How to Stretch Time

We all wonder how to stretch time. We’ve 24 hours available in every day and yet some people feel they are busier than others. Many people also believe that they will never complete everything they set out to complete.

Time is our most precious asset and yet it often feels as though we never have enough of it.

In this simple technique we have an opportunity to learn how to change our perception of time.

Try this technique for a whole day and at the end, reflect on how it felt.

Then try a day with the opposite style and see how much time it feels you had.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could master a method for enhancing how we perceive every moment. This would be truly mindful living because it would enable us to choreograph wonderful days that inspire, motivate and feel full of moments and events that encourage us to do and live more.

“Research has suggested the feeling of awe has the ability to expand one’s perceptions of time availability. Awe can be characterized as an experience of immense perceptual vastness that coincides with an increase in focus. Consequently, it is conceivable that one’s temporal perception would slow down when experiencing awe.” (Wikipedia)

Possibly related to the oddball effect, research suggests that time seems to slow down for a person during dangerous events (such as a car accident, a robbery, or when a person perceives a potential predator or mate), or when a person skydives or bungee jumps, where they’re capable of complex thoughts in what would normally be the blink of an eye (See Fight-or-flight response). This reported slowing in temporal perception may have been evolutionarily advantageous because it may have enhanced one’s ability to intelligibly make quick decisions in moments that were of critical importance to our survival. However, even though observers commonly report that time seems to have moved in slow motion during these events, it is unclear whether this is a function of increased time resolution during the event, or instead an illusion created by the remembering of an emotionally salient event.” (Wikipedia)

Let us know how it goes. Did you manage to stretch time?