Have you ever noticed that the drive home feels shorter than the drive there?
Same distance. Same roads. But somehow, the return trip flies by.
Psychologists call this the return trip effect, and while expectation plays a role, it also points to something broader about how we experience time itself – and why so many adults feel like the years are speeding up.
Why Time Feels Faster as We Age
Most people notice the shift somewhere in adulthood. Childhood summers felt endless. Now entire years seem to blur together.
One explanation is just math: as we age, each year represents a smaller percentage of our life. A year feels subjectively “larger” to a 10-year-old than it does to a 50-year-old (1/10 vs 1/50).
But that explanation only scratches the surface.
Research in psychology and neuroscience suggests the bigger drivers are attention, memory, and novelty.
When we’re young, nearly everything is new. New schools. New friendships. New places. New versions of ourselves. Our brains are busy paying attention, mapping unfamiliar territory, and recording experiences into memory.
As we get older, life often becomes more efficient – and more repetitive. Same routes. Same routines. Same patterns. The brain doesn’t need to work as hard to process familiar experiences, so it compresses them. Fewer distinct memories are stored.
And when we look back, time feels like it disappeared.
In short: The fewer memorable moments in a stretch of time, the shorter it feels in retrospect.
Novelty and the Brain’s Sense of Time
Psychologists often summarize it simply: If you want to slow down time, seek novelty.
Novel experiences don’t actually change the clock. They change how the brain processes information.
When something is unfamiliar, attention increases. The brain takes in more detail. Memory formation becomes denser. Later, when you reflect on that period, it feels longer because there is more content to remember.
Studies demonstrate this effect in small but telling ways. When people are shown the same image over and over, it feels like it flashes by. Introduce a new image for the same duration, and it feels like it lasts longer. Novelty commands attention, and attention shapes memory.
This also explains why childhood feels so expansive in hindsight. When nearly everything is new, the brain is constantly marking down fresh memory “landmarks.” Adult routines, by contrast, require little bandwidth or mapping.
What’s Happening in the Brain
A few brain systems help explain this (let’s nerd out).
One is the reticular activating system (RAS), a network that filters what we notice and pay attention to. Novel or unexpected stimuli strongly activate the RAS, essentially telling the brain, This matters. Pay attention. It’s also responsible for the “Jeep effect”- when shopping for a Jeep, you suddenly see them everywhere.
Another key region is the hippocampus, which plays a central role in learning, memory, and spatial mapping. When you navigate a new environment or try something unfamiliar, the hippocampus works harder to encode the experience. Repeated experiences require less effort, because the brain already has a map.
More work, more memory. Less work, less memory.
Research involving people with memory impairments supports this link. When memory formation is compromised, the ability to accurately judge the passage of time in retrospect is also diminished. Memory and time perception are very much intertwined.
Novelty also engages the brain’s reward system. New experiences increase dopamine release, which sharpens attention and strengthens memory encoding. This is part of why new experiences often feel energizing and emotionally vivid.
Why Familiarity Makes Life Feel Faster
Routine is efficient, but it comes at a cost.
When we operate on autopilot – driving the same roads, following the same schedules, making the same choices – the brain conserves energy by paying less attention. Less attention means fewer distinct memories. And fewer memories make time feel compressed.
This is one reason the return trip often feels shorter. Much of the environment is now familiar. The brain already has a map. Attention drops, and large portions of the experience simply don’t register.
The same dynamic plays out over weeks, and months, and years.
Novel Experiences and Cognitive Health
Novelty doesn’t just affect how long life feels. It also appears to support long-term brain health.
Research on cognitive reserve suggests that people who engage in mentally stimulating and novel activities have a reduced risk of cognitive decline. Learning new skills, exploring new environments, and challenging routines encourage neural growth and flexibility.
There’s also an emotional component. Novel experiences tend to elevate mood, increase motivation, and counter the sense of stagnation that can creep in during long periods of routine.
This doesn’t require extreme behavior or constant disruption.
Bringing More Novelty into Everyday Life
This is why one of the key ingredients to my ADVENTURE-10 framework is Novelty and Whimsy. The good news? You don’t need dramatic reinvention to benefit. Small shifts are enough:
- Take a different route home
- Walk a new neighborhood without headphones
- Try a class, activity, or conversation you’d normally avoid
- Change one habitual part of your day on purpose (brush your teeth from right to left, instead of left to right- it really doesn’t take much!)
Don’t go for chaos- intentional variation is enough.
In my coaching work, clients often discover that stepping slightly outside their comfort zone does more than build confidence. It changes how life feels. Days regain texture. Weeks stop blurring together.
A Longer, Fuller Sense of Time
We can’t stop the clock. But we can influence how time is experienced.
By introducing novelty, we give the brain more to work with. More attention. More memory. More meaning. Over time, that creates a life that feels fuller and more expansive.
If life has felt like it’s speeding up lately, consider this a simple experiment:
Do something unfamiliar this week. Interrupt one pattern. Give your brain a reason to pay attention.
It’s a small shift, but they add up.
✌🏼Allen
For more:
- Wittmann, M. (2025). How to Make a Lifetime Seem Longer and More Fulfilling. Psychology Today – Sense of Time blog.
- Kostick, K. (2017). Time perception and age: Longevity’s influence on “mind time”. Baylor College of Medicine, Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy blog.
- Long, M.C. (2024). You Can Use The “Novelty Effect” To Slow Down Time. The Good Trade – Slow Living feature (interviewing Dr. Darya Frank and Dr. Matt Johnson).
- Kingston-Hughes, B. (2024). The Power of Light. World of Education Blog – on novelty, the Reticular Activating System, and learning.
- Stromberg, J. (2015). The return trip effect: why the trip home always feels shorter. Vox (reporting on Van de Ven et al., 2011 and Ozawa et al., 2015 studies)
- Lee, J. (2023). Embracing Novelty: The Key to a Richer, Happier Life. WellBeing Magazine.
