Is it possible to slow down time while on holiday?
Today, more than ever, we live in a world where time is extremely precious. We have the same 24 hours in the day but even find the precious hours that should be reserved for sleep invaded by social media, fitful anxiety dreams and global catastrophe. Yes, we have encountered global catastrophe before, but never has it been delivered to our ears and eyes in such befuddling, vexing profusion. When seeking the off switch, many of us find ourselves reaching for the virtual travel brochure and booking an expensive holiday.
So, you’ve worked a little overtime to bolster your job for a two-week onslaught and excitedly depart with your loved ones for the airport. You’re enjoying the anticipation of two weeks off at some idyllic, picturesque location far from all your tiresome responsibilities but struggle to dam the pressure of invasive thoughts: “How much work will I have to catch up on when I get home?”, “How bad will the post-holiday blues be this time?”, “Will this holiday zip past in a bright, exorbitant flash, leaving me with nothing but a crippling debt and fleeting memories brutally condemned to the past?”
“If only we could freeze time!” you might have said on several occasions in your life. I know I’ve had this thought while sitting with a book and a beer on a sunny beach overseas. Of course, when we say such things to ourselves or our loved ones, we know it is impossible. However, if we view time not as the seconds passing in our watches and instead through the curiously changeable tides of perception, what once seemed impossible may well be within our reach.
Some scientists suggest that we have lived half of our lives in terms of perception by the time we reach 18 years of age. This haunting suggestion seems to check out to an extent, considering how the ticking clocks of preschool have now cruelly morphed into the flicking pages of a calendar. My nonagenarian grandmother told me it is hard to keep track of time, but years are as fickle and transient as days once were.
No doubt, the revelations above have stirred a degree of stress and anxiety. One of life’s not-so-humorous jokes is that, in order to slow the perception of time, we must conquer stress and anxiety. Naturally, time perception is much more difficult to measure than actual time. Nevertheless, researchers Ioannis Sarigiannidis, Christian Grillon, Monique Ernst, Jonathan P Roiser and Oliver J Robinson concluded in a 2020 study that “anxiety makes time pass quicker while fear has no effect”.
As we know, going on holiday for a couple of weeks can do wonders for our mental health, reducing stress and anxiety. But if we are to change the speed at which our holiday passes us by, this effect might be a little late in the post. So, what can we do before and during our holidays to apply the brakes? We must fight anxiety at all possible sources at all times and embrace time-slowing activity while on our breaks.
Before and during your holiday, it is worth having a social media detox and endeavour to get as much sleep as possible. Making a holiday feel longer is all about being mindful of your time and breaking routines. With a fully charged battery, you can rise each morning ready to take as much information in as possible. Part of what made your childhood years feel so long was the fact that each day, you were learning and experiencing so many new things. As we age, our mature minds are less receptive, operating on autopilot until new stimuli reach us.
If, like me, you like to crash out on a beach on your holidays, I suggest mixing things up a bit. With your devices stowed away on an emergency use-only basis, rise early each morning and plan out your day, ensuring that the supine relaxation is interspersed with lots of new and exciting activities. I don’t necessarily suggest that you go bungy jumping, but if that’s your thing, knock yourself out (not literally). Trying new things could be as simple as trying local cuisine, striking up a conversation with locals or visiting sites of historical interest.
When extending the perceived time of your holiday, it is important to shuffle the deck a bit. It will be much more profitable, for instance, to alternate beach and sightseeing days, rather than spending a week on the beach and a week cramming in all the activities. Furthermore, if you want to attain a higher tier of holiday elongation, you could welcome meditation and mindfulness as one of your “new things” during the beach days. Our busy modern lives often have us living simultaneously in the past and future. If there’s any one goal for a holiday, it should be to live in the present. This is easier said than done, but meditation is a good place to start.
Finally, documentation and reflection can help us get the most out of our time spent on holiday. As a reader, I used to find it frustrating that after finishing a novel, I get most of the way through the next and realise that I have already forgotten vast portions of the previous book, let alone the five before that. A way to counteract this phenomenon is to frequently reflect: retell the story of the completed chapter in your mind before beginning the next or discuss the book with a friend. A similar method can be applied to our holidays: after taking photos and writing diary entries (ideally in a notebook, not on your phone), don’t leave them to gather dust; reflect on them every few nights and pick out your favourite experiences so far.
