Mindset & Passage of Time

A mindset is a mental attitude or inclination. Yes, each year represents a smaller fraction of your total life experience. However, if your mindset is that you are going downhill every day and just marking time as life rushes toward a conclusion, you are more likely to chunk everything rather that savor each moment. A consistently thankful mindset, regularly seeking out new experiences, and taking time to pay interested attention in each moment, can improve quality of life. Continuing to set goals of things you wish to accomplish. This gives the brain something fun and rewarding to look forward to. It can also help you perceive each day as a separate collection of interesting experiences rather than just one more blur as you hurtle into older age. Staying connected with good friends and being curious about the experiences you have in life can improve working memory. So can volunteering and doing random acts of kindness. Make your life an interesting series of daily events in which you always learn something new and meaningful.

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Technology & Passage of Time

Technology has changed the way the world turns. With smart, android, and iPhones; along with iPads, laptops, and TV; plus, batteries, solar, and wind turbines; technology has impacted perception of time. When technology is working as intended, you can accomplish more and in a shorter period of time. That has also accelerated a perception of the passage of time. Bring this to a holiday season, when adults, who already may feel there isn’t enough time to do everything, have increased demands on their time. There is planning ahead, shopping, wrapping gifts, preparing food and trying to freeze at least some of it in advance, to say nothing of decorating and knowing what will have to be dismantled and either disposed of or stored until next year. No wonder time rushes ahead for adults and drags abysmally for children. Slow down and think through expectations. Guess what? Although traditions can be enjoyable, everything does not have to happen every year in exactly the same way. Try doing one or two things differently. The brain loves variety. Open gifts on a holiday morning or after dinner or the evening before. As children grow up, try a three-day mini vacation, building life-time memories of being with people you love and who love you in return. 

Anticipation & Passage of Time

Children around the world—at least in developed countries—may count Father X-mas and the reindeer (or Hanukkah) as the most anticipated part of the year. Naturally they pay attention to how long they must wait until the desired holiday arrives. The more their brains  focus on time passing, the more it seems to creep along. Do you remember looking at the clock and asking, “When do we leave on vacation?” or “When will Grami and Gramps arrive?” If the answer was something like “in the next hour or two” and you tried to stay glued to the clock, an hour or two could feel like forever. When I was growing up in Canada, there was no mention of X-mas until after Thanksgiving at the end of November. Now, as early as October, X-mas goodies are being advertised. Seeing all the X-mas paraphernalia for two to three months before the day arrives increases the sense that X-mas is just around the corner for adults, and months away for children. 

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Memories & Passage of Time

According to Neuroscience News, humans tend to estimate duration, how long something lasted, on how many memories they made during their assessment of the duration period. Think back to your childhood. You may recall some years when a lot of interesting things happened, and you made many new memories—which tends to make you think that a lot of time passed. Conversely, there may be periods of time that seemed very monotonous, when nothing much new or exciting happened and those times seem to coalesce into a blur. As you age and perhaps experience fewer “new things” about which to make memories, that can also make it seem a much shorter time from the last holiday season to this one. During the COVID-19 pandemic when everything was in flux and unpredictable, people around the globe reported that “the passage of time did not seem normal” at all.

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Age & Passage of Time

When I was age seven, I thought Xmas would never come! At age seventy-seven I can hardly believe it is already here AGAIN! Does time speed up as we age?

According to scientists, time does not change (except for standard versus daylight savings time—and personally I wish it were one or the other!). Mathematically my father used to tell my brother and me that at age six, a year is one sixth of your whole life, a very long time in terms of a child’s total experience. When you are age sixty, a year is one sixtieth of your whole life. There is a huge difference in ratio between one sixth and one sixtieth. Because of that it is almost as if the relative time of one year becomes compressed as you age. Studies indicate that the brain’s perception of time does change as individuals get older. As you age, your perception of time alters in other ways as well.

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Time to Smile!

Here are a few humorous sayings to trigger a smile on a day that needs to be filled with smiles—which is every day!

 1.     I find it ironic that the colors red, white, and blue stand for freedom, until they're flashing behind you.

2.     Today a man knocked on my door and asked for a small donation towards the local community swimming pool, so I gave him a glass of water.

3.     If I had a dollar for every girl that found me unattractive, they'd eventually find me attractive.

4.     I changed my password to ‘incorrect’ so whenever I forget it the computer will say, "Your password is incorrect."

5.     Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity. Artificial intelligence is often fixable; stupidity is not.

6.     I'm great at multi-tasking; I can waste time, be unproductive, and procrastinate all at once.

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The HPA & Stress

During this process of preparing to fight or flee, the HPA works very hard to maintain an appropriate balance of stress hormones and other brain/chemicals as it orchestrates fighting or fleeing. The Fight-Flight response is designed to be used as needed but not to be sustained over time. Studies have shown that when alcohol is added to this mix, the body is put at even greater risk for harm, because not only is alcohol toxic to the brain, it triggers the release of even higher amounts of cortisol. This alters the brain’s chemistry and ‘resets’ what the body considers ‘normal.’ Unfortunately, alcohol also prevents the body from returning to its initial balance point, so it must set a new point of physiological functioning known as allostasis. The setting of a new balance point puts wear and tear on the body and increases the risk of serious disease.