Have you ever looked back at your childhood and wondered how an entire year once seemed incredibly long, while adulthood appears to move faster and faster?
The feeling that time accelerates as we get older is surprisingly common.
A child waiting for Christmas may feel that the event is an eternity away.
An adult can suddenly realise that another year has passed almost without noticing.
One possible explanation involves how the brain processes new experiences.
When you are young, many experiences are unfamiliar.
Your first day at school, first holiday, first friendships and countless other experiences create new memories.
As adults, routines can become more repetitive.
Going to work, returning home, eating, sleeping and repeating the same activities can create fewer distinct memories.
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When people look back on a period filled with many memorable events, it may feel longer because the brain has more experiences to recall.
A year containing numerous new experiences can therefore feel more substantial in retrospect than a year dominated by routine.
This does not mean that time is physically moving faster.
The clock continues to measure time in the same way.
What changes is our perception of it.
One way to make life feel less repetitive may be to deliberately introduce new experiences.
Travel, learning a new skill, meeting different people or exploring unfamiliar places can create more distinctive memories.
That does not stop time from passing.
But it may make the years feel more memorable when you look back.
So when someone says, “Where did the year go?”, they may be describing a genuine feature of human perception rather than simply being dramatic.
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