A recent study of rat brains offers insight into how the brain tells time, and its lead researcher believes the findings have practical applications for how we can cope with the unpleasant things in life or make the most of a good time.
By monitoring the brain activity of rats for an hour, researchers at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, found that we perceive time in terms of the number of experiences we have, not the passage of minutes or hours. Their findings, published this month in the peer-reviewed journal Current Biology, suggest there is some truth to the old adage, “time flies when you’re having fun.” But you could replace the word “fun” with another: “keep busy.”
“We measure time in our own experience by the things we do, the things that happen to us,” James Hyman, lead author of the study and a professor of psychology at UNLV, said in a statement. “When we’re sitting still and bored, time passes very slowly because we’re not doing anything or nothing is happening. In contrast, when there are many events happening, each of those activities is driving our brains forward.” So, the researcher concluded, “the more we do and the more things happen to us, the faster time goes.”
The study tracked changes in brain patterns in the rodents’ anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a part of the brain involved in tracking experiences, while they performed a task. They found that the rats’ neural patterns consistently followed the same path regardless of their speed. They said this shows how experiences, rather than time increments, drive changes in our neural patterns.
There are practical and immediate benefits to understanding how our brains measure time, Hyman told Gizmodo via email. “If you don’t like something, try to quickly expose yourself to something else,” he said. “Do a lot of things. Do new things. The more you can experiment with, the further away the unpleasant thing is,” he added. The reverse apparently also applies.
“Imagine you’re with friends and everything is going well,” Hyman explained. “Then I would tell you to stop doing stuff. Sit back and relax,” he said. “Slow down and time will slow down with you.”
