Is 2025 The Fastest Year In History?

My eight year old wonder kid Ellis; with all the gravitas of an eighty-eight year old, last week declared “It’s actual NOVEMBER next week Mam. Honestly, 2025 has been the fastest year of my whole life.”

I couldn’t disagree with him.

I wonder if you, like me, have spent the whole year saying “How on earth can it be Wednesday/June/Halloween already? We’ve just had Christmas!”

For me, there’s something a bit scary about how fast this year has seemed to whizz by. I don’t want to fly round on this hamster wheel of life at the speed of light and wake up aged 87 and decide now is the time to slow down, thanks very much.

The sensation that time is passing by too quickly is uncomfortable because it reminds us quite frankly, of our mortality doesn’t it? And with that comes regret. Regret for what might’ve been if we’d just taken a different path while we had the chance. All those shoulda woulda coulda’s can get us very down in the dumps. Perhaps for me, it’s largely about a lack of control. I’m not the boss of time, it feels very much like time is the boss of me!

It’s a topic which comes up again and again; a recurring theme with my friends that time genuinely seems to be going faster the older we get. So what exactly is going on? Are we living in some Black Mirror-esque time capsule, or is there something more scientific and rational going on?

Well luckily, it seems not only is there a reason time seems to be on fast forward, but thankfully there are things we can do to slow it the hell down…

Several studies from major universities across the world have published evidence which give various rationale as to what’s going on:

• Time seems to speed up as we get older because your perception of a year as a fraction of your total life decreases. So in short as we age, a year increasingly represents a smaller and smaller portion of your whole life. Scientists call this Proportional Theory. Basically, one year is a 5th of a 5 year olds life but only a fiftieth of a fifty year olds life.

So it turns out Ellis was right, following this theory, each new year of our life could be perceived as the fastest.

• Sadly, the older we get, the less new experiences we have (OK I’m generalising… I know there are some octogenarians who take up skydiving etc; rather them than me). Young children, teenagers and even young adults, are continually experiencing new things and going through changes. Our brains use these big memorable events as a mechanism to process the passage of time; so periods of our lives where we experience lots and lots of new things means when looking back, that time feels longer. Scientists call this one, Memory Theory. Childhood and adolescence involves lots of novelty and surprise… adulthood as we all know, involves a lot more routine..

• Recent evidence has emerged which shows aside from those two theories, there’s also a physiological reason our perception of time changes with age. Neuroscientists who have observed brain activity relating to time speed explain it this way…

• The brain receives far fewer new images in adulthood than it was trained to receive as a child (we’ve literally seen it all before). This leads to a decrease in the rate or speed with which we can process visual information. The result is that we perceive fewer frames per second as we get older. Professor Adrian Bejan who authored a book on the subject, describes it like a flip-book; the fewer the number of pictures, the quicker you get to the end.

The great news is; there are things we can do to get us off this high-speed train… or at least to put the brakes on a little. While we can’t actually slow down time and eke out more precious days; we can change our perception of how quickly those days pass.

Those same neuroscientists who did all the research on the physiology, have some tips for us which we can use practically:

• Live in the present - Easier said than done I know. But being positive and mindful in the moment is a habit which we can develop. Mindfulness and optimism takes practice, but if you want to ‘stretch’ time, it’s worth doing the hard work.

• Have new experiences - remember that one of the reasons time is slower for children is that they’re experiencing lots of new things. Well, that’s a hack us oldies can jump on too! Learn a new language, travel to a new place, make new friends, take up a new hobby. New, and different… equals exciting!

• Journal, journal, journal - recalling our experiences, both recent and further in the past, can help us process events fully, which in turn can give us the feeling that life is slowing down in a positive sense.

I don’t know about you but I’m relieved there’s something I can do about this phenomenon of the years running away from me, and I’m thrilled that it’s something relatively simple.

I urge you to have a go this week! Do it now. Let’s cook that new meal, visit that new place, expand our horizons. As a mindful person once said; there’s no time like the present!