Many things have already been said about time: that it runs, that it heals, that it flies, that it waits for no one. Deep down, our relationship with time is tense. It may be our most precious asset, but it is something that escapes us and that we often face. After a pandemic that deprived us of so much, many people rethought the way they manage time, whether due to a greater sensitivity to the balance between personal and family life, or a rush to make up for time lost by limiting pandemic routines. . For others, the post-pandemic period may mean living in a hurry again. In any case, there seems to be a feeling that we live at an ever-increasing speed.
But, at the end of the day, where does such a rush come from and what problems can it bring to your health?
Preoccupation with time is not exactly an invention of modern times. As early as 1500 BC, the Egyptians were looking for ways to measure the passage of time and in ancient times there was already a social notion of the importance of punctuality, long before the first mechanical clock or the first alarm clock appeared. The great revolution in the way we experience time comes not only with the ability to measure its passage very precisely (much more so than with the water clocks used by the Egyptians!), but above all with the speed at which anything can happen in modern society. . It still takes a few hours to travel to the other side of the planet, but information can reach almost anywhere virtually instantaneously.
With the increasing speed of information (for example, between 2020 and 2023 the speed of the Internet worldwide practically doubled), paradoxically a certain impatience grows while waiting, for example, for a download. While it seems that on a digital level there is no such thing as too fast, high speed also seems to take over everyday life. In recent decades, researchers have become increasingly interested in this form of acceleration. The one that makes us live – or feel that we live – at an exaggerated pace or simply out of phase with what seems to be the natural rhythm of things.
It can be difficult to define (and especially measure) something like the pace of life, but it is relatively easy to understand when you are in a place where people live at a different pace than we do. It could be something as simple as the way you walk, slower or faster, or the greater or lesser freedom with which the clocks are coordinated (nothing reveals a disdain for rushing better than a stopped or slow public clock).
In any part of the world time passes in the same way, but our perception does not. For many people, this perception is that today everything happens faster rather than slower. When this is the case, time flies, it becomes scarce and twenty-four hours a day seem short for what needs to be done. As people speed up to keep up, activities like eating, exercising, or being with family and friends become hurried activities and not something to be experienced or enjoyed.
The pace of life has a certain preference: there are those who feel comfortable with speed, there are those who seek calm and there are those who prefer different things at different times. The problem arises above all when pace stops being a choice and acceleration becomes a stress factor. In this regard, science is still discovering the harms of rushing, but some research has shown associations between a faster pace of life and compromises in well-being indicators, in the balance between personal and professional life, or even in the development risk. of coronary heart disease.
In an attempt to escape this “tyranny” of acceleration, several people have been looking for opportunities to slow down their lives. There are examples of this in cultural movements such as slow movement, which defends the need to respect people’s natural rhythm, live the present moment with awareness and enjoy life. Currently, the movement slow He has followers all over the world, including Portugal. For example, a study by the Portuguese Catholic University, conducted in 2019, revealed that nine out of ten respondents showed interest in lifestyle ideas. slowalthough only four considered following these principles in their daily lives.
Slowing down is not easy. It may require difficult choices and compromises and facing shame and guilt for not doing more, producing more, producing faster. On the other hand, slowing down can be one of the most important decisions you can make. Living slowly does not mean doing everything slower. It is rather an attempt to find the right rhythm and a healthy balance at a time when everything seems rushed. If time is one of the most precious assets, we must act accordingly. This implies that each person contributes to creating friendlier homes, workplaces, cities or even nations over time. Tomorrow try to go slower.
David Guedes is a psychologist, with a degree in Clinical and Health Psychology from the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Lisbon and a doctorate in Psychology from ISCTE, where he currently carries out research. His work has been dedicated to studying and promoting healthier and more sustainable behaviors and practices, especially in the area of food.
Mental is a section of the Observer dedicated exclusively to topics related to Mental Health. It is the result of a collaboration with the Portuguese-American Foundation for Development (FLAD) and the Hospital da Luz and has the collaboration of the Faculty of Psychiatry of the Order of Physicians and the Order of Portuguese Psychologists. It is completely independent editorial content.
A partnership with:
In collaboration with:
Source: Observadora
