Despite the photo, in this article I am not going to talk about how to live longer from a numerical point of view. Rather, what I intend to do is that when you look back you have the feeling that the years lived (whatever number it is) have been long.
To begin, I will exemplify with an experiment: One of the most common and widespread attentional experiments consists in showing you 20 slides (19 flowers + 1 car) to one person. Each slide remained on screen for 1 second and then the next slide appeared. The results of the experiment were always similar: people perceived that the slide was different from the rest (the car in this case) stayed on screen longer than the rest.
This experiment has been replicated in many different ways and number of slides. However, the results have always been the same: the slide different from the rest "seems" that it stays longer on the screen.
Simply that our brain likes variety. When an event is repeated over time, our brain spends less time inspecting it and takes for granted what will happen next. While when something new happens, our brain has no way of predicting what is going to happen and as a consequence they go off alarm signals and attentional mechanisms to get active and learn from the situation.
It is precisely these attentional mechanisms that make us believe that time passes more slowly since we have positions the 5 senses in the situation we are living.
Let's call it the "function" of the brain, it has a very clear evolutionary meaning: it makes us pay attention to dangers and so we can learn from them to prevent them in the future. In today's society it is not necessary to have a so advanced attention system since we are not subjected to as many physical dangers as our ancestors were. However, our attention system is still there, ready to make us wake up from our monotony when the situation requires it..
And the good thing is that we can learn to use it in our favor, that is, we can begin to incorporate new situations into our lives so that our attentional system is activated and we perceive that time passes in a slower way.
I do not want to be misunderstood, when I say "new situation" I do not mean "dangerous situation". Probably thousands of years ago both terms were almost synonymous and our attentional system had to respond perfectly if I wanted to continue preserving our physical integrity. However today the system continues to work with equal efficiency and a "new situation" can turn into a "pleasant situation".
The system can also run amok and begin to perceive dangers where there are none, in that case it could generate a anxiety disorder, Although that would give for another topic that I will not deal with now.
You must begin to break with the monotony of your life, otherwise you will look back and it will seem that your years have flown by. Your attention system will have been asleep for so long that you will not have given it the opportunity to perform a deep record of those situations that you have lived. When you don't register, you don't remember. When you do not remember you have not lived.
Personally, I like to do something different on every New Year's Eve, whether it's living it in Morocco and being the only people in the restaurant celebrating the beginning of the year or renting a rural house in Cazorla and dressing up with friends. Every time I have done something different I can remember exactly what year it was and what we did.
However, when due to various circumstances I have spent 2 or 3 New Years Eve in a row in Torrevieja, then the years go by and it is difficult for me to distinguish one from the other because in reality every night they seem the same. It is necessary to do different things to be able to differentiate and remember them.
It does not have to be an event that occurs only once a year. You can try to break the monotony by leaving your comfort zone
So now you know: feed your brain with new situations and you will enjoy a longer life.
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