Andrew Huberman· PhD
It’s not that time slows down in stressful circumstances. It’s just that you’re clocking more snapshots.
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The evidence is convergent. Multiple independent sources reach the same conclusion, the underlying mechanism is well-characterized, and even the field's most cautious voices treat it as worth doing.
It’s not that time slows down in stressful circumstances. It’s just that you’re clocking more snapshots.
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When dopamine levels are lower, they tend to underestimate time intervals.
When we engage in an activity, let's say school or hard work of any kind or exercise because of the reward we are going to give ourselves a receive at the end, the trophy, the sundae, the meal, whatever it happens to be. We actually are extending the time bin over which we are analyzing or perceiving that experience.
And every time we blink, this study cleanly shows, we shift our perception of time, leading to, as I mentioned before, overestimations of time.
Heightened states of arousal are associated with heightened levels of dopamine. You now know that dopamine leads to a kind of fine-slicing of time and one of the ways that we fine-slice time is by blinking.
The more dopamine that is released into our brain, the more we tend to overestimate how much time has passed.
Now, it's also true that norepinephrine, also called noradrenaline, plays a role, and its role is very similar to that of dopamine.
The more dopamine that is released into our brain, the more we tend to overestimate the amount of time that has just passed.