Brain Study Suggests We Perceive Time Through Activities, Not By Minutes or Hours

A recent rat-brain study offers insight into how the brain tells time, and its lead researcher believes the findings have practical applications for how we can cope with unpleasant things in life, or make the most of a good time.

By monitoring the brain wave activity of rats as they repeated behaviors over the course of an hour, researchers at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, found that we seem to perceive time through the number of experiences we have, and not by the passage of minutes or hours. Their findings, published this month in the peer-reviewed journal Current Biology, suggest there’s some truth to the old proverb, “time flies when you’re having fun.” Only, you might swap fun with another word — busy.

“We tell time in our own experience by things we do, things that happen to us,” lead author and UNLV psychology professor James Hyman said in a statement. “When we’re still and we’re bored, time goes very slowly because we’re not doing anything or nothing is happening. On the contrary, when a lot of events happen, each one of those activities is advancing our brains forward.” Thus, the researcher concluded, “the more that we do and the more that happens to us, the faster time goes.”

The study followed brain pattern changes in rodents’ anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a part of the brain involved in tracking experiences, as they carried out a task. They found that the rats’ neuronal patterns consistently followed the same path regardless of their speed. They said this points to how experiences, rather than increments of time, bring about changes in our neuronal patterns.

There are some immediate, practical benefits in understanding how our brains tell time, Hyman told Gizmodo over email. “If something is unpleasant, try to expose yourself to something else quickly,” he said. “Do lots of things. Do new things. The more you can experience, the more distant the unpleasant thing,” he added. The inverse is apparently also applicable.

“Say you’re with friends and everything is perfect,” Hyman explained. “Then, I’d say just stop doing stuff. Just sit and chill,” he said. “Slow down and time will slow down with you.”