After discussing Einstein's dreams, contemplating his realities and attempting to create my own, I began to think about the idea of time from a human perspective. Yes, it is easy to define time as the constant movement of a hand around the white face of a clock, or the reliable sun up sun down system, we somewhat derived this clock idea from, but are those things really time or just a way of normalizing everyone's relative clock to make our society functional?
By that I mean that, what if true time was the speed at which our brains analyzed the reality we live in? In which case it would be possible that time is not a constant. As I am sure you have experienced, the activities we do affect the rate at which we "perceive" time. Consistently, we gripe and groan about the monday to friday work week and its length, but when it comes to vacation, a week isn't even close to enough time for some well needed R&R. Why is this?
My proposition is this. Our bodies do in fact experience different rates of time. While the absolute normalized clock demonstrates on the outside what the "time" is, our bodies may experience this time at a different rate which is almost never constant. This idea would create some explanation as to those who are happier, live longer. Possibly, being happy releases a chemical that induces your body to experience life at a slower rate, where as unhappy people experience the opposite.
While we see time as the amount left in a class, or until the end of the week, or vacation, what time really counts is the time our body has left on this planet. So why not pay attention to this "clock" and do things that enable us to change the rate at which it operates. Do things that make us happier so that we might live longer.
Mitch, I think this is an awesome idea, and it made me want to find out more about the biology dealing with how the brain keeps track of time. I found the article linked below; it's a bit dated, but it has some interesting information about an MIT study of "time-keeping neurons."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091019162921.htm
In the article, they discuss how one of the purposes of their research is to better understand and attempt to cure diseases such as Parkinson's. It states that "People with Parkinson's often behave as if their brains' timekeeping functions are impaired: they have trouble performing tasks that require accurate rhythm, such as dancing, and time appears to pass more slowly for them. Rhythmic stimuli such as tapping can help them to speak more clearly." This definitely seems like an insight to support your idea that the brain's conceptions of time can be biologically affected, at least to a point where time seems to slow down. However, whether this biological process can be physically affected by people's positive (or negative) state of mind seems yet to be determined, since this instance is directly related to a disease. The researchers do believe that targeting these neurons with chemicals such as dopamine and serotonin may enable us to someday treat these Parkinson's symptoms - so perhaps if people's own conscious mindsets can allow their brains to physically control these chemical levels, then the neurons that control their concepts of time will react accordingly.
Another part of the study that interested me was the fact that the researchers" trained two macaque monkeys to perform a simple eye-movement task. After receiving the "go" signal, the monkeys were free to perform the task at their own speed. The researchers found neurons that consistently fired at specific times -- 100 milliseconds, 110 milliseconds, 150 milliseconds and so on -- after the "go" signal." Does this observation that macaques, animals who have definitely never been taught the 24-hour sunrise/sunset method of time of which you spoke, seem to have "time-keeping" neurons that fire in line with our own patterns of time mean that time really is an inherent, physical property which all things follow? Or was this observation simply the result of humans finding patterns and relating data to a construct that they themselves created in order to obtain the results they wanted? I cannot answer this question without more information. I would love to find more studies about this if anyone knows of any!
To me, "time" is certainly just a way of normalizing each individual's internal clock - a societal invention. I think it's interesting that people who count what time is left seem to have a more dreary experience and time may seem slow and boring, but they might not live as long by the standards of clock time.
ReplyDeleteWhile I do not know if happiness and living longer correlate, I do know that being chronically upset or stressed contributes significantly to the rapid aging of the body. The sympathetic autonomic nervous system (ANS) is what allows us to manage stressful situations. The sympathetic ANS will initiate our "fight or flight" response when the body is faced with certain stimuli. Normally, after the trigger is gone, the parasympathetic ANS takes over to calm the body down by dilating blood vessels and decreasing heartbeat (which were part of the fight or flight response). To generalize, individuals who have a higher baseline of stress like at a heightened state regarding the balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic ANS. These people with more active sympathetic ANS more frequently experience fight or flight levels of stress because they are constantly closer to that threshold, meaning it takes a much lower stimulus to, essentially, push them over. This kind of imbalance is directly related to cardiovascular issues, suppressed immune systems, pain, and other negative health effects.
So even if being happier doesn't increase the length of your life, I believe stress shortens your life.