Priscilla Xu

• How the brain perceives time?
• How you overestimate time?
• When do you feel your day is going by slowly?
• Best Working and Resting Rhythm.
• Why does Fun Time Past By So “Fast”?
• Habits and Time

How the brain perceives time?

• Three types of time perception:
  • The perception of the current, future, and past time when reflecting on episodic memories.

How you overestimate time?

• Dopamine speeds the perception of time. This is why you overestimate when you are too high.
• Dopamine is the high arousal molecule. It has a higher frame rate and you can finely slice time better. HD camera analogy.
  • Dopamine is dominant in the morning and good for high execution and intense focus tasks. You do the frog (high cognitive work task) in the morning with the most cognitive energy.
• Dopamine also has to do with retrospective time (how you look back and relive the memory).
  • In trauma, overclocking means that one will record the event in slow motion. The whole-brain perceives time and has a faster firing of neurons.

When do you feel your day is going by slowly?

• Serotonin slows down the perception of time.
  • The second half of the day is serotonin
• Poor circadian rhythm is related to cancer.
  • When your clock is not aligned to the natural lights, this is sign of poor circadian rhythm.
  • Lacking sleep will be messed up dopamine and serotonin will be mismatched.

Best Working and Resting Rhythm.

• Sleep cycles are 90 minutes each and are called Ultradian Cycles
• The 90 mins block of time also determines and controls how you focus throughout the day.
  • After 90 minutes, your focus will drop dramatically.

• Ultradian cycle is only suitable for a max of 3 a day.
  • Barely someone can do 4 sessions of 90 mins deep work.

Why does Fun Time Past By So “Fast”?

• Fun feels faster BUT is Remembered as slow.
• Boring Stuff feels slow but recalls as fast.

• The relationship is flipped.
  • Low dopamine in boring and high dopamine in high.
  • More novel experiences and you feel you know the person much longer.
  • Excitement is high time bins.
    • Behavior, Psychological and Neural Signature of surprises during naturalistic sports viewing.
    • They measured surprised to fMRI. Unexpected events.
    • Carve my day with dopamine into functional units to feel the excitement boost.

Habits and Time

• Plan habitual routines and divide your day into functional routines.
• Begin your time bin. Regular sequencing of things.
• Set your frame rate with serotonin or dopamine on your day.
• Habits can use you to release dopamine.
• Habits are time markers.