How To Slow Down Time

The aim of life is to live and to live means to be aware, joyfully, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.- Henry Miller

I think most of us wish we could have a time machine. Go back to correct something, go back to see that person that is no longer in your life. Go back to a faded memory that made you happy.

We all wish to be younger but wiser. We understand the basic concepts of life, that our time only ever grows shorter never longer. That time is finite.

But what if we could slow downtime?

What if our memories could last just that little bit longer?

What if our days did not have to resemble those of past regret?

What if I told you that was all possible?

Our Senses:

We can slow down the moments that matter in life.

Think back to your best memory, you can probably remember:

• Who was there
• What they were wearing
• What you could smell
• What was in the background
• What you could taste
• etc

The reason for this is that your brain remembers more when it is joyous than when it is not.

We become more aware of our surroundings because we are in the moment. When we walk down the street with our headphones in, or deep in thought or dream, we do not see what is around us.

We forget to stop and take in the smells and sights.

When we are driving we are focused on the road ahead, the other motorists using the road that we have no time to take in the sights and the sounds.

Our senses are a tool that we fail to utilise most of the time. We block out our sensory urges with loud music, when alone. We live in an alternate universe where physics does not apply when we are walking.

I cannot count the number of times my body has gone into autopilot mode whilst walk to the local shops, or when I was younger (now a decade a go) walking to college.

My mind would focus somewhere else and before I knew it I was there. Except for those random moments where my senses came into play, I could not tell you about my walks to college except for the one I did with my then ex-girlfriend.

Because that moment had significance I can recall that walk perfectly, the weather conditions, where we crossed the road, the path we took back towards my home. This was because I was focused, my senses were honed in.

That walk whilst no longer than usual felt abnormally short, but the memory feels abnormally long.

I stretch time with that memory because I can remember everything that happened.

Our senses become more clearer with attention.

Oxygen:

The other way to extend time is through oxygenation of the blood. In our day-to-day life, we breathe shallowly. We very rarely take full advantage of our lungs. Our breaths are quick and impulsive.

We do not think about our breathing it is just something that we do naturally.

But what happens when we slow down and breathe deeply?

Our lungs fill up more, our hearts take in better-oxygenated blood time slows down.

When we are stressed and the world is spinning around us quickly and everything seems frantic, we usually sit back and take a couple of deep breaths.

This allows more oxygen to the important organs in our body. It allows us to enter a state of calmness that normally we do not get to feel.

So before that tough conversation or meeting, taking extra long deep breaths allows time to feel like it is slowing. It allows you to get concentrated on a task.

It allows us to remember the moments that matter.

Conclusion:

We need to focus more on our lives. We need to be using our senses better, our breathing better.

We need to all around improve to be able to slow time in our lives. Once time has passed we can never get it back.

So does it not make more sense to live while we can? To take that extra breath, see that robin in the tree or the cat in the road.

To feel our lover’s lips in all its detail? Life is too short to go at one hundred miles an hour, as it is the little details that we remember always.

Until tomorrow this has been your coach Andrew.