How to slow down time

Many say that time flies. But does it actually? Is time really flying? Or are we flying through time? In a busy world like ours, it is easy to be occupied by a ton of things. Afterward, you don’t know where all that time went. And here you are, a few years later, and it feels like time went by unfairly quickly. In this blog post, we discuss four steps to slow down time.

Why does it feel like time is flying? The way we experience time has much to do with our level of awareness. Think about it. Have you ever gone on a vacation during which it felt like time flew by? Was that a vacation in which you had tons of activities planned and were fully focused on what to do next? Now, compare that to a vacation in which you barely did anything but laying on the beach. During the latter, you probably actually had time to ‘come to yourself’ because that is when you feel like time is slowing down. Now, let’s talk about four steps that can help you in your experience of time.

Step 1. Identify and let go of your circulating thoughts

We spend a lot of time in our minds. When that happens, we zoom out, which causes time to feel like it starts flying by. However, it is important to realize that we can actually direct our minds. But first, we need to find out what our circulating thoughts are about.

Usually, our circulating thoughts belong to one of the following three types.

1. Thoughts about something you don’t want to forget
2. Thoughts regarding something you regret
3. Thoughts about something you can’t seem to move past

Let’s dive a bit deeper into these three points.

Thoughts about something you don’t want to forget

As long as we focus on not forgetting something, we cannot come to rest. The solution here is actually pretty simple. If you don’t want to forget something, write it down. Actually, what might help is to write down every circulating thought about something you do not want to forget. Also, before you go to bed, ask yourself the question if there is anything you would like to write down so you can sleep more peacefully.

Thoughts regarding something you regret

We are often our own worst critics. Therefore, when we regret something we did in the past, we find it hard to empathize with ourselves. This makes it hard to move past something that you regret. It requires a lot of empathy for yourself and a change in perspective towards yourself to move past this feeling. If you would like to read more about how to move past regret, you might also like my other post on the power of experience.

Thoughts about something you can’t seem to move past

We are probably all pretty familiar with the feeling of frustration about what someone said or did. Every time we think about it again, we re-activate the emotions we felt at that moment. We just simply can’t seem to let go. In the meantime, it distracts us from the present. We are somewhere totally different with our minds. How do we let go of this circulating thought? There are different ways to approach this topic, but it often has to do with either changing the situation or accepting the situation as it is. Do you already know that you cannot change the situation, and do you find it hard to accept the situation as it is? This post might help.

When you identify your circulating thoughts and find a way to let go of them, you might notice that you created more space in your mind. You might instantly decide to use this time to be more productive. But, don’t use all this new Mindspace for this purpose because it won’t help you to slow down time. To slow down time, you also need to choose how you spend the time you have more consciously. This brings us to the next step.

Step 2. Stop with your time-killing activities

This is probably the most obvious part of this blog post, but we need to stop or at least bring back the time we spend on time-killing activities. Everything that you do just because you are feeling lazy and kills time, is time wasted.

The first thing that comes to my mind is the time we spend on our phones. I think phones and television are serious addictions and because addictions are really hard to fight, the best thing we can do to deal with these kinds of addictions is to find a way to cope with them, rather than to fight them.

What many of us usually do is that we have in mind that we need to finish our chores or our work during the day. Breaks are allowed as long as we finish our work or chores. In practice, we give ourselves way too many breaks and breaks that are too long because we have a love-hate relationship with feeling lazy.

The solution would be to flip our plan. Instead of scheduling time for yourself to spend on chores, limit yourself to a fixed amount of hours you can spend a day on relaxing and spending on your phone and watching television. Combine this with an app such as Screentime (non-sponsored) to limit your screentime and Habit (non-sponsored) to track a streak of days you have been able to meet your goals.

Step 3. Pick the way you spend your time more consciously

Make up the balance

This part is the most practical because we would need to categorize our behavior into two different groups: the behavior that gives us energy and the behavior that costs us energy. After all, what costs us energy burns up our time without giving much in return. It is easy in a busy world to spend most of our time on things we need to do, whether we do it for others or because this routine is necessary to optimize our life quality. But, we do need to be aware of how we spend our time for us to make a conscious choice about it.

Let’s say you really want that summer body, so you have been working out four times a week for a few months now. You make progress in improving your physique, but you are running and rushing every day to work out that frequently. Does the result of your workout give you more energy than it takes from you? Or do you feel drained every day because you hardly find any time to actually relax?

Another example is that you find it very important to stay in touch with both your family and friends, but it is a pretty large task because it costs you a lot of time. This is why you need to ask yourself, does maintaining your circle in a current manner still give you more energy than it takes? It is important to take a look at your weeks to see how you usually spend your days. Next, you need to highlight the repetitive character activities, because especially those should not drain your energy.

Rank importance

So, what do you do if you find out that certain activities cost you more energy than they give you? Next to what takes and gives us energy, it’s also important to ask yourself whether it serves you any other purpose you are willing to spend energy on. Sometimes we choose to invest our energy into things that may bring our energy in the future, such as following a program to have the job you always dreamt of. Other times we spend a lot of energy on something because it aligns with the values we hold, such as supporting others. If it aligns with your values, it should give you energy as well, but maybe it is crossing a line on another value you hold such as self-care.

That is when you would probably need to make some drastic changes. Put yourself first and try to find a way to work around the element that makes it feel energy-draining. If you usually work out four times a week, try to do an upper and lower body combination two times a week. If it is too hard to keep in touch with all of your friends and family members, schedule one or two evenings a week to call some friends and family members, instead of trying to see all of them every month.

At the end of the day, time does go by rather quickly. When you create more mind space and re-evaluate the way you spend your time, this leaves you with one final step to slow down time.

Step 4. Take time to be fully there

Most of our lives, we unfortunately spend being inside of our minds. Only at the moment, we experience sensations through our senses are we drawn towards the current moment. Let’s discuss an example. You are preparing dinner in the kitchen while thinking about what happened at work today and suddenly, you hit your toe on a table leg. Intense pain! You are feeling a sudden rush of pain and anger. And instantly, you are right there in that moment.

Luckily, we can also experience sudden pleasant sensations. Isn’t this why we all really like to eat good food? These positive sensations draw us right into the current moment. Luckily, we do not always need to seek a sensational experience to be drawn into the current moment. We can also activate this consciousness from within. We can do a daily meditation practice in order to become more conscious in general, but we can also learn to become more aware and conscious during any particular moment through mindfulness.

Mindfulness

Let’s say you are on your way to the grocery store. Doing groceries is something you do regularly, and the supermarket is not far from your house. While you are walking towards the supermarket, you are thinking about what you need to buy, and you start to make a grocery list in your mind. This is actually the perfect moment to practice consciousness or mindfulness. Continue walking, but now focus on the sensations you are experiencing. Look around to see where you are. Next, start scanning your body. Are you feeling okay? No pains anywhere? How is that breeze on your skin? Pleasurable? How is the smell in the air? Sensational?

What always helps me when I feel like I don’t appreciate these sensations well enough, is to start thinking about the future for a short moment. Let’s imagine you are walking towards the supermarket, but now you are in a different country. You are on vacation. Now, let’s imagine what the future looks like when you are back home and walking towards the supermarket. You will look back to this particular moment and even miss that experience. You might feel like time flew by and might have regretted not enjoying it more intensely.

Now, bring yourself back to the current situation. You are actually still here, in that other country, walking towards the supermarket. Now, try to feel the sensations again — the sun on your face, the little breeze on your back, the smell of the environment. The appreciation for that moment increases. Your consciousness increases. And that is how you slow down time.

The benefits of slowing down time

When you find a way to experience time in a different manner, you feel like you are able to enjoy life much more. I am not only talking about the moments you swim in the ocean, which feels like time slows by because this sensory experience goes together with barely any distractions. Also having a conversation with your grandmother, uncle, or best friend forms a wonderful memory because when you were in that moment, you were there entirely. With your body and mind. Slowing down time? It’s not that hard. We can do that straight away. Let go of circulating thoughts, stop or at least bring back the time you spend on time-killing activities, choose how you want to spend your time instead, and be there entirely. Are you ready to make some changes?