emotion.

What role does age play in our perception of time according to the video?

The video suggests that as we age, time seems to pass more quickly, possibly due to the percentage of our lifespan that a year represents decreasing as we get older.

What is the significance of the study on novice skydivers in understanding time distortion?

The study on novice skydivers shows that time distortion is subjective and can be influenced by emotions, with fear making time seem to slow down and excitement making it seem to speed up.

How does the video propose to slow down the perception of time?

The video suggests seeking novelty, engaging in reflection through journaling, and practicing mindfulness as ways to create more memories and slow down the perception of time.

What is the importance of 'anchors of novelty' in the context of the video?

Anchors of novelty refer to introducing new experiences and changes into our routines to create more memories and make time feel like it's passing more slowly.

How does journaling serve as an 'anchor of reflection' as discussed in the video?

Journaling is an anchor of reflection because it helps to document and remember experiences, thoughts, and feelings, which in turn creates more memories and can make time feel more extended.

What is the 'homework for life' technique mentioned in the video?

The 'homework for life' technique is a daily journaling practice where at the end of each day, one is asked to write about the most storyworthy moment of the day to create memorable anchors.

How does the video link mindfulness to the perception of time?

The video connects mindfulness to the perception of time by suggesting that being fully present and focused on the current moment can lead to more memory formation, thus making time feel like it's passing more slowly.

Outlines

00:00

🌍 Time Perception and Travel

The speaker, Ali, reflects on their extensive travels from the previous year and how they experienced time slowing down, allowing them to remember events vividly. This contrasts with their life in London, where days blend together, and time seems to accelerate. Ali expresses a desire to understand the scientific reasons behind the perception of time's pace and whether there are methods to control it. The video aims to explore the distortion of time, the 'holiday paradox,' and practical strategies to slow down time and enhance life experiences.

05:00

🕒 Time Distortions and the Holiday Paradox

Ali introduces a study on novice skydivers to illustrate how fear and excitement can alter the perception of time, with fear causing time to feel slower and excitement making it feel faster. The video discusses how emotions, boredom, and 'flow state' can distort subjective time. Ali also explores how age influences the feeling of time's speed, citing a study that shows older individuals tend to perceive time as passing more quickly. The 'holiday paradox' is introduced, explaining how time can feel slow in the moment but fast when remembered, due to the quantity and quality of memories formed.

10:01

🎒 Anchors of Novelty and Reflection

The speaker suggests that incorporating novelty into daily routines can slow down the perception of time by creating more memory anchors. A study is referenced where students performing a non-routine task perceived time as passing more slowly compared to those in a routine task. Ali recommends seeking out new experiences and varying routines to create more memorable moments. Additionally, the importance of reflection through journaling and photography is discussed as a means to solidify memories and enhance the feeling of time's passage.

15:01

🧘‍♂️ Mindfulness and Time Perception

Ali concludes with strategies to slow down time through mindfulness and meditation, which are shown to reduce time pressure and increase the perception of time dilation. The video suggests that being fully present and focused on the current moment can lead to the creation of more detailed memories, thus expanding one's perception of time. Ali encourages viewers to practice mindfulness, whether through meditation, focused activities, or simply being attentive to the present without distractions.

Keywords

💡Time Perception

Time perception refers to the subjective experience of the passage of time, which can differ from the objective measurement of time. In the video, the concept is central to understanding how our experiences, emotions, and age can alter our perception of time. For instance, the script mentions how time can feel like it slows down when we are scared or speeds up when we are excited, illustrating the subjective nature of time.

💡Holiday Paradox

The Holiday Paradox is a phenomenon where time seems to pass quickly while on vacation but feels longer when remembered later. The video discusses this concept to explain the difference between 'in the moment' time perception and retrospective time perception, suggesting that novel experiences and the creation of memories can make past events feel longer when recalled.

💡Flow State

A flow state is a mental state where an individual is fully immersed in an activity, experiencing a sense of energized focus and complete involvement. The video mentions this state in relation to time perception, suggesting that when one is in a flow state, they are so absorbed that they often don't notice the passing of time.

💡Subjective Time

Subjective time is the individual's perception of the duration and sequence of events, which can be influenced by various factors such as emotions, attention, and memory. The video explores how subjective time can be distorted, for example, by strong emotions causing time to seem to slow down or speed up.

💡Memory Anchors

Memory anchors are experiences or events that create vivid memories, which can help to 'anchor' our perception of time and make it feel more extended. The video suggests creating 'anchors of novelty' and 'anchors of reflection' as ways to slow down the perception of time by introducing new experiences and reflecting on them.

💡Novelty

Novelty refers to the newness or freshness of an experience, which can have a significant impact on our time perception. The video argues that seeking out novelty and breaking routines can slow down the subjective experience of time because novel experiences create more memories and thus a longer perceived duration.

💡Journaling

Journaling is the act of regularly writing down personal experiences and reflections. In the context of the video, journaling is presented as a tool for creating 'anchors of reflection,' which can help to make time feel less fleeting by recording memorable moments and thoughts.

💡Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the practice of being fully present and engaged in the current moment. The video discusses how mindfulness can influence time perception, suggesting that individuals who practice mindfulness may experience time as passing more slowly due to increased attention to the present moment and the formation of detailed memories.

💡Routines

Routines are regular, repeated patterns of behavior that can increase efficiency but may also lead to a perception of time passing quickly because they lack novelty. The video contrasts routines with novel experiences, suggesting that breaking routines can help to slow down the subjective experience of time.

💡Emotions

Emotions play a significant role in how we perceive time. As discussed in the video, strong emotions like fear or excitement can distort our perception of time, making it seem to slow down or speed up. This concept is used to explain why time might feel like it's passing at different speeds in various situations.

Highlights

Traveling can make time feel like it slows down, as opposed to daily routines in London where time seems to blend and speed up.

Research into time perception shows that time can be distorted by emotions, boredom, and the state of 'flow'.

The 'Holiday Paradox' explains why we perceive time differently during an event compared to when we remember it later.

Emotions like fear or excitement can distort our subjective time, making it feel slower or faster.

Age can influence time perception, with research showing that as people get older, they perceive time as passing faster.

Learning something new can slow down the perception of time, as novel experiences create more memories.

Brilliant.org is recommended as a platform for learning new skills to create more memories and slow down time.

Memory plays a key role in how we retrospectively perceive the passage of time.

The holiday paradox demonstrates that in-the-moment time perception and remembered time perception can be opposite.

Seeking novelty and breaking routines can create more memory anchors and make time feel like it passes more slowly.

Journaling can serve as an 'anchor of reflection', helping to create more memorable moments.

Taking photos can be a simple way to create more memories and thus slow down the perception of time.

Meditation and mindfulness can increase focus on the present moment, potentially slowing down the perception of time.

Practicing mindfulness through activities like walking without distractions can help create more vivid memories.

The video concludes with a call to action for viewers to share one thing they will do to slow down time.

Transcripts

all right so last year I did a lot of

traveling and it felt like time really

slowed

[Music]

down I was doing so much stuff in the

space of just a few months and I

actually remember a lot of what happened

but there's is very different to my life

in London where every day seems to sort

of blend into all of the others and when

I look back over the last few months it

feels like time passed super quickly and

I actually can't remember much of it so

I wanted to dive into the research

behind what we know about our

perceptions of time why does it speed up

or slow down or even sometimes feel like

it's come to a complete step stand still

and are there ways that we can learn to

really feel time passing and really make

the most of it because if you've built a

life you love then you really don't want

it to go by in a Flash so in this video

we're going to look at firstly the

different ways time is distorted for us

secondly something called the holiday

Paradox which is going to help us

understand how we perceive time and

thirdly we're going to go through three

actionable and evidence-based things

that we can all do to slow down time so

that we experience more of life oh and

by the way if you're new here my name is

Ali I'm a doctor turned entrepreneur and

author and when I was in med school I

did an a degree in Psychology and I love

researching this stuff and trying to

figure out what are the evidence-based

things that we can do to build a life

that we love and just generally enjoy

ourselves more and feel more happy and

fulfilled part one time distortions okay

so there's this cool study called how

time flies a study of novice skydivers

in the Journal of behavior research and

therapy and the researchers here wanted

to find out how time is distorted when a

bunch of people complete their first

ever Skydive now before these people

jumped out of the plane they were asked

how scared and excited they were on

scales from zero to 100 then they got

ready they put on all the gear and they

went up in the plane and did the Skydive

and afterwards they had to estimate how

long they thought the whole experience

lasted basically the people who were

more scared thought that time slowed

down but the people who were more

excited thought that time sped up so

what this research shows us is that

firstly it's good to do things that

scare you because it slows down time but

secondly that the way that we experience

time is subjective there is objective

time which is objectively how long

something took but then there is

subjective time which is how long we

perceive the thing took and subjective

time can be distorted by a bunch of

things so firstly subjetive time can be

distorted by strong emotions like when

you're happy or excited time seems to

pass pretty quickly but when you're

scared and about to jump out of an

airplane time passes really slowly

secondly boredom can affect the

subjective perception of time so

obviously time slows down when you're

bored waiting in a line in the

supermarket or whatever and thirdly when

you're in a state called flow you often

don't even notice the passing of time

because you are in the zone you're in

your Flow State you're working on

something that is sufficiently engaging

and sufficiently challenging okay so we

know that emotions affect the subjective

passing of time but what about age like

if I look back on my childhood and I

think of the long summer holidays I get

the sense that time passed really slowly

back then but as I'm getting older I

have this Sensation that like time is

speeding up but I want to show you what

the research actually tells us about

this so here's a question for you how

fast did the last 10 years pass for you

and you have this scale that you can

rate your answer to this question on

from min-2 to plus2 now this is exactly

what researchers asked people back in

2005 in a questionnaire for 500 people

between the ages of 14 and 94 and they

were looking at how our age influences

our subjective perception of time now in

answer to this question how fast did the

last 10 years pass for you this is what

the graph looked like so if we look at

the graph we can see that generally as

people get older there seems to be a bit

of an increase in the speed of

perception of passing of time like if we

look at the 14 to 19 year olds their

sort of average is between 0 and 1 so

they feel like the last 10 years passed

from like neutral to fast whereas if you

go look to like age 50 you know that the

average is sort of 1 point something

which means they felt time passed fast

rather than neutral interestingly you

can see that it sort of levels off

Beyond about age 50 so it seems like 60

70 and 80y olds don't think that the

last 10 years passed any quicker which

is kind of good but there does seem to

be a general slow increase in the

perception of passage of time as we get

older so why does this happen why do we

have this feeling that as we get older

time passes by a little bit faster now

one theory around this is around the

percentage of our lifespan so for

example if you are 10 years old then 1

year is a whole tenth of your life but

if you're 50 years old one year passing

is only 2% of your life and so 10%

versus 2% you would sort of Imagine a

10-year-old would feel the subjective

passing of time slower than someone

who's 50 and actually one other way to

slow down time is to learn something new

and a great way to do that is by using

brilliant who are the sponsor of today's

video brilliant is an interactive

platform where you can learn maths and

programming and AI they've got thousands

of lessons and their focus is on

learning by doing rather than just by

consuming I've been using brilliant now

for the last 5 years and they've been

supporting the channel during that time

as well they've got a first principles

approach to learning which helps you

build understanding from the ground up

and it's all crafted by an award-winning

team of teachers and research Searchers

and professionals from places like MIT

and ctech and Microsoft and Google and

many more cool places brilliant helps

you build your critical thinking skills

through problem solving not just

memorizing things so while you're

building Real World Knowledge on

specific topics you also become a better

thinker the new courses on programming

are particularly good they help you get

familiar with a language like python so

you can start building programs on day

one with their built-in drag and drop

editor if that sounds good and you'd

like to try out everything that

brilliant has to offer for free for a

full 30 days then head over to

brilliant.org Al abdal or click on the

link in the video description and that

will also give you 20% off the annual

premium subscription so thank you so

much brilliant for sponsoring this video

so that's one possible solution to this

conundrum but the other one is something

interesting and that is the holiday

Paradox so I want you to imagine that

you're going on holiday for a week and

you are at the airport ready to leave

but there has been a big delay on your

flight so you end up having to wait at

the airport for like 3 hours now in that

moment especially if your phone is out

of battery time is going to feel like it

passes really slowly because you're just

stuck at the airport with nothing to do

and you're really bored and all you can

think about is how slow time passing

eventually though you board the plane

you get to your destination and for the

rest of the holiday time seems to pass

really quickly because you're not

thinking about time and you're always

doing something new now this is where

things get a little bit interesting and

a little bit complicated because there's

actually two different types of time

perception there is in the moment time

perception and then there is remembered

time perception so in the moment the

airport delay feels really long and the

holiday itself feels really short but

then when you get back home and you look

back on your holiday the airport delay

which felt very long in the moment

actually feels very short and the

holiday holay which felt very short in

the moment actually feels kind of long

in retrospect and this is what we call

the Holiday Paradox and this comes from

a book called time warped unlocking the

mysteries of time perception written by

the psychologist Claudia Hammond okay so

why do we have this holiday Paradox why

is it that sometimes the perception of

time in the moment is different to the

perception of time when we remember it

and the theory here is that it's all

about memory so when it comes to

retrospective or remembered time it's

our memories that help us judge how fast

or slow we thought something happened in

the past so uneventful periods of time

with without a lot of change pass really

slowly in the moment but then when we

remember them it feels really short

because in terms of memories we didn't

make that many memories but on the other

hand if you're doing something very

stimulating and there is a lot of change

and a lot of novelty that absolutely

flies by in the moment cuz there's a lot

going on it's very exciting but then

when you remember it it feels very long

because you have all these novel

memories and this might explain why as

we get older it feels like time is

passing by faster cuz generally when

we're younger we are doing a lot of new

things we are learning new stuff we're

developing new skills we're creating

lots of new memories but then as an

adult most of us tend not to do that

many new things we tend to get into our

routines we tend to have the same job

for an extended period of time we tend

not to have those novel new experiences

so what the holiday Paradox tells us is

that time in the moment and remembered

time work in opposite ways where

expanding one makes the other one feel

shorter and vice versa so essentially we

need to strike a balance between these

two sorts of time perception if we want

to feel like time is not passing too

quickly in the moment and we want to

look back and feel like everything

didn't just pass by in a flash memory is

our way of reliving our past experiences

and reexperiencing our time and it

follows them that the more discrete

memories you have from a prior

experience that that experience becomes

expanded in time oh by the way I've got

a completely free resource the

journaling Hub that has a bunch of

prompts my favorite journaling prompts I

like to collect those it's completely

free there'll be a link down below if

you want to check it out part three how

to slow down time okay so we're going to

look at three ways that you can create

more memories to make it feel as if

you've expanded time and idea number one

here is anchors of novelty so to

understand this we can look at this

study from the American Psychological

Association that used a simple task to

understand the relationship between

routines and subjective time so here the

researchers randomly split a bunch of

students into two groups group one was

the routine group and group two was the

non-routine group and all they had to do

was complete a simple task which is they

were given a bunch of these different

rows of numbers and in each row a

specific number was underlined and the

students just had to count how many

underlined numbers there were but the

difference was that in the routine group

it was always the number five that was

underlined whereas in the non-routine

group it was a different number in each

row now all of the students were given 2

minutes to do the number task and

afterwards they were asked to estimate

how long they thought they were doing

the task for and this is where things

get interesting the average for the

routine group was 129 seconds but the

average for the non-routine group was

1068 seconds and this 25% increase was

statistically significant so what this

test shows is that when someone is doing

something that's routine without much

novelty for example the routine group

always looking at for the number five

they feel like time has passed faster

whereas when someone is doing something

with a little bit more novelty and out

of routine i counting different numbers

each time they feel like time passes

slower as we get older we find ourselves

going through the same routines every

day we often wake up at the same time we

wear the same clothes we take the same

route to work we sit at the same desk we

buy the same food for lunch and yeah

routines are great because they help us

increase our productivity and get things

done and mean that we don't have to

think too much about the routine which

is why like Steve Jobs wear the same

outfit every single day you know that

kind of idea but routines are very

repetitive and they don't contain a lot

of novelty so they don't let us create

as many memory anchors and so our time

is going to feel much shorter in

retrospect when we're following routines

so the key takeaway here is to seek out

novelty as much as you can and it

doesn't really have to be big things you

could for example try learning a new

skill like a new musical instrument or

something you could experiment with

taking different routs to work each day

in my case I go for a walk in the local

park every morning and I normally just

follow the same route because I'm a

creature of routine but you know what

I'm going to exppress expent with

following a different route each time

maybe trying out different coffee shops

different restaurants different places

to work for example the more of these

anchors of novelty we can add into our

life ideally without like blowing our

lives up the more we're going to feel

like time is passing by in a more

elongated fashion idea number two

anchors of reflection so there is this

guy called John kig and he is the

founder of the dictionary of obscure

sorrows and this is basically a

dictionary that has words to describe

emotions that many of us feel but those

that are very hard to put into words and

one of these words is oika which means

the awareness of how few days are

memorable John writes your life is a

highlight reel you'd like to think that

every moment has potential that there's

something Transcendent hidden all around

if you'd only stopped to seize the day

you could hold on to it and carry it

with you but the truth is most of life

is forgotten instantly almost as it's

happening chances are that even a day

like today will slip through your

fingers and dissolve into Oblivion

washed clean by the tides okay so what

can we do about this how can we prevent

all of these different days from just

dissolving into Oblivion well option

number one is journaling writing about

what actually happened in your life and

crucially your thoughts and feelings

associated with it there's loads of

evidence about how journaling expressive

writing especially doing it by hand is

really good for your working memory but

essentially the more you write about

this stuff the more you have these

anchors of reflection or these little

memories that are associated with the

thing I personally use the app day one

for journaling and it's nice because

today I'm filming this on the 24th of

July 2024 and I actually can look at my

last 3 years worth of journaling entries

where this morning I was reading a

journaling entry that I did on the 24th

of July 2021 and it's interesting to

look at that because I have absolutely

no idea what I was doing on the 24th of

July 2021 but I wrote about it in my

journal I took a little photo and in my

journal I talked about how you know we

were just about to hire some new people

and how I was really worried I was also

taking dating seriously and i' met this

girl who I really liked that i' been on

a handful of dates with and I was trying

to convince myself not to be too

attached to the outcomes and all that

kind of stuff and that's the thing with

journaling that it doesn't it often

doesn't feel useful in the moment cuz

you're like oh what's the point of

writing about it's like h i I already

know what happened today but when you

look back on the stuff then it's

incredible to be like

that's what my life was about this is

this is what was going on and it really

just helps you appreciate the passage of

time a little bit more there's also a

really good technique called homework

for life which is from Matthew dicks

who's written the book storyworthy which

is really good and essentially the idea

of homework for life is that it is a

daily journaling habit where the end of

each day you just ask yourself what was

the most storyworthy moment that

happened in my life today now I followed

this for about 3 months in like 2020

back when I read the book and I still

have all of these different like

homework for life bits where when I look

at that period of my life and I look

through my homework for Life entries I'm

like oh I remember these days I remember

a lot more because I just wrote down

just a single oneliner about what

happened that day the other really good

thing that I always recommend to

everyone is take more photos we all have

incredible phones in our pocket you can

take photos with your phone you can also

get

a you can also get a proper camera if

you would like I got this one recently

fits in my pocket I have this one that

flash floats around this one you know

all that kind of stuff you don't need

fancy cameras but one thing I generally

do recommend to people is that there is

something really really nice about

having a proper camera that's not just

your phone that you can use to take more

photos cuz if you're like walking around

with an actual camera and you're like

taking pics with it then those pics get

added to your Google photos your or your

Apple photos they get geot tagged with

location they get tagged with the date

and then you know I've been doing this

sh for the last like 15 years just

taking well not 15 like 10 to 12 years

taking photos of absolutely everything

with a proper camera and now my Apple

photos featured featur feed memories are

incredible like every single day I see

that on this day 7 years ago this is

what happened and it's so nice to look

back on it's one of my favorite things

to do when I'm on toilet is just flick

through whatever Apple photos has

surfaced for me that day and then idea

number three is anchors of mindfulness

so when you ask people who are very

experienced in meditation questions

about how they perceive time they

generally say that time feels slower in

their everyday lives and actually this

study in 2015 took a group of 42 people

with an average of 10 years of

meditation experience and I asked them

questions like how far do time usually

pass for you and they compared their

answers to 42 people of the same age and

sex but who didn't have any meditation

experience and they found that the

meditation experts experienced less time

pressure more time dilation and a

general slower passage of time which is

pretty cool now we don't yet have

evidence to show what's actually

happening inside the brains of these

people who do a lot of meditation and

how this changes the way they perceive

time but what we think is happening is

again all to do with memory formation

and this idea of mindfulness at the most

basic level basically means increasing

your focus on the present moment so

being fully aware of your bodily

Sensations being aware of your emotions

and what's happening within your body

being more aware of the environment that

you're in and the one thing that you're

currently doing and generally the things

that we focus on is what we create

memories of and so if you focus on these

things and you are more present on the

present moment that in theory helps

create more memories which help to

expand your perception of time and so

the key takeaway here is to consider

practicing meditation or mindfulness in

some way or another obviously there's

loads of apps that help with meditation

and mindfulness but it could be

something even simpler like going for a

walk without your phone with you or

without your headphones with you it

could be something like yoga which is

sort of Meditation Plus movement or it

could just be that when you're doing

something really giving your entire

attention to that thing that you're

doing rather than multitasking and

distracting yourself with and eating

your food while watching a YouTube video

while scrolling Tik Tok on the other

hand and you know all the stuff that we

tend to do those tend to create a lot

fewer memory dividends than just

focusing on one thing and one thing at a

time if you've gotten to this point in

the video firstly thank you for watching

secondly I'd love to hear in a comment

down below what is one action point

you're going to take as a result of

watching this video and if you like this

video you might like this video about

how to guarantee that you'll regret your

life which is a video about all the

things you should do to make sure that

you look back on your life with regret

so thank you so much for watching and

I'll see you next time bye-bye