How Quarantine Has Warped Our Perception of Time
You might have a vivid memory of the last time you were in public a year ago, right before COVID-19 changed our daily life. Looking back at that period of time, it might seem like life was moving incredibly fast. But suddenly we were forced into quarantine, and everything quickly changed. In an article provided by Psychology Today, by Joseph Mazur, possible reasons for this shift are discussed.
Time sense depends on mood, general happiness, and routine. Someone doing their favorite hobby will have a completely different time sense than someone sitting through a lecture in their least favorite class. Even though we all know that time is inflexible, many experiments have shown that we can feel time as contracted because the brain uses time dilations and contractions to coordinate and synthesize our motor and other sensory functions.
Your internal clock is controlled by your brain and it regulates your body’s responses. It learns to understand the passage of time through memories of events, such as nighttime being the time to sleep, or the enjoyment of events. However, your internal clock has to be set. In the summertime, it’s easy for our brain to understand that it is warm and bright, signalling being awake and social. In the colder months, we are indoors and getting insufficient amounts of sunlight. This can distort your brain’s memory of events in time, and might make you feel groggy.
Due to time and memory being so closely linked, understanding why this last year has felt so strange is much clearer. Significant events become identifiers in the timeline of your life because memories are the markers of time. The timing of events in your memory becomes easily confused unless an important date or event is attached. In the days of COVID-19 and quarantine, memories may become fuzzy and confusing and might make every day seem the same.
If you’re having a hard time conceptualizing the past year, you are not alone. Everyone’s time sense naturally has become warped, and that might feel incredibly anxiety inducing. It’s important to remember that this last year was not a waste. Even if you feel like you didn’t accomplish as much as you wish you could have, there is no need to add any excess pressure on yourself. You most likely had incredibly important personal breakthroughs, and simply making it here is the most important accomplishment of them all.