Does Your Heartbeat Shape Your Sense of Time? | Irena Arslanova | TED

Do you ever feel like time slows down when you’re bored but flies when you’re having fun? Cognitive neuroscientist Irena Arslanova explores the ways your brain and heart shape your perception of time, revealing how your heartbeat doesn’t just keep you alive — it also influences whether moments feel fleeting or stretched. (Recorded at TEDxBerlin…

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Do you ever feel like time slows down when you’re bored but flies when you’re having fun? Cognitive neuroscientist Irena Arslanova explores the ways your brain and heart shape your perception of time, revealing how your heartbeat doesn’t just keep you alive — it also influences whether moments feel fleeting or stretched. (Recorded at TEDxBerlin on February 2, 2024)

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#TED #TEDTalks #health #time

102 Comments

  1. @threedeeprince

    January 22, 2025 at 8:43 am

    That lip smacking….

  2. @GalaxyExpress-hq9qb

    January 22, 2025 at 8:50 am

    She is a very good and effective speaker.

  3. @chetthebee1322

    January 22, 2025 at 8:53 am

    Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
    Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
    Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
    The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say

    • @erichthedread4595

      January 22, 2025 at 12:58 pm

      I dig Led Zeppelin. Lol

  4. @mr8966

    January 22, 2025 at 8:56 am

    The development of the heart in utero precedes brain development by three weeks. 80% of the connections between the brain and the heart are directed from the heart to the brain. The heart controls the brain, not vice versa. The way to think of it is the heart is to the brain as a maestro is to an orchestra.

    ????

  5. @BillFotsch

    January 22, 2025 at 8:56 am

    Remember people laughing at Harris in her comments about time. The laughter continues. Ted’s vetting process needs more time.

    • @carsonhunt4642

      January 22, 2025 at 3:37 pm

      I don’t understand how these middle school lectures make it on to Ted? Is it From Die/being pretty?

  6. @dougewald243

    January 22, 2025 at 9:05 am

    Did she say time is created by the brain?

  7. @dougewald243

    January 22, 2025 at 9:13 am

    “Time is the master of all our lives”?

    Are you an eternal being?

    Yes?
    Who’s truly the master?

    Time will stop for this universe when it ends.
    Will you end then?
    Remember what eternal means.

    You’re not an eternal being?
    Ok.
    Go back to sleep.

  8. @Ptah1130

    January 22, 2025 at 9:29 am

    Masters of the Universe

  9. @Ptah1130

    January 22, 2025 at 9:35 am

    That’s why certain feelings and memories give a nostalgic sense

  10. @Ptah1130

    January 22, 2025 at 9:39 am

    I’ve always believed being in the flow state is accessing the state between heartbeats. That’s why some people hold their breathes when in deep thought because it slows down time for them to process info in a “time delay,” also allowing for a consist flow of info between heart beats.

  11. @hanifjamshidi6877

    January 22, 2025 at 9:41 am

    Is it just me who feels she talks weirdly?

    • @saabirahowolowo1533

      January 22, 2025 at 10:01 am

      Just you

  12. @Ptah1130

    January 22, 2025 at 9:43 am

    That’s why slowing down the heart when learning or studying an academic activity leads to better acquisition and rememberance of that activity.

  13. @BryanDavidMendozaGarcia

    January 22, 2025 at 9:53 am

    I love these videos

  14. @Chethakmp3

    January 22, 2025 at 10:48 am

    Thank you so much. You look very cute also. I enjoyed

  15. @BigMaC2014

    January 22, 2025 at 11:05 am

    Feeling time is feeling life passing by, plain and simple.

  16. @DamiantenBohmer

    January 22, 2025 at 11:47 am

    Fascinating stuff, I hadn’t ever thought of that connection; thank you for sharing and your enthusiasm for the topic ????

  17. @rar2488

    January 22, 2025 at 2:24 pm

    This is awesome. I’ve been playing with my perception of time for about two years now. My high anxiety forced me to address it and I made amazing discoveries. When I meditate and listen to either binaural beats or solfeggios frequencies or tuning forks, concentrate and narrow my focus to a single point while box breathing I can literally feel time slow down. I do my best to synchronize the count of box breathing, 1-2-3-4, not with counting time, but rather with counting heart beats. I experience a slower count/rhythm upon inhalation as opposed to exhaling and holding. These are very subtle to practically unnoticeable changes unless concentration and focus is strong. I’m starting to experiment with literally slowing my heart beats but I don’t use a timer or watch to measure time because I find that a distraction to my concentration and can’t tell with 100% accuracy if time itself is indeed affected. I know at times when I’m done meditating I feel like it’s been 20/30 mins when the timestamp on the music says it’s been 1 1/2 hrs. Haha. It’s so cool. It’s gotten me to deeply appreciate every second and how much beauty, opportunity and life resides in that second.

  18. @oliviao2238

    January 22, 2025 at 2:33 pm

    Another great video

  19. @billballeza377

    January 22, 2025 at 3:03 pm

    Way back in !967 when I was at the Marine Scout Sniper school at Camp Lejeune, N.C. we trained to use, through breathing, the moment when the heart relaxes between contractions, to squeeze the trigger of our sniper rifles. Since it is difficult to hold steady focus of a target in an optic when the pulse exceeds 60 bpm, our physical training was cardio based to enlarge our hearts for optimal circulation of oxygenated blood through the body, allowing us to slow our pulse. Your thesis appears to conform to our heart/brain timing of trigger control.

  20. @PhaniRaj-f3v

    January 22, 2025 at 3:54 pm

    Wait.. So theory of relativity? No? Never mind.!! I get it.. Heart beats slower as an object nears the velocity of light.. The tiresome mathematics behind it is bunch of nonsense then????

  21. @evgeniyrogulev7716

    January 22, 2025 at 3:58 pm

    Lol. Try to relax at 180 bpm on adrenalin???? she just understand how PID function works in human body????

  22. @ingvsanchezalonso

    January 22, 2025 at 4:13 pm

    It makes sense, for example, when you have problems with your heart pressure, you feel the time change, but it is your perspection.

  23. @rodrosa

    January 22, 2025 at 7:20 pm

    I remember that sometimes, on my way to high school (I didn’t use to get much sleep back then), I used to think the car stereo was broken, because the same songs I listened to in the evening seemed much slower in the morning!

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  75. @glennseal4386

    January 25, 2025 at 5:18 am

    During times of extreme danger the perception of time slows down. Such as in a car crash where it is very common for people to say ” everything was in slow motion” the brain speeds up it’s processing speed to make everything look slower, giving the person a better chance of protection from impact. During the perception of slowing time I would think the human body is capable of moving faster, maybe.

  76. @theincrediblemadketers1065

    January 25, 2025 at 8:26 am

    Very annoying speaking style. Makes complex concepts more complex. No idea what she’s talking about.

  77. @heysithara

    January 25, 2025 at 11:35 am

    I think this is what meditation does, it broadens one’s perception.
    Fantastic flow of information!

  78. @cjsamtab7

    January 25, 2025 at 2:01 pm

    We exist, consciousness exist, multiple realities exist, TIME does not; TIME is a human construct. Entropy governs universal law of cyclical change. Biologically mass is dictated by Earth’s gravity hence our limited longevity of 100 years. All these aspects need not be overly complex. Overall everything is cyclical and synchronicity. ~ cj

  79. @asifhussein2166

    January 25, 2025 at 5:39 pm

    Thank you, HABIBI ❤️ ???? ❤

  80. @stevenwatkins7798

    January 25, 2025 at 9:41 pm

    I do everything I can to eleviate my sense of time it’s a man made burden created to track astrological signs

  81. @DBENTLEY369ig

    January 25, 2025 at 9:55 pm

    No but the arrangement of letters within your name has strings like the luck repetition of 7

  82. @DBENTLEY369ig

    January 25, 2025 at 9:58 pm

    NA Native American North America Nasa Nascar Nasdaq 13th Generation Powhatan

    Ask something

    Dirac equation is Derek’s equation

    Numbers add and subtract

    Own nwo

  83. @DBENTLEY369ig

    January 25, 2025 at 10:01 pm

    Meaning of Derek?

    3-1-## 3:1 ADHD Pisces Pi 3.1415 3rd I

    3rd reich 33rd freemasons 3wires

    3mph constant water flow hydro power production 90,000 dams available for RETROFIT PELTON

    WIRELESS TESLA???

    4 wheels return productions into a 2nd battery pack Alternating batteries A/B

  84. @DBENTLEY369ig

    January 25, 2025 at 10:03 pm

    Circumferences of 3.1415 is known ✌

  85. @DBENTLEY369ig

    January 25, 2025 at 10:04 pm

    Honga Tonga thank water suppression of explosion of underground we never survive from nuclear winter.

  86. @DBENTLEY369ig

    January 25, 2025 at 10:05 pm

    Reality of a bigbang creations population??? Instant appearing messages.

    144,000 light workers??? ????

  87. @r.h.1187

    January 26, 2025 at 5:17 am

    Time is no master of our lifes, we are! Sorry, but boring.

  88. @santioliva

    January 26, 2025 at 8:36 am

    Scientist like this getting and wasting grant money are why people dont listen to scientists. Most of them waste their time and money simply confirming things we already knew without getting anything new out of it. Youre a joke.

  89. @mosephfistergoodntave

    January 26, 2025 at 2:40 pm

    Time flies when you give it wings. Time = Bird
    This is why tik tok disappeared ????

  90. @mosephfistergoodntave

    January 26, 2025 at 2:43 pm

    How does the heart know to keep time if it’s never seen a clock

  91. @Ptah1130

    January 26, 2025 at 3:06 pm

    Riding the heart beat syncope, reading in between the lines…you will be able to travel in time and enter flow state

  92. @charansinghkhind6732

    January 26, 2025 at 10:36 pm

    I think there seems that there is a relationship between meditation, type of the brain waves and the heart rate. I find that entering into the deep meditation state, the theta brain waves are being generated by the brain and thereby the heart beats drop quite a low level in that very state of brain, and the pace of time gets changed. So the pace of time is relative depending upon the quality of the situation you are undergoing in.

  93. @kforest2745

    January 27, 2025 at 1:09 am

    She’s trying to talk about a subject without acknowledging that “time” is only an idea to push and sell commodity. That’s the ONLY reason it exists in consciousness today, which is a lot of wasted time. Prior to modern humans there was no time other than the obvious/natural.

  94. @alexwixom4599

    January 27, 2025 at 10:19 am

    i have a heart condition that makes my heart beat slower than most when at rest, and is super fast when exerting myself. Time doesn’t seem to speed up or slow down, it’s mostly pretty constant unless i completely lose focus on the rest of the world and become fully focused on something specific.

  95. @alexwixom4599

    January 27, 2025 at 10:25 am

    I’m all for the disillusion of the mind and body being seperate. However all I can tell from this info is that low heart rates might add to my depression. The active and perceptive link sounds like a good lead. But time perception is more than heart rate.

  96. @alphabeta8403

    January 27, 2025 at 11:51 am

    2:30 Heart and brain connection
    5:00 Causal relationship between heart and time

  97. @harjitsandhu2310

    January 27, 2025 at 1:48 pm

    Thanks for sharing this vedio. God bless you ????

  98. @simplescience777

    January 27, 2025 at 1:55 pm

    Excellent Sceince!

  99. @fearenheit7423

    January 27, 2025 at 2:35 pm

    It seems ironic. That psychology and neuroscience don’t have the same understanding of the human brain as analytical psychology. Yeah, they can think they’re making leaps and bounds and advancements into something they don’t understand. I mean, if this follows logic that means that we don’t remember half of our movies, we don’t perceive half of our time, and in fact, it doesn’t account for anyone who thinks more than just surface level thoughts. Let me know when neuroscience defines intuition and empathy, and I’ll believe it when they say they found other things that had to do with understanding humanity, or our place in the universe

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