What can you do in 4 minutes?

Four minutes. Sometimes it seems like an age, at other times it's as fleeting as a second. Why does time sometimes rush past us and at other times can seem so slow.

This is one of those 'ultimate life questions' I've always wondered about, however, I find myself becoming even more obsessed with it due to this little device...


It's a 4 minute shower timer that the water company have very kindly sent to me free of charge. However, can I shower in four minutes? Nope! I can just about manage a 4 minute shower if I don't wash my hair, they expect me to have a full shower in 4 minutes, 8 minutes is touching it fine, especially with me having to condition my hair too. I don't think I have a complex and outrageous beauty regime, and I also think that the method I take in having the shower is pretty flawless too, but I can't seem to narrow it down to 4 minutes. I'm convinced the timer gets faster!

However, there are times, like the last 4 minutes of your day at work, which are clearly the slowest 4 minutes in the history of the world. Exercising always makes the time stretch out too... I swear a 1 minute plank is actually a good 2 and a half minutes long whilst I'm doing it! 

So I thought I'd read up on it. It's all to do with time perception. If we're motivated or engrossed in a task often time seems to move faster, however if you're 'clock watching', bored or doing something tedious, then the time often seems to slow down.

Time perception also affects us as we grow older, thats why a year seemed so long as a child but as an adult, a year seems to fly by and 'it's Christmas before you know it' again.

I also didn't know that time seems faster if our body temperature is hot and slower if it is cold, that explains why my summer holiday always goes so quickly!

Let me know, are you as fascinated with time as I am? Have you adopted any methods to try and make time fly, or to slow it down?

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