Why Does Time “Speed Up” as We Age?

How do you tell someone you’re over 35 without telling someone you’re over 35? Well, you can start by saying things like, “How is it already August?!”

It turns out the feeling that time moves quicker as you age isn’t for nothing. According to researchers, there are several reasons why we experience this. First, and most obviously, is that time spent in your 40s is much smaller proportionally to the length of your life experience than when you’re a child. For example, when you’re ten years old a year is a 10th of your entire life experience. 

Time flies when you’re having fun (or you’re getting older). 

Duke University’s professor Adrian Bijan released a study in 2019 that made an additional case for time moving faster for aging populations. His work states that an aging brain takes in less new information than a young brain, which changes our perception of our days, weeks, and months. 

Cindy Lustig, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, makes the case that the increased structure and organization of our adult lives impact our perception of time. “When we are older, we tend to have lives that are more structured around routines, and fewer of the big landmark events that we use to demarcate different epochs of the ‘time of our lives,’” said Lustig.

With all these forces acting on us, there’s no wonder it feels like “time flies.” It doesn’t seem like these forces are avoidable, either, so we can move this over to the column of “things not in our control.” What’s in your control? 

Make the most of the time you do have.