Why do five minutes of pain feel endless, while five hours of joy vanish in a heartbeat? This question, as common as it is profound, reveals a deep psychological truth: time is not only an external measurement — it is an internal experience, shaped by emotion.
In this article, we’ll explore how emotions distort our perception of time, the brain mechanisms involved, and why pain seems to last forever while joy feels so brief. We’ll do so through a lens that bridges neuroscience and everyday experience.
1. Clock time vs. soul time
Chronological time — the one measured by clocks — is steady, constant, mechanical. But there is another kind of time: lived time, which is subjective, elastic, and emotional. As philosopher Henri Bergson once said, we don’t live time in seconds, but in intensities.
This is obvious in any intense emotional situation: an anxious wait can feel endless, while a passionate conversation can disappear in an instant. In these cases, external time remains the same, but our experience of it shifts dramatically.
2. The neuroscience of time distortion
Our brain doesn’t have a single internal clock. Instead, time perception arises from a network involving the prefrontal cortex, basal ganglia, cerebellum, hippocampus, and limbic system. Unsurprisingly, emotions deeply influence this network.
Stress, fear, and time expansion
When we experience pain — whether physical or emotional — the amygdala is activated, a key structure for threat detection. This triggers the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, releasing cortisol and adrenaline.
This heightened alertness sharpens our senses and slows down time perception. It’s an evolutionary response: perceiving danger in "slow motion" helps us react better. But subjectively, it means pain feels endless, as we become acutely aware of every passing second.
Pleasure, flow, and time contraction
By contrast, in pleasurable states — especially during flow (as described by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi) — the prefrontal cortex partially deactivates, and our awareness of time dissolves. The brain’s reward system — dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin — takes the lead.
This state pulls us out of linear time. The now becomes everything. But this absorption also produces a kind of temporal amnesia: since we’re not tracking time consciously, it later feels like it flew by.
3. The bias of emotional memory
We don’t just perceive time differently while we’re experiencing it — we also do so when we recall it. Neuropsychology has shown that painful memories are stored with more detail and tend to replay more often (a process known as rumination).
In contrast, happy moments are more fleeting, less verbalized, and less often woven into our narratives. This makes us feel, in retrospect, that pain lasted longer and joy was short-lived.
4. The paradox of suffering: intensity, awareness, and duration
One explanation for why suffering feels longer is that it forces us to be present, even when we want to escape. Pain brings us back into the body, into our breath, into a time that refuses to move. Every minute hurts. Every second counts.
Pleasure, on the other hand, often comes with a dissolution of the self. It is expansive — yet paradoxically, that very expansion erases the edges of time. And when we finally look at the clock, it’s already over.
5. Can emotional time be trained?
Yes. Practices like mindfulness, emotional regulation, and therapy can alter our experience of time. Not to avoid pain, but to transform our relationship with it.
Techniques such as focusing, heart coherence, or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) help us stay present without resistance. And paradoxically, that presence can make suffering feel less oppressive.
6. Emotional time as a compass
Understanding how emotions distort time helps us not only know ourselves better — it fosters empathy. Someone who suffers lives in a different kind of time. We can’t speed up their clock. We can only walk alongside them.
And it also reminds us to savor joyful moments. To stretch them with presence, to inhabit the now before it slips away. Because in the end, emotional time isn’t measured in hours — it’s measured in the experiences that leave a mark.
Scientific References and Key Authors
- Wittmann, M. (2013). The inner sense of time: how the brain creates a representation of duration.
- Craig, A. D. (2009). How do you feel — now? The anterior insula and human awareness.
- Csíkszentmihályi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.
- Droit-Volet, S., & Gil, S. (2009). The time–emotion paradox.
- Van der Kolk, B. A. (2015). The Body Keeps the Score.
- Panksepp, J. (1998). Affective Neuroscience.