Why Does Time Move Faster As We Get Older?

As we slowly age, why does time seem to accelerate as the seasons fly by? The answer to that question has both a scientific explanation and a fuzzy, mushy, mystical one. It's not a new phenomenon to experience the 'time slipping away' feeling as the years roll on. As the mushy, mystical explanation is the shorter one, well begin with that one.

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A Study

As we age remarks like 'I can't believe its Christmas again already' and 'that's another year gone by without me noticing.' become much more frequent. As quickly. Time speeding up as we get older feelings often lead to regret and sensations of unfulfilled potential. Findings have led to some extraordinary psychological conclusions.

An intriguing German study from the mid-2004 surveyed a 1,000 cross section of random people ranging from their early 20's to mid 90's. The survey didn't show much of a discrepancy between ages when their feelings of time moving more rapidly when assessing the study group over a day, a week, a month, or even up to a year. The majority of those surveyed agreed time passed quicker than they could account for.

For much longer periods of time, such as decades, a fascinating pattern started to become clear. The older the person surveyed was, the more they felt time was moving faster. When those above 40 were asked to looked back on their lives so far, this group asserted that time moved at a slower pace during their early yeas. However, it rapidly accelerated at a steady pace as they got older, and now it appears to moving further beyond their grasp as they get older.

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The Reason

There is a perfectly logical explanation for why we feel this is the case. Time perception is experienced by us from only two perspectives as a species. We can experience time passing as it is occurring or we can look back retrospectively on past events. We all know time flies when we're having fun (as time is passing). When we reflect on a certain experience (time passed) later, that experience usually referenced is not really as involved as we remember. in fact, we recall it being slightly more of a mundane experience.

The older we get, the more reflected experiences we have to call upon. The older we get, time passed encouragingly outweighs time occurring. This is the reason why time goes faster as you get older.

Our brain will encode new experiences all the time. It won't encode those that are familiar to us though. Looking back in time is based on the amount of new memories we can create over certain periods of time. To put it another way, the more new experiences our brain can encode on appreciating something new that we attempt, the longer and more involved the experience will seem on reflection.

This is paradoxically the best reason why time goes faster as you get older. In retrospect, time appears to pass by faster as we age. Our early childhood years to early adulthood are full of new experiences, learning and acquiring new skills on an exponential basis. As mature adults, our existence becomes much more routine as our customary, regular occurrences shape our lives. There are much fewer new moments and experiences for our brain to encode. In a nutshell, we are top heavy in experiences from our early lives that overpower our senses which will give us the illusion over time passing more slowly as we get older. 

What to do

Of course, there is a simple method for altering our perception of the time passing quicker phenomenon. That is to keeping your brain active and add to those memory banks as often as possible. Learn new skills continually. Have new experiences. Meet new people. Exploring new places.