Why Time Flies: The Scientific Reasons Life Feels Faster As We Age

Have you ever noticed how a summer seemed to last forever when you were a child, but now entire years seem to vanish in the blink of an eye? You’re not alone. This feeling that time is accelerating is a common human experience, and science offers several compelling and surprising explanations for this phenomenon.

The Math of a Lifetime: The Proportionality Theory

One of the most straightforward explanations for why time seems to speed up is based on simple math. This concept, often called the Proportionality Theory, suggests that we perceive a period of time relative to the total amount of time we have already lived.

When you are five years old, one year represents a massive 20% of your entire life. It is a huge, significant chunk of your existence filled with monumental developmental leaps. When you are 50 years old, however, one year is only 2% of your life. From this perspective, it’s logical that each passing year feels less significant and therefore shorter than the ones that came before it.

Think of it this way:

For a 10-year-old: The time between their 10th and 11th birthdays is 10% of their life.
For a 20-year-old: The time between their 20th and 21st birthdays is only 5% of their life.
For an 80-year-old: The time between their 80th and 81st birthdays is just 1.25% of their life.

Each year becomes a smaller and smaller fraction of your total experience, creating the psychological effect of it passing more quickly.

The Power of Firsts: How Novelty Stretches Time

Our brains are wired to pay close attention to new experiences. When we encounter something for the first time, our brain dedicates significant resources to processing and encoding the information. This creates rich, dense memories. Childhood and early adulthood are packed with these “firsts.”

Consider the number of novel experiences in your early life:

Your first day of school
Learning to ride a bicycle
Your first family vacation
Your first kiss
Getting your driver’s license
Your first job

Each of these events required intense focus and created a strong memory marker. As we get older, life often settles into a routine. The daily commute, the weekly grocery run, and the familiar tasks at work are no longer new. Your brain, being highly efficient, doesn’t need to work as hard to process these routine events. It essentially compresses the data.

When you look back on a month filled with routine, your brain might store it as one simple memory: “another month at work.” In contrast, a month filled with a trip to a new country will be stored as a collection of hundreds of detailed, vivid memories, making it feel much longer in retrospect.

Your Brain's Internal Clock: Biological and Neurological Shifts

The perception of time isn’t just psychological; it has roots in our biology. Neuroscientists have proposed several theories about how our aging brains contribute to this phenomenon.

Slower Information Processing

One compelling theory, supported by research from neuroscientist David Eagleman, suggests that as we age, our brains process visual information more slowly. Children’s brains are capable of processing more “frames per second” than adult brains. Because an older brain is taking in less new information per second, the world appears to be moving faster relative to its own processing speed.

It’s like watching a movie filmed at 24 frames per second versus one filmed at 12. The 12-frames-per-second version would appear choppy and rushed. As our own internal “frame rate” drops, the constant speed of the external world feels like it’s accelerating.

The Role of Dopamine

Dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with motivation, reward, and our internal clock, also plays a role. Dopamine levels naturally decline as we age. Some researchers believe this decline affects our internal timekeeping mechanisms. Higher dopamine levels in youth are linked to a more active internal clock, which may lead to the perception of time passing more slowly. As these levels drop, our internal clock ticks slower, making external time seem to fly by.

How to Reclaim Your Time

While we can’t stop the chronological march of time, we can influence our perception of it. Based on the scientific principles above, there are practical ways to make time feel more expansive and meaningful.

Break Your Routine: The single most effective way to “slow down” time is to seek out novelty. You don’t need to travel the world. Try taking a different route to work, visiting a new park in your city, learning a new skill like painting or playing an instrument, or trying a new recipe for dinner.
Practice Mindfulness: Being present in the moment prevents your brain from going on autopilot. Pay attention to the sensory details of your current experience: the taste of your coffee, the feeling of the sun on your skin, the sounds of your neighborhood. This conscious attention helps create stronger, more detailed memories.
Keep Learning: Actively learning something new forces your brain to create new neural pathways, mimicking the state of your brain in youth. Whether it’s a new language, a coding course, or history lectures, the act of learning is an act of expanding your perception of time.
Create Memorable Moments: Be intentional about creating “firsts” or unique experiences. Plan a special outing, host a themed dinner party, or take a weekend trip. These events act as anchors in your memory, breaking up the monotony of routine and making time feel richer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is time actually moving faster? No, absolutely not. The physical passage of time as measured by clocks is constant. The phenomenon is entirely about our subjective perception of time, which is influenced by our age, our brain’s chemistry, and the way we process and store memories.

Does this happen to everyone? The feeling that time speeds up with age is a very common and widely reported human experience across different cultures. While the intensity can vary from person to person based on their lifestyle and experiences, it is a near-universal aspect of aging.

Can I really make time feel slower? Yes. While you can’t reverse the biological processes of aging, you can actively change your perception of time by introducing novelty, practicing mindfulness, and breaking out of your daily routines. By creating new and rich memories, you can make your days, weeks, and years feel fuller and longer.