How To Slow Down Time - The Holiday Paradox
Summary
TLDRIn 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
🌍 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.
🕒 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.
🎒 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.
🧘♂️ 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.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Time Perception
💡Holiday Paradox
💡Flow State
💡Subjective Time
💡Memory Anchors
💡Novelty
💡Journaling
💡Mindfulness
💡Routines
💡Emotions
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
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