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Abstract

to the hospital for his first regular check, and we spent a little time wandering. We came across a friend at the seaside, who was visibly shocked to see me wrapped with a baby in a sling. He asked me how old he was, and I proudly said “one week!” We had experienced and learned so much in that first week!</p><p id="5e49">At the end of the seventh week, I left my son with my partner and parents for the first time to meet my screenwriting group for dinner. I cried when I saw them. It was like I had been in jail or marooned on a deserted island for many years. My life with them seemed so far away.</p><h2 id="1931">Time perception is relative.</h2><p id="869d">Time slows down when we are bored, uncomfortable or in pain. It also slows down when we have a great time experiencing new things. You know how a weekend spent travelling to a new place and seeing new things feels like a much longer time. But a weekend in pyjamas flies so fast.</p><p id="d8fe">Time rolls fast in the comfort zone.</p><p id="a9de"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/04/25/the-possibilian">Burkhard Bilger’s article </a>about <a href="https://www.eagleman.com/research/time-perception">neuroscientist David Eagleman</a> from Stanford university in the New Yorker explains it so simply:</p><p id="05d2" type="7">The more detailed the memory, the longer the moment seems to last. “This explains why we think that time speeds up when we grow older,” Eagleman said — why childhood summers seem to go on forever, while old age slips by while we’re dozing. The more familiar the world becomes, the less information your brain writes down, and the more quickly time seems to pass.</p><p id="aa2a">So how can we make sure our brains write down more information with a high level of detail? How can we slow time down and prevent it from slipping away?</p><p id="d8d0">Apart from having a baby, of course, you can:</p><h2 id="6e1f">Learn new things every day</h2><p id="0bd3">Feeding our brains with new information is the essence of slowing the time. Every new thought that passes through our brain, every new experience processed, every new skill is unfamiliar at first, and unfamiliarity expands the time for us to perceive.</p><h2 id="ff8b">Try new hobbies</h2><p id="a1b2">When I joined an amateur choir for the first time and saw the sheet music, I was dumbfounded. How could these people who called themselves amateurs learn and sing these complicated melodies so easily? I didn’t know how I had passed their audition, but I was sure I would never be able to learn my part. However, after listening to it for a few times following the sheet, I began to catch the melody and eventually, I was able to sing it. I could literally hear my brain expand with this exercise!</p><p id="8edf">Knitting, gardening, scuba diving, whatever you try will have a steep learning curve at the beginning. Naturally, they will all begin to feel familiar later on. The trick is if you truly enjoy it, not to leave it there but to keep expanding your knowledge and inventing your own ways of doing it. Don’t just learn new knitting patterns but invent new patterns by mixing and matching.</p><h2 id="7a50">Travel</h2><p id="2e02">Time seems to run faster with age. Travelling is a

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good way to expose yourself to unfamiliarity and slow the time down. There is a good reason many retired people choose to travel a lot.</p><p id="e0f6">A pandemic, unfortunately, is not the best time to travel. But changing the scenery once in a while even for just a few days is a good way to break the daily routine and feel the time.</p><h2 id="c424">Meet people</h2><p id="9230">When we lived in Istanbul, my partner and I were frequent users of Couchsurfing.com. We used to host travellers at home for a few days at a time. It was exciting to have visitors from all over the world. Having people from US, Australia, Japan, France in our tiny apartment felt like travelling to these countries! The whole energy in the apartment would change with the existence of our guests. We would talk, cook, eat together, and learn from each other. Going out to museums or sightseeing with our visitors was always interesting, it felt like visiting our city for the first time. We observed our surroundings with fresh eyes, imagining how it would feel to be there for the first time, and noticed things that we hadn’t thought before.</p><h2 id="1050">Change your routine and environment.</h2><p id="0b2d">I know this goes against popular advice for productivity. Building routines and habits are helpful to work towards our goals. However, when everything becomes automatic and familiar to death, we begin following a program like a robot. Our days pass without noticing anything new.</p><p id="82f1">I am not against turning unpleasant tasks into automatic habits so that we don’t feel resistance against them. But we must find a balance. Changing our environment, taking different routes to work, rearranging our furniture, trying new foods, all these little changes make our brains write down more detail. This way, we become more aware of the passing time.</p><h2 id="75a7">Plan less</h2><p id="e786">Less planning means being more spontaneous, being open to surprises. Embracing spontaneity brings unique experiences, learning more, expanding horizons. Again, finding a balance is essential.</p><h2 id="4f6e">Or, as I just said…</h2><p id="2730">Having a child forces you out of your comfort zone and makes you do most of the things from the list above if not all: You learn and experience countless new things every day (breastfeeding, potty training, year 3 maths, to name a few). You develop new hobbies that had never occurred to you before (unheard techniques of arts and crafts, soccer, coding). You go to places you hadn’t planned to go, you look at your surroundings with fresh eyes and see things you hadn’t noticed before, you adapt yourself to their changing preferences, tastes, routines. And you realize no matter how well you plan; you will have to go off the course some of the time. Spontaneity is part of the job description of a parent.</p><p id="6f12">My son is now 8, and I am 48. The last eight years were far from flying; I felt every minute of it. There were difficult moments, as well as fun, joyful, exciting and proud moments.</p><p id="73f2">After these eight years, I can comfortably say that raising a child has been the most meaningful thing I have done that has allowed me to live my life to the fullest.</p></article></body>

Is Time Speeding up? Have a child!

Or try these other meaningful ways to slow down your time.

In my thirties, I wasn’t planning to have any kids.

I had two married friends with a toddler. The toddler, let’s call him Jack, was the most active three-year-old I had seen in my life.

When we gathered for a little party at a friend’s house, Jack was shouting, running and climbing everywhere, making life unpleasant for the rest of the group. They were mostly single people and expected the parents to do magic on their kid. When I looked at the poor mom and dad, I noticed the dark circles around their eyes. They were exhausted.

So I spent that night playing with Jack. We found some little animal figures and told each other stories. He stopped acting out and played nicely. At the time, I had a relationship, but I wasn’t interested in having kids at all. Yet I enjoyed the night rather unexpectedly.

Some time passed. I didn’t see that family for a while. Then we bumped into each other at another event. The parents seemed exceptionally happy to see me! They hugged me and said, “Wow, where have you been all this time?” Then I saw Jack doing his loud running and climbing routine. I kneeled and waved calling out his name: “Jack! Jack! Here!”

“He is not Jack; he is my brother John,” said a voice. I turned and saw this bright looking young man approaching my height. “I am Jack. I am nine years old.”

Had it been six years?! Nothing much had changed in my life; I still had a boyfriend and no child, wrote a similar kind of soap opera for Turkish TV. The time in between felt like just a few months to me. But not to them. They had darker and deeper circles around their eyes and even more exhausted looks on their faces. But they seemed happy and proud at the same time. They definitely felt every second of their thirties.

Me? I don’t remember much of my thirties. They were the same as my twenties.

I had my son at 40.

One day I was attending a meeting with my screenwriting group. The next day I had an unplanned c-section and found myself in a never-ending loop. A loop that consisted of baby feeding, burping, nappy changing, sleeping, more nappy changing, feeding and burping. Sort of like the Groundhog Day.

I couldn’t tell if it was the morning or evening. Instead of days, I had a long stretch of unidentified busy time. I didn’t have the time to take a shower, cook or tidy the house full of soiled baby clothes, nappies and countless essential baby things. At the little time I had for myself, I watched YouTube videos about how to latch a baby onto a breast or how to tie a wrap sling.

After a week which felt like an eternity, my partner and I took our son to the hospital for his first regular check, and we spent a little time wandering. We came across a friend at the seaside, who was visibly shocked to see me wrapped with a baby in a sling. He asked me how old he was, and I proudly said “one week!” We had experienced and learned so much in that first week!

At the end of the seventh week, I left my son with my partner and parents for the first time to meet my screenwriting group for dinner. I cried when I saw them. It was like I had been in jail or marooned on a deserted island for many years. My life with them seemed so far away.

Time perception is relative.

Time slows down when we are bored, uncomfortable or in pain. It also slows down when we have a great time experiencing new things. You know how a weekend spent travelling to a new place and seeing new things feels like a much longer time. But a weekend in pyjamas flies so fast.

Time rolls fast in the comfort zone.

Burkhard Bilger’s article about neuroscientist David Eagleman from Stanford university in the New Yorker explains it so simply:

The more detailed the memory, the longer the moment seems to last. “This explains why we think that time speeds up when we grow older,” Eagleman said — why childhood summers seem to go on forever, while old age slips by while we’re dozing. The more familiar the world becomes, the less information your brain writes down, and the more quickly time seems to pass.

So how can we make sure our brains write down more information with a high level of detail? How can we slow time down and prevent it from slipping away?

Apart from having a baby, of course, you can:

Learn new things every day

Feeding our brains with new information is the essence of slowing the time. Every new thought that passes through our brain, every new experience processed, every new skill is unfamiliar at first, and unfamiliarity expands the time for us to perceive.

Try new hobbies

When I joined an amateur choir for the first time and saw the sheet music, I was dumbfounded. How could these people who called themselves amateurs learn and sing these complicated melodies so easily? I didn’t know how I had passed their audition, but I was sure I would never be able to learn my part. However, after listening to it for a few times following the sheet, I began to catch the melody and eventually, I was able to sing it. I could literally hear my brain expand with this exercise!

Knitting, gardening, scuba diving, whatever you try will have a steep learning curve at the beginning. Naturally, they will all begin to feel familiar later on. The trick is if you truly enjoy it, not to leave it there but to keep expanding your knowledge and inventing your own ways of doing it. Don’t just learn new knitting patterns but invent new patterns by mixing and matching.

Travel

Time seems to run faster with age. Travelling is a good way to expose yourself to unfamiliarity and slow the time down. There is a good reason many retired people choose to travel a lot.

A pandemic, unfortunately, is not the best time to travel. But changing the scenery once in a while even for just a few days is a good way to break the daily routine and feel the time.

Meet people

When we lived in Istanbul, my partner and I were frequent users of Couchsurfing.com. We used to host travellers at home for a few days at a time. It was exciting to have visitors from all over the world. Having people from US, Australia, Japan, France in our tiny apartment felt like travelling to these countries! The whole energy in the apartment would change with the existence of our guests. We would talk, cook, eat together, and learn from each other. Going out to museums or sightseeing with our visitors was always interesting, it felt like visiting our city for the first time. We observed our surroundings with fresh eyes, imagining how it would feel to be there for the first time, and noticed things that we hadn’t thought before.

Change your routine and environment.

I know this goes against popular advice for productivity. Building routines and habits are helpful to work towards our goals. However, when everything becomes automatic and familiar to death, we begin following a program like a robot. Our days pass without noticing anything new.

I am not against turning unpleasant tasks into automatic habits so that we don’t feel resistance against them. But we must find a balance. Changing our environment, taking different routes to work, rearranging our furniture, trying new foods, all these little changes make our brains write down more detail. This way, we become more aware of the passing time.

Plan less

Less planning means being more spontaneous, being open to surprises. Embracing spontaneity brings unique experiences, learning more, expanding horizons. Again, finding a balance is essential.

Or, as I just said…

Having a child forces you out of your comfort zone and makes you do most of the things from the list above if not all: You learn and experience countless new things every day (breastfeeding, potty training, year 3 maths, to name a few). You develop new hobbies that had never occurred to you before (unheard techniques of arts and crafts, soccer, coding). You go to places you hadn’t planned to go, you look at your surroundings with fresh eyes and see things you hadn’t noticed before, you adapt yourself to their changing preferences, tastes, routines. And you realize no matter how well you plan; you will have to go off the course some of the time. Spontaneity is part of the job description of a parent.

My son is now 8, and I am 48. The last eight years were far from flying; I felt every minute of it. There were difficult moments, as well as fun, joyful, exciting and proud moments.

After these eight years, I can comfortably say that raising a child has been the most meaningful thing I have done that has allowed me to live my life to the fullest.