Why Life Feels Like It’s Speeding Up: 8 Daily Rituals to Feel Truly Alive Again
Stress and the Brain: How to Slow Down
Most people don’t need a diagnosis to know something is off. Days blur into each other, weekends vanish, and even enjoyable moments feel strangely thin, as if you were never fully there. This isn’t just “getting older” or having a “busy” life; it’s the lived experience of chronic stress, over‑stimulation, and a nervous system that never gets to stand down.
Research shows that long‑term stress physically changes the brain, particularly regions involved in memory, focus and emotional regulation, such as the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex and the amygdala.
At the same time, anxiety and overwhelm are rising sharply across all age groups; in recent data, around 40–45% of adults report feeling more anxious than the previous year, and global anxiety burden in young people has increased by more than 50% since the 1990s.
Antidepressant prescriptions for young people aged 15–21 have surged, with roughly 4.5% of US young people (12–25) and over 400,000 under-18s receiving prescriptions in the UK annually. Prevalence increases with age, reaching up to 43% among 19–21-year-olds in the UK.
Approximately one in three to one in four (23-33%) perimenopausal and menopausal women in the UK are on antidepressants, with usage doubling during these years, often inappropriately replacing hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for symptoms like low mood. Data indicates 15% of women over 50 in the UK have been on them for over five years
In other words, feeling rushed, overwhelmed, anxious, and “not yourself” is now the norm. But it does not have to be your norm.
If busyness had a fan club, most of us would probably be lifelong members. Society celebrates those who work late and never seem to stop. We wear our packed calendars and sleepless nights like badges of honour, proof that we’re doing life right. But have you ever stopped to wonder whether all that busyness is actually getting you closer to the life you want, or just keeping you distracted from it?
The Neuroscience of “Time Flying”
Our sense of time is not fixed; the brain constantly reconstructs it based on attention, emotion and novelty.
Autopilot compresses time. When you repeat the same routines (same commute, same screen, same scrolling patterns), your brain doesn’t bother laying down rich new memories, so days feel as if they never happened, blending into one another, until you may even lose track of time.
Chronic stress distorts time. High stress and anxiety can make individual moments feel stretched (during acute threat), but entire weeks and months vanish because the brain is busy firefighting rather than encoding experience.
Screens hijack perception. Rapid, bite‑sized content keeps the brain in a stimulus‑chasing state. Time passes quickly, but leaves very little that feels meaningful or nourishing. Doomscrolling may even leave you upset for no apparent reason.
Slowing time isn’t about changing the clock; it’s about nurturing your nervous system and attention so that you actually live your life fully — as it happens.
Ruth Ogden, professor of the psychology of time at Liverpool John Moores University, said in an interview: “Our sense of time is really heavily interlinked with our emotions, and research around the globe shows that generally speaking, time passes more quickly when we’re happy, and it passes more slowly when we’re sad. And the reason for this seems to be that the area of our brain that is responsible for processing emotion also plays a really important role in processing time. And this area is called the insular cortex. So what happens is that when this area gets activated due to emotion, really extreme emotions a lot of the time as well, like fear or joy, then this activation distorts the way in which we experience time.
But it’s not just that area of the brain that’s responsible for changes in our perception of time, it’s also how much attention we pay to time. So generally when you’re happy, you’re having fun with your friends, you’re doing something you enjoy, time really isn’t that important and you don’t monitor it, and that helps it to fly. During the bad times when you’re sad or when you’re stressed, you tend to focus more on when that period’s going to be over. So you’re thinking about more and that contributes towards the slowing of time that we see.”
Chronic Stress: What It’s Doing to Your Brain and Body
When stress is relentless, cortisol and other stress mediators stop being helpful and become toxic. Over time, chronic stress can lead to brain remodelling, and can :
Shrink or dysregulate the hippocampus, impairing memory and learning.
Over‑activate the amygdala, heightening fear, irritability and emotional reactivity (and its size).
Disrupt the prefrontal cortex, making it harder to plan, focus and make balanced decisions.
Drive systemic and brain inflammation, raising the risk of cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome and even neurodegenerative conditions.
This is why many people describe feeling less themselves: more reactive, less resilient, more forgetful, and perpetually “on.”
7 Ways to Slow Time
These are not “quick hacks” but effective daily rituals. The goal is to rebuild the conditions in which your brain can perceive, encode and enjoy the present again. This is one step beyond mindfulness and meditation.
1. Single‑tasking: Do One Thing, Fully
Multitasking is a myth. The brain simply switches rapidly between tasks, exhausting attention and making time feel scattered.
Choose one priority for the next 25–50 minutes.
Turn off all non‑essential notifications and place your phone out of sight. This also applies at meal times. Placing the screen down is not enough. It should not be anywhere near you when you eat.
If you notice the urge to check your phone or email, acknowledge it and come back to the task.
Time feels fuller and slower when your attention isn’t constantly fractured.
2. Micro‑pauses to Reset
You don’t need a silent retreat; you need anchoring moments (the aim is to create automatisms that respect your inner balance).
Every 60–90 minutes, stop for 60–90 seconds.
Drop your shoulders, unclench your jaw, and take 6–10 slow, extended exhalations.
Feel your feet, walk to the fountain to drink a glass of water, notice three things you can see, hear or smell.
Brief, frequent resets reduce cumulative stress load and improve time perception by bringing you back into your body. The more overwhelmed you feel, the more often you should reset.
3. Protect Your Body and Mind: Morning and Evening Boundaries
How you start and end the day shapes your whole nervous system.
Morning: Delay screens for the first 20–30 minutes. Light, hydration, a few stretches or slow breaths before emails or news.
Evening: Create a 30–60‑minute “landing strip” with no work, news or doom‑scrolling. Dim lights, light reading, or journaling, and gentle stretching before bed.
These tell your brain it is safe to shift between modes, rather than living in a continuous blur of “on.” If your brain doesn’t believe it (your breath is still shallow and rapid, and your blood pressure elevated), make it believe it. One of the best ways is to stand in front of the mirror and say, in a kind tone: “I am safe. I am in control. I choose calm, and I give myself permission to rest, reset, and be fully present.” Repeat until it feels true (you should feel goosebumps or tingling. This is how you know your brain is listening).
4. Re‑introduce Novelty (Without More Overwhelm)
Time feels longer when the brain is making fresh memories. That does not require big travel or huge life changes. It can be:
Taking a different route to work.
Trying one new recipe or ingredient this week.
Replace one of the 8 products in your regular grocery basket with one healthy option.
Walking in a part of your neighbourhood you usually drive past.
Learning a small skill: a phrase in another language, a new breathing technique, a simple chord progression.
The point is to gently interrupt autopilot and invite your brain back into curiosity.
5. Mindful Presence in Ordinary Moments
Mindfulness is less about incense and more about precision of attention. Studies suggest that deliberately engaging with sensory detail makes time feel more spacious and reduces anxiety.
Try this with something utterly mundane:
When making tea, notice the sound of water pouring, the smell of the leaves, and the warmth of the cup in your hands.
When washing your face, feel the temperature, the texture, and the contact of your fingers on your skin.
Done consistently, these micro‑practices train your brain to stay inside the moment instead of racing ahead.
6. Ditch the Screen Trap
When exhaustion hits, and you feel like doing nothing, TV, Netflix binges, or endless scrolling can feel like the ultimate escape: low effort, instant distraction, a temporary anaesthetic for stress.
But here’s the catch: passive screen time is a memory black hole. Your brain barely encodes what happens during those hours, so when you look back, entire evenings (even weekends) vanish into a foggy blur. Time accelerates because nothing memorable happened.
The fix? Make screen time unforgettable (or replace it):
Only watch shows or films so gripping that you won’t want to forget them, but avoid horror movies (they will feed your stress and increase its weight on the amygdala)
Better yet, break the routine entirely: read something that encourages emotions, listen to live music, call someone whose voice you miss, cook from a recipe you’ve never tried
Time expands when your brain has something real to hold onto.
7. Repair the Body’s Foundations: Sleep, Breath, Magnesium
Philosophy doesn’t land in a fried nervous system. The physiology has to be addressed.
Sleep: Aim for consistent bed and wake times; chronic sleep deprivation fuels stress reactivity and time distortion.
Breath: Slow, diaphragmatic breathing with longer exhalations increases vagal tone and helps shift from sympathetic “fight‑or‑flight” to parasympathetic “rest‑digest.” Humming and chanting also work (think vibrations). There are some devices that help with vagal toning by placing them on your chest, where the vibrations directly soothe the nervous system via the vagus nerve (some also use binaural waves for a greater effect on the brain rest and sleep)
Magnesium‑rich foods or appropriate supplementation: Magnesium is central to nervous‑system stability and stress resilience; deficiencies worsen anxiety, tension and fatigue. However, magnesium rarely works well on its own. It needs cofactors for optimal absorption, activation and utilisation, including:
Vitamin B6 (especially P5P form): Directly transports magnesium into cells and supports its role in neurotransmitter synthesis (GABA, serotonin).
Vitamin D: Magnesium is required to activate vitamin D, but vitamin D also improves magnesium absorption and intestinal uptake.
Zinc: Works synergistically with magnesium for immune function, hormone balance and antioxidant defence; they compete for absorption, so balance matters.
Vitamin K2: Helps direct calcium (which magnesium regulates) away from arteries and into bones.
Boron: Supports magnesium retention and vitamin D metabolism.
Taurine (an amino acid) can also enhance magnesium’s calming effects.
These basics don’t just make you “healthier”; they give your brain enough stability to register life again.
8. Audit Your Stress Load – Not Just Your Stress Response
Most advice focuses on how to cope better. That matters. But at some point, the question has to be: what needs to change?
How many hours are you working vs recovering (the same as it would apply to working out and recovering? No athletes go without their recovery days).
Which relationships or digital habits constantly spike your stress?
Are you saying “yes” out of fear or to avoid disappointing others?
Time will always feel too fast if your life is consistently over capacity. Slowing down your calendar is as important as slowing down your breath. Protect your time by saying no.
Saying no to things you don’t want to do can help you slow down and focus your time, energy, and attention on what’s important – so that you feel more in control. Plus, it ensures that what you say ‘yes’ to aligns with your priorities and values.
“As a child, your life is just full of new experience. You’re learning, you’re playing, you are finding your way around the world, and it’s full of rich memories. As an adult, life is far, far more routine.
So we remember time in our childhoods as slow. We remember the summer holidays as long. Whereas as an adult we feel like we don’t have enough time. We’re all super busy all the time. So the fact that we’re constantly trying to keep up, the fact that we constantly feel like we need more time, contributes towards this sensation that time passes more quickly.”
The Love‑Time Connection
Centuries ago, Plato mused in The Symposium that humans were once whole beings with four arms, four legs and two faces, so powerful that Zeus split us apart, leaving us forever longing for our missing half. The Greeks called this longing love: the deep ache to feel complete again.
Does this mean we’re doomed to mental overstimulation and racing time until we find “the one”? Not at all. What Plato described as mystical yearning, modern neuroscience reveals as a physiological reality: time slows when we feel safe, seen, and deeply connected, whether romantically or not.
Why Time Stands Still in Love (And How to Hack It Yourself)
Science confirms romantic attraction literally warps time perception. In speed‑dating studies, women attracted to potential partners consistently estimated their dates lasted longer than they actually did. Emotionally charged moments get encoded differently by the brain: richer, denser, more vivid.
But love isn’t magic; it’s neuroscience. When we feel safe and connected, three things happen simultaneously:
Greater attention. Your brain notices details it normally filters out
Denser memory encoding. More sensory information gets stored
Emotional ramifications. Moments feel fuller, more meaningful
The result? Seconds stretch into minutes. Presence replaces autopilot. This is why time “stands still” with someone you love. Your nervous system finally believes the environment is safe and can relax.
The Universal Key: Safety + Presence
Here’s the good news: you don’t need candlelit dinners or soulmates to access this state. Safety and presence are skills, and the nervous‑system rituals in this article (single‑tasking, micro‑pauses, sensory anchoring) replicate exactly what happens naturally when you’re with someone who makes you feel held.
Plato was half‑right. We are longing to feel whole. But that wholeness isn’t “out there” waiting in another person; it’s a physiological state you can cultivate intentionally, moment by moment.
When you master these tools, time doesn’t just slow; life itself becomes more vivid, more textured, more yours. The ancient Greek quest for wholeness? It’s not about finding your other half. It’s about remembering the half that was always there. That you are whole. That you are loved and that you are your greatest supporter.
“[to lengthen time,] Fill it, if you have the chance, with a thousand new things.”
Why You Might Need Help to Do This
New clinical evidence and my own practice data tell a clear story: around 95% of clients I assess are living with disproportionate overwhelm, chronic stress and excessive anxiety, to the point where irritability, sleep disruption and energy crashes feel unavoidable and uncontrollable.
By the time they sit in front of me, they have:
Tried meditation apps and self‑help books without a coherent plan. Nothing works because they feel unable to just sit still.
Normalised symptoms. Gut issues (particularly reflux and bloating), headaches, palpitations, constant fatigue or burnout are seen as “just life.”
Lost touch with what they truly enjoy, and mostly feel foggy.
A comprehensive stress management consultation is not about telling you to “stress less.” It is about:
Mapping your personal stress physiology (gut, hormones, nervous system, brain).
Identifying the specific drivers (nutritional, lifestyle, emotional, environmental) that are keeping your system on high alert.
Uncovering patterns, including responses to specific events or a lack of.
Designing a phased, realistic plan that fits your life rather than fighting it.
A Choice About Time (And About Your Life)
Philosophically, time only exists as experience. A year spent on autopilot is, in a very real sense, less life lived than a year in which you were fully present, connected and awake.
If you read this and recognise yourself in the descriptions of overwhelm and speed, you are standing at a fork in the road:
One path is familiar, perhaps, the only “comfort zone” you feel you have: you keep going, hoping that somehow things will ease, that “when this project is over” or “when the kids are older” your nervous system will spontaneously slow down.
The other path is uncomfortable but honest: you accept that nothing changes until you decide to work differently with your body, brain and life structure.
I can’t slow time for you. But I can help you reclaim the only time that truly exists: the living, breathing present moment, with a calmer, clearer mind, and a body that feels like home again (even more so if you have been diagnosed with IBS).
If that sounds like the kind of life you want to create from here, this is your invitation.
Book your comprehensive stress management consultation and be supported by our entire team.
Let’s map your stress, rebuild your resilience, and give you a future that feels spacious, vital and whole.
Sources:
American Psychiatric Association. (2024). American Adults Express Increasing Anxiousness in Annual Poll; Stress and Sleep are Key Factors Impacting Mental Health
The American Institute of Stress. (2024). Stress in Adults.
References:
Bie, F., Yan, X., Xing, J. et al. (2024). Rising global burden of anxiety disorders among adolescents and young adults: Trends, risk factors, and the impact of socioeconomic disparities and COVID-19 from 1990 to 2021. Frontiers in Psychiatry. 15, 1489427. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1489427
Dai, Q., Zhu, X., Manson, JE. et al. (2018). Magnesium status and supplementation influence vitamin D status and metabolism: Results from a randomized trial. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 108(6), pp. 1249-1258. doi:10.1093/ajcn/nqy274
Gröber, U., Schmidt, J., Kisters, K. (2015). Magnesium in prevention and therapy. Nutrients. 7(9), 8199-8226. doi 10.3390/nu7095388
Knapen, MH., Braam, LA., Drummen, NE. et al. (2015). Menaquinone-7 supplementation improves arterial stiffness in healthy postmenopausal women. A double-blind randomised clinical trial. Thrombosis and Haemostasis. 113(5), pp. 1135-1144. doi:10.1160/TH14-08-0675
Pouteau, E., Kabir-Ahmadi, M., Noah, L. et al. (2018). Superiority of magnesium and vitamin B6 over magnesium alone on severe stress in healthy adults with low magnesemia: A randomized, single-blind clinical trial. PLoS One. 13(12), e0208454. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0208454
Uwitonze, AM., Razzaque, MS. (2018). Role of magnesium in vitamin D activation and function. Journal of Osteopathic Medicine. 118(3), pp. 181-189. doi:10.7556/jaoa.2018.037