Last Updated on April 28, 2024 by Natalie

I have a thing about time passing.

My experiences with depression very much revolved around an obsession with my parents getting old and then dying.

As mentioned in my post about perinatal and postpartum depression, I have a history of depression and anxiety that began in my early 20s.

Since that’s boring, I spice things up by throwing in a tendency to obsess about things.

My perspective, when I go into one of my obsessive states, is always skewed and never rational.

The way my brain would do math makes it seem like we live in dog years.

Therefore, 10 years will go by in the blink of an eye.

I’d look at my parents and cry because I was trying to appreciate the moment…which I was not enjoying.

It also did wonders for my parents’ self esteem.

They are both healthy, agile and vibrant and their daughter was crying about their death whenever she looks at them.

While I am no longer depressed, I still have a lingering sensitivity about age and the passing of time and I’m a sucker for any stories about centenarians living their best life. (If you see any of those, tag me in them or send them to me. It makes my day.)

When I was obsessing about my parents aging, my family members speculated that I was putting all this weight on the subject because I had no kids and my life stopped with my mom and dad.

Meaning there was no one left once they’re gone.

Sounds odd since I have a husband, 3 siblings and 9 nieces and nephews but I understand what they meant.

“Have a baby” they said, “you wont have time to invent these things to worry about.”

“Hold my beer,” my brain said.

Fast-forward to post-baby life.

Even when my son was 5 months old, I’d find myself crying thinking about my baby boy growing up too fast because evidently I think it’s fun to torture myself.

The kid was still very young.

You know who I blame?

All those super awesome posts I see like…

The letter some jerk wrote from the baby’s point of view wanting to be held a little longer, apologizing to mommy for crying and wanting to be near her at night and promising that soon (the baby) won’t bother her or need her anymore. Why??

Or the posts that kindly remind you to appreciate all the moments because “the days are long but the years are short.”

Or Michael Bublé’s recent music video for Forever Now that everyone was posting about as kids started the new school year (and I refuse to watch).

Can we stop sharing those things? Is there anyone out there that needs to be reminded?

So What’s My Point?

In an attempt to not be one of those posts I am currently complaining about, I will try to offer you something to actually help rather than simply making a sad observation.

I know there is no way for me to stop the passing of time, nor do I want to.

I do, however, want it to go by more slowly.

Good news: you can control this.

Time is relative.

As my very wise father told me when I told him I was still not happy about time passing quickly and to stop torturing me by sending me pictures of my son from a couple of months prior, “pull your nails for 5 minutes. Seems long.”

Your perception of time is totally constructed by your brain.

If you shift your perspective of time, it will make it seem like it’s going by more slowly.

The Long Answer

I did some research and here are some tips to help you adjust your perspective to make time feel like it’s going by more slowly:

1. Don’t obsess about productivity
In my current situation, I’m totally guilty of this. The more value you place on time, the less of it is available. This perspective makes leisurely activities which aren’t contributing to your productivity feel like a waste of time. On a general level, this includes activities such as reading a book or taking a nap on the hammock. For mom’s, this could translate to shortening regular activities such as bath time or bed time stories.

2. Embrace new experiences
For children, time seems to go by more slowly because so much of what they see and do is new. Because kids are new to life, their brains are working harder to process all the new experiences, making them take up more space in their memory. For adults, we tend to do the same things daily: same breakfast routine, take the same route to work, go home, check the mail, feed the dog, feed the family, bath time, bed time, watch some TV, do it all over again the next day. With the constant repetition, the days blend together. Days turn into months which turn into years. No real significant imprint in your memory. Switch up your activities and setting so that they are new for you. Take mini trips whenever possible, a staycation if you can, or if you’d rather not go broke and homeless do things like a picnic or a museum on the day it’s free. Kinda live like a tourist once in a while.

3. Stop multitasking
We think that we are saving ourselves time but multitasking actually makes time go by faster. Focus on one thing at a time. Don’t scroll through Instagram while feeding the baby or watch a show while playing a game. This is SUPER difficult to do nowadays…maybe even impossible but the conscious effort will maximize your results…definitely more than if you didn’t try at all. Just be gentle with yourself if you find yourself getting distracted. It’s still a win if you did it for even 40% of the time that you tried.
Which brings me to…

4. Get offline
It is no surprise to hear that our relationship with technology makes our perception of time speed up. Those of us who are constantly connected feel like time goes by more quickly than it actually does and generally have more anxiety about time running out.

5. Enjoy nature
Go outside. In nature, the passage of time is identified by sunrise, sunset, seasons–not a clock. Taking the pressure off of time helps to not squeeze the life out of it.

In Short

The short answer to why time goes by so quickly as you get older and when you’re busy is because you’re just not paying as close attention.

The short solution: mindfulness.

I have made several attempts at mindfulness but its not something that is easy to control. It’s typically a skill learned through meditation.

Who has time for meditation? Yeah, I said it!

But…fine. If slowing down time means so much to me (and it does) I will make the effort to do what I gotta do.

I’ll begin practicing tonight.

In reality, we will probably never think it’s going slowly enough and that we got all the time we want.

The only thing we can do is slow it down more than it would go if we didn’t try.