The concept of time is a funny thing, and often bizarre. Depending on a lot of variables, time perception changes for everyone. Sometimes a past vacation seems like the events of yesterday whereas the occurrence of a week ago feels like a faraway memory. Daunting exam days come much faster than anticipated but waiting for holidays feels like forever. Among many unpredictable variables, only one thing is certain that as you grow older time flies by a lot faster than before. You seldom get the chance to actually savor the moments and before you know it, another day comes to an end without much significance. So how to slow down time and how to appreciate every moment of life a little bit more?
Technically, you can't actually slow down time. But you can change the time perception in your mind. You can dig more into the variables that cause the time to either speed up or slow down and try to control those variables. You can take small steps to take control of how you are spending your time. So here are a few tips to help you in slowing down the time.
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Take Note of Little Details Around You:
Numerous subjective and objective explanations have been put up for why the passage of time appears to quicken with age. Each new experience results in the formation of entirely novel brain pathways during childhood. Every last nuance seems to have been carefully considered. However, as we mature and become more accustomed to our surroundings, these particulars lose their impact. We experience less new things and get used to a set routine.
Thus to slow down time, it's important to keep yourself grounded to all the little details around you. Take time out to just appreciate the things around you, no matter how insignificant they appear. Take a walk in the park, enjoy nature, sit by a lake or riverside to simply observe the flow of the water. Feed that neighborhood dog you always pass by while returning home. All these things may help in slowing down.
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Create New Experiences:
As we discussed before, falling into a set routine for everyday stagnates the scope of gaining new experiences. And when novelty ceases to exist, time flies by a lot more easily and meaninglessly than before. So if you want to take control of your time perception, then it's important to break out of your routine and create new experiences for yourself. Don't just go about your day on autopilot. Rather try to spend each day meaningfully, trying new things.
What new things can you try? Challenge yourself in learning a new skill. It could be a sport, cooking or pottery. You can try to learn sign language. And if nothing else, at least try to include minor changes in your routine. Like taking a new route to the office or visiting a new cafe to get your everyday caffeine fix. These small changes will also make a difference.
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Practice Mindfulness:
You can say that practicing mindfulness is one of the most effective ways in slowing down time and living in the moment. You might have heard a lot about this practice in recent times. Mindfulness means being fully present in the moment, being aware of your surroundings and yourself at any given moment. You can practice to achieve such awareness in a lot of different ways. But the most popular and relatively easy way to be mindful is to practice meditation. Devoting a few minutes everyday to meditation can yield a great positive change for your time perception.
Different ways to practice mindful meditation:
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Focus on your breaths. Sit still in a place wearing comfortable clothes and direct your concentration towards your breaths.
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Focus on the body parts. Scan your body with the mental eye, select a particular area, constrict the muscles of that particular area, hold it for a few seconds and then release. And then proceed to a different part of the body. This type of meditation has an added benefit of releasing tension from your muscles.
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Chant a repetitive sound or 'mantra' to channel your focus towards it. Many people find it easier to direct their attention towards a repetitive sound than breaths.
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Listen to a drone-like monotonous sound and concentrate on it fully. If you feel your mind wander, just bring your focus back on the sound.
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Take help of an object to practice mindful meditation. It could be anything from a crystal to counting beads of a string.
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Avoid Multitasking:
If you truly want to live in the moment, savor each and every experience and just slow down the passage of time, then you should definitely stop multitasking. When you are multitasking, like talking on the phone while cooking dinner for the family, you are not paying your whole attention to either of those tasks at hand. Thus you are running the risk of ruining your dinner or missing a few important things said on the call. So only put your focus on one thing at a time. Get engrossed in it entirely. Only then will you gain a meaningful experience to look back on later. Only then the time spent doing it would appear worthwhile.
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Don't Put too much on Your Plate:
If you want time to move at a more leisurely pace, you should make it your mission to do fewer things each day while devoting more of your attention and energy to each of those activities. If you want time to move more slowly, you need to do two things: slow down yourself, and slow down the rate at which you are consuming things. Learn to say no and restrict yourself to only a certain amount of social engagements. Maintain a healthy work-life balance so you get time for yourself when you can just sit and relax.
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Set Goals for yourself:
Set goals for yourself both in terms of personal and professional life to motivate yourself to work towards it. It could be a goal like getting a promotion by the end of the year or getting in shape without a strict diet. It could be anything that is meaningful to you. Setting goals for yourself is important because when you put your time and effort into reaching your goals, your time perception changes positively. You feel more accomplished and fulfilled. When you reach a goal and look back on the time spent achieving it, those times feel incredibly valuable and productive.
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Reflect on your Days:
At the end of each day, take a bit of time to reflect on your day. The best practice would be to journal your days. If not everything, at least try to write down the most important events of the day. It's a great way to help your brain process how you spend your time and on what. And it helps you think of ways in which you can spend those times more productively and meaningfully the next day. It helps to slow down time.