I want you to think back it to March first – does it feel like five weeks ago
or five years ago? The time before coronavirus (let's call it BC) feels like
a distant memory. Time it seems messed up. Every day feels the same...
Every morning I sit down and open up the ghost of my calendar and inbox. I click. I
scroll. I read. And after about 25 seconds I wonder... what will I eat for lunch today?
I stand. I walk. I graze. And then I scroll through news headlines and Instagram
photos for an absurd a period of time. Wait what time is it? Sometimes time
flies and other times it drags on. But it's not just you. There's actually a gap
between how objective, physical time passes and how we experience it.
People often speak about time slowing down before a life-threatening event, like
remembering every single detail before a car crash or a fall. So this was tested
in a 2007 study where researchers had participants all from a tower. They free
fell, dropped 31 meters before they were caught in a safety net. You can file
this one under completely ridiculous science experiments that we're gonna
talk about anyway because it's fascinating. Researchers found that this
scary situation influenced how the participants perceived time. People
experience their own fall is lasting for a lot longer than the fall that they
watched other people experience. But researchers being researchers wanted to
find out why this was – did time seem to slow down because our brain started
processing information faster and we took a lot more in, or was our memory of
the event distorted? So the participants were given this specially designed watch
it had these numbers on it that flashed at a fast rate so they could see if the
participants could read those numbers when they were falling better than when
they were just on the ground. They called it a chronometer which
just a fun word to say... chronometer. This whole situation the tower and the drop
and the 31 meter fall and the chronometer on their wrist with all of
the fast flickering numbers is just... a lot. What the researchers found was that
this experience of time slowing down was not because our brain sped up and could
press us all of this information faster – people couldn't read those numbers any
better when they were falling than if they were just standing on the ground
with the rest of us. Time warping is actually an illusion caused by our
memories. This could happen because when you're frightened that your amygdala
gets involved in your memories. It influences how you form memories which
leads to denser richer memories that have a lot more information. Then when
you're recalling the event you interpret it to take longer because you're
recalling more memories and when you piece them all together you think that
the event has taken place over a longer span of time. But... it's an illusion.
So it's emotions but actually play a role in how we experience time passing. And
you don't have to be in immediate physical danger to experience this. We've
seen this play out as well when people are watching movies – scary movies. Another
study found that people's judgement of time was distorted after
watching clips from scary movies like The Shining compared to what were called
neutral clips like the daily weather update. So what does all of this
free-falling drops and clips from The Shining have to do with what we're
experiencing right now? Well there's a couple of factors that I have written up
on my huge post-it notes. Post-it notes are back. Well the first thing is that
it's unfamiliar – a lot of us haven't experienced a situation like the one
we're in right now before so we see the oddball effect come into play. This is
known for a study where people saw the same circle come up on screen over and
over again and then when they saw a different circle (quite literally the
oddball) they estimated that it was on the screen for a longer period of time.
You're probably more familiar with this in everyday contexts, like if you drive
to a new place it seems to take longer than if you drive
somewhere that you're already familiar with. The next thing is that the
situation we're in right now is scary – it's stressful and people have a lot of
fear so if your memories of the past month are more emotional it could feel
like more time has passed than it actually has.
The next thing is that it's ongoing, the situation we're in keeps changing and
this change happened really quickly in March so we're constantly experiencing
new emotions, new news, the situation is really novel so we're feeling these
things over and over again. But this video isn't all doom and gloom! Because
there are some steps that you can take to make time feel like it's flying.
You've probably heard people talk about being in the zone or this state of flow
Which is where an enjoyable experience distorts your sense of time, you become
immersed in an activity so it feels like time is passing more quickly. So great
activities to do this include playing an instrument, running, knitting, dancing,
drawing – the takeaway message here is that you could dance for the next two
months and Quarantine will be over. Playing video games is an excellent one,
actually Luigi's Mansion has just melted the hours away.
And you can try to take control,
you can take control of your own time by setting the goals you can do
free online courses, watch educational YouTube videos – you're off to a great
start – it could be helpful like that but it doesn't have to be a lofty goal.
Personally I've been trying to cook eggs better. Setting these small goals could
be helpful, but more so it takes your mind off what's happening in the world
and even better can limit your exposure to unnecessary coronavirus news. These
are all of my tips.
So many of us feel like we're in a coronavirus time warp
because of our emotional response and the novelty and stress of the situation
make it feel like time that drags on. When I think back to the first of March it
feels like forever ago. But we can take control of our own situation – you
can run, craft, cook, dance, even learn – scientifically they can make time fly.