What is time? Is it the movement of the clock hands? The sunrise and sunset? Is the alarm clock ringing? The sand falling in the hourglass or the seasons changing? Are the calendar sheets? It sounds easy, but it isn't, and actually talking about time can be a lot more complicated than you might think. Here are some mysteries on the subject:

1 - Time and meditation

Meditating is not for anyone. It is true that almost everyone can stop in a certain position and close their eyes, just as it is true that this is not meditation. The biggest challenge for anyone trying to control their own mind is to keep their thoughts focused on the feelings of the present.

Meditation techniques include seeking to understand one's own body, when one should pay attention to factors such as breathing, heartbeat, and whatever one feels at that moment. Then you, a normal citizen, try to do that and after a minute you are already remembering the trip you took last week and imagining the holiday trip.

That's why it's so hard to meditate: because our mind is conditioned not to live in the present moment. On the contrary, she likes to brood over the past and to plan for the future. Then it gets really hard.

One of the principles of Buddhism, already advocated by thinkers like William James and artists like George Harrison, is to insist on attempts to live now. It is because we do not live in the now or live in the now as always that time seems to pass so quickly. It has been proven that meditation, on the other hand, has the power to slow our perception of time.

Meditation is a great tool for anxious and depressed people. Therefore, as difficult as it may seem, try to meditate from time to time. You may feel ridiculous at first, but it's just a matter of practice. The rule is to try to live in the now.

2 - Leap Year

The movie “Leap Year” talks about an Irish tradition that involves leap years.

Every four years February gets one more day. This is because a year, contrary to what you may think, has no exact 365 days: in fact, the value is 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 12 seconds. So, to make up for the “left over”, every four years an extra day is inserted.

If this adjustment were not made, after 30 years, one year would be one week short, and after a few centuries this difference would be months, which would mess up the seasons scheme, for example. If you would like to know more about how these adjustments were made, click here.

Leap years are ignored in many countries. Many people cannot renew their driver's licenses or open bank accounts on February 29, as some computer systems simply do not recognize the date as a legitimate day. Even Google gets confused: there are many bloggers who can't update their profiles on date.

3 - Perception

We have already told you that meditation can cause your perception of time to change. This issue of relativity is so true that US host Johnny Carson even called the "New York Minute" time between the traffic light turning green and the person behind you honking.

Carson's idea was precisely to draw attention to the speed of things in the Big Apple, where everything happens too fast all the time. On the other hand, in cities that are too big and too crowded, it is common for people to sometimes feel that time stops for a few seconds.

This usually happens when the head makes a sudden movement - notice. The explanation for this is that when the speed is too great, the brain does not receive all the information it should, so the person has the feeling that time has taken longer to pass.

4 - Musically speaking

If when you listen to your favorite music at full volume with headphones, you have the feeling of moving elsewhere and losing track of time, then you are not alone in this.

For example, it is already known that when music provokes a high intensity experience, the human brain has different reactions in its sensory cortex, causing a sense of timelessness.

If you listen to classical music - especially this one - your brain will not be able to interpret the beats per minute, because they are purposely vague and change all the time. This irregularity promotes a feeling that time is not passing. The beginning of the song is slow, then becomes faster and finally becomes lively and energetic. If you focus on it, you may not even notice that almost 30 minutes will pass by the end of the composition.

This ability to distort our notion of time makes music a behavioral manipulator. This is why, for example, gyms choose electronic music, and restaurants, calmer and relaxing music. The same happens with some stores, which focus on music to make the environment more attractive and pleasant.

Some recent studies have found that calm music makes consumers spend more time inside some stores, leading us to the conclusion that relaxing songs often make us lose track of time.

5 - Time and age

You know that New Year's party that seems to have been yesterday, but it was in 2002? Yeah. As time goes by and people get older, the feeling that it "looks like yesterday" is becoming more common.

This is also known as the “telescopic effect, ” and it is responsible for the illusion that the years pass faster as we get older. This “telescopic time” is the result of the discrepancy between the traditional measure of time and each individual's notion of time, something quite subjective.

If you don't buy this idea of ​​subjectivity, how about thinking about it mathematically? For example, when you are 10 years old, one year of your life represents 10% of it. Now when you are 60, a year now represents 1.67% of your life. The amount of time is the same, but the proportion is definitely not.

There is yet another explanation for the feeling that the years are flying: when we fall into an adult routine without much news and adventure, our sense of time becomes faster. This is because our brains tend to simply skip familiar, everyday information, giving us the impression that time goes by fast and always the same.

Have you noticed how much the outward journey seems to be much longer than the return trip? This is precisely because your brain has already known the way, and by the time you get back, you end up not noticing everything, and time seems to pass faster.

This concept is worrying if you think about it well. It basically means that always doing the same things will help time pass faster. If that is not your intention, it is time to live new experiences.

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So, had you ever thought about time that way? If this is of interest to you, we recommend reading the book Cinefilô by French writer Ollivier Pourriol. The work deals with the relationship between cinema and philosophy and, at a certain point, the author discusses the questions of eternity posed by the philosopher Baruch de Espinosa.

In the cinema, one of the great directors exploring human perception of time was the brilliant Tim Burton, who in "Big Fish" poeticly explains the notion of time for lovers. The scene below talks about exactly that: “They say the time for when you find the love of your life, and that is true; but what they don't tell us is that when time starts again, it will pass much faster so that it can return to normal. ”

* Originally posted on 8/16/2014.