Does mindfulness slow down time?

[Vixine]

I have a question I've been wondering about for quite a while. You know how the older you get, the faster time seems to go? And everyone says (especially when you have a child) oh you have to try to appreciate every day, because the next thing you know, it will be over or something to that effect. I personally have noticed that the older I get, the faster time goes, and it scares me. I remember when I was a kid, and the summers would last FOREVER and it seemed like so often there was this sense of peace and time standing still.

I must admit that this is something I hope to get a little bit more of as my mindfulness practice develops. Has anyone here experienced the sense of time slowing down a bit as you practice more? It seems that if you can be more present more often in life, then it wouldn't just whiz by in a blur of thoughts and busy-ness.

[paulpsych]

Interesting this.
I have a theory. Not scientific or anything.
It seems to me that when you are a child everything is new, and you can't be in "automatic pilot" mode, so you have to attend to everything. I think this is what makes time pass more slowly. I always find that when I go on holiday, time slows down. I think this might be because I'm out of my usual routines, in an unfamiliar environment and again, I have to attend to my experiences more than usual.
Mindfulness, particularly informal practices done throughout the day I think, puts you in "beginner's mind" like you were when you were a child

[Vixine]

Yes, exactly... that is why I would think that being more mindful day to day would help slow things down, and give that perception that life isn't blowing by so quickly. Unfortunately I haven't gotten there yet.

[paulpsych]

I'm working at reversing the passage of time

[JonW]

Interesting topic, this.
If our lives are spent out of the moment (ruminating on the past, speculating about the future; or constantly thinking about the next thing that needs to be done), that can create a feeling that life is whizzing by. We might find ourselves heading to bed and thinking, "Where did that day go?" As though it's been stolen from us.
Mindfulness teaches us that the only moment is now. If we spend a frantic day rushing from one task to the next, we'll feel that the day has rushed by in a blur, that we haven't actually lived it. On days like that it might be worth us asking, "Have I have a single moment of stillness today? Have I enjoyed a single moment where I've appreciated the fact that I am alive and that this moment will never come along again?"
Unless paulpsych finally manages to perfect his new-fangled time-bending machine , we'll never be able to slow time down. What we may be able to do is stop ourselves living life at full-pelt, without any meditative pause, so that we can cherish the moment from time to time. If we can live a little more in the moment, it's not that we're slowing time down, but we're not creating the illusion that time is speeding up.
The key to this is regular formal practice. Sitting. In formal meditation practice we learn to just BE, with whatever is arising in the moment - good, bad or indifferent. As my meditation practice evolves, I find more and more that time is less and less a factor. I might set my timer for 30 minutes but, once I start meditating, it's as though time is suspended. I'm not thinking about the clock. Quite often the timer will chime after 30 minutes and I might have been sitting for five minutes or five hours.
But it takes practice.
Cheers,
Jon

[Gareth]

It's like the car journey that you don't remember any of at all, because you were on autopilot. That there autopilot can eat up hours of our life that we could have spent living.

Kids hardly do autopilot; i've seen it with my own boys. It's probably why time seems so stretched to them.

[Vixine]

So it does slow down the perception of time I think.

Gareth it is interesting that you said that about the car trip - just this morning on the way to work, I was stopped at a stoplight and normally would have been buzzing in my mind about my day or various other thoughts... I was listening to a song I love on my CD and I just closed my eyes for a moment and felt myself breathing... it was spontaneous - before I always had to remind myself to do that. And I had this overwhelming moment of peace that felt so wonderful and unexpected it actually brought me to tears.

I have been *trying* to practice mindfulness regularly on and off for years but this time, something has clicked and for the first time I find myself wanting to do it and looking forward to it. And then I had this experience randomly today on the way to work and I feel like I got a real taste of what people are talking about when they say that mindfulness has changed their lives. And it did slow down time in that way that I was talking about... because I was present.

[JonW]

Wonderful post, Vixine.
That moment in the car - that's it. Just that. Being present in your own life. Simple as that.
I was just reading Alan Watts, one of my favourite authors. He writes about how we all have the tendency to merely bolt our lives. "Gulping down undigested experiences as fast as we can stuff them in." He goes on to say, "Nothing seems to us more boring than simply being."
Mindfulness helps us unlearn those deeply ingrained habits and we learn to be.
You've got that now.
The rest is just practice…
All best,
Jon

[Vixine]

Gulping down undigested experiences, I keep thinking about that.

[JonW]

I guess there's two ways of looking at a glorious sunset.
The first way is to simply look at it and be with it.
The second way is to look at it and compare it to other sunsets one has experienced and to be thinking about what's for dinner and thinking about what Jim exactly meant at the office party and thinking about what might have happened if xyz hadn't happened, and so on.
In the second instance, we're not really seeing the sunset at all because the mental chatter gets in the way.
All good things,
Jon