2023: Time flies like a TGV and here we are on the station platform, transfixed by this dizzying sight. Whose fault is it? Explanations with a neuropsychologist and a philosopher.
“How time flies!” Those who look at their driver’s license photo are familiar with the phrase. Our elders even use it on a regular basis to fill in the occasional “as you grew up”. How to explain this disturbing sensation? Why do some people’s years from forty turn into minutes in the blink of an eye?
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Cognitive aging
Since the 1970s, many scientific works have tried to understand this mysterious phenomenon, neuropsychologist Sylvie Chokron tells us (1). One of the most promising avenues concerns cognitive aging. “The speed of performance is more affected with age. we think, we act, we solve problems more slowly,” explains the specialist. The culprit is myelin, the white substance that protects our neurons, which becomes less efficient over the years and causes better transmission of nerve impulses.
Result? Every task takes us longer than usual to complete, cutting back eventually total number of daily tasks completed; It is obvious that looking at our schedule, if we do not reach the usual quota, the impression is created that time flies faster. “And by causing a kind of race for utility every minute, the current world of work will only reinforce this gap between the last generations,” adds Mael Lemoine, philosopher of medical sciences (2).
When the internal clock goes wrong
With age, the body is also more sensitive to lack of exposure to light, which, among other factors, contributes to the disruption of the internal clock, going so far as to alter the sleep-wake cycle and indeed the perception of time. . “Scientific experiments carried out underground, particularly in a cave, confirm that a long period in the dark, without the concept of hours or days, increases the loss of time signals and the desynchronization of sleep,” notes Sylvie Chokron.
The rarer the events that mark our attention, the more they reduce our perception of time.
Maël Lemoine, Philosopher in Medical Sciences
The body and brain are also more sensitive to lack of sleep. With age, the desire to sleep becomes more significant during the day, and if we overindulge in it, this daytime sleep leaves us with the feeling that the day has passed faster. “When this perception is distorted to the extreme, as it happens in neurodegenerative diseases, it affects not only the biological rhythm, but also our satiety and general behavior. These elderly subjects sometimes don’t know what year we are in,” says neuropsychologist Sylvie Chokron.
A look at the memories
It is obvious that the speeding up (or slowing down) of the perception of temporal space remains subjective, experts claim. It all depends on what state of mind a person is doing an activity and the emotions that are given to him. Thus, an anxious character will see his days pass at a great speed, while a person suffering from melancholy, boredom will be more vivid. “The rarer the events that mark our attention, the more they reduce our perception of time,” adds philosopher Mael Lemoine.
To understand why the sensation lives in us, we must also, and surprisingly, turn to the time that separates us from death, according to the teacher-researcher. “It can make interested elderly subjects realize that their time to live is limited, creating a sense of urgency, anxiety, which will inevitably speed up the perception of time,” concludes Mael Lemoine.
How to hit the brakes, especially if the hands of the clock make us sweat? As the experts explained to us, our perception of time is based on the number of meaningful experiences we create during a given period. Based on this principle, neuropsychologist Sylvie Chokron invites us to give more meaning to our actions and the memories they leave behind. “Writing is a good way to project a moment, live it, and then remember it,” she suggests. The more we consciously experience these moments, the longer they will seem with us.
(1) A day in Anna’s brain, by Sylvie Chokron, ed. Eyrolles, 240 pages, €16.
(2) A Little Philosophy of WrinklesMaël Lemoine, ed Hermann, 150 p., €9.90.
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Source: Le Figaro
