Time feels much longer under Trump!

It’s my impression, and that of many people my age, that as we grow older, time moves much, much faster except that in recent years, when Trump is in power, times come to a crawl. It must be that I fail to enjoy his style of government, and like a bored teenager waiting impatiently to be totally free and on his own, I long for more normalcy in the ways our government works and for a less exhausting atmosphere. 

What makes us feel that the time isn’t moving or on the contrary is moving far too fast? It’s a fact that time feels slower during stressful or emotionally charged periods because our brains process more information and are overrun with quantities of emotional memories, while routine or familiar experiences makes time feel faster. 

Political turbulence, like what we’re experiencing under Trump, does heighten emotional awareness and disrupt our usual sense of flow. It’s obvious that when we’re much younger, our perception of time isn’t fixed, but shaped by emotion, novelty, attention, and memory formation. 

As we age, we get fewer new experiences. Our daily life becomes more predictable and our brain compresses repetitive memories, making months or years feel like they flew by. 

In contrast, childhood and early adulthood are packed with “firsts”. Like our first day at school, first love, first job, first travel, which create dense pockets of memory Later life has fewer of these, so time feels thinner in retrospect. It’s also true that when events are intense or unsettling (like political upheaval), we pay closer attention and this slows our internal clock because the brain is processing more stimuli. We could say that familiarity speeds time while disruption slows it down. 

If political events feel chaotic or exhausting, they interrupt our rhythm just like we wait for a storm to pass. Like I just mentioned above, we’re like a teenager longing for freedom and becoming emotionally “stuck,” as we watch the clock and yearn for change. This mental state stretches our concept of time. On the contrary, when we’re immersed in something meaningful or enjoyable, we lose track of time. This is why going skiing, taking a vacation, doing creative work, or engaging in deep conversations seem to vanish in a blink. 

Positive engagement compresses time; fear, boredom or anxiety stretches it. Studies also show that dopamine levels, that influence motivation and pleasure, also affect time perception. Lower dopamine (often linked to stress or dissatisfaction) can make time feel slower. Political climates that feel oppressive or chaotic may subtly alter our neurochemical balance — not just our mood, but our sense of time itself. I’d rather have a world where time does fly. 

Without Trump, of course!