Does it feel like the world is spinning faster than it used to? Like there’s too much happening at once, and you can’t quite catch your breath? You’re not imagining things. Many people today experience this sense of life speeding up, and it can leave you feeling overwhelmed, scattered, or stressed.

The good news is that you have more control over this feeling than you might think. This isn’t about trying to stop the world or go back to simpler times. It’s about discovering a way to feel steady and peaceful right in the middle of everything that’s happening.

This article will guide you through practical, step-by-step ways to create an inner sense of time moving more slowly and comfortably. These aren’t complicated techniques—they’re simple awareness practices that help you feel more grounded, wise, and at peace. Along the way, you’ll discover how to reduce stress and anxiety while tapping into a deeper part of yourself that’s always been calm and present.

Recognizing When Time Shifts: The Subtle Signs

Before we dive into the practices, let’s talk about what it actually feels like when time shifts. You’ve probably already experienced this many times without realizing what was happening. Understanding these sensory markers will help you recognize and work with time shifts when they occur.

When Time Feels Sped Up (Contracted Time)

Pay attention to these sensory experiences—they signal that your perception of time is contracted:

Physical Sensations:

Your breath becomes shallow and quick, mostly in your upper chest
Your jaw, shoulders, or belly feel tight or clenched
Your heartbeat feels rapid or fluttery
You feel a buzzing or vibrating sensation, especially in your chest or head
Your body feels compressed, as if you’re being squeezed from all sides
You feel restless, unable to sit still, with energy trapped inside

Mental Experiences:

Your thoughts race from one thing to another without finishing
You feel like you’re thinking about past and future simultaneously
Everything feels urgent, like there’s never enough time
You have difficulty focusing on one thing—your attention jumps around

Perceptual Shifts:

The hours seem to disappear—you wonder where the day went
Everything around you appears to blur or move too quickly
You feel disconnected from your surroundings, as if behind glass
Sounds seem louder, sharper, or overwhelming

When Time Feels Slowed (Expanded Time)

Now notice these signs—they indicate your perception of time is expanding:

Physical Sensations:

Your breath deepens naturally, filling your belly and lower lungs
Your muscles soften and release, especially around your face, neck, and shoulders
Your heartbeat becomes steady and calm—you might feel a pleasant warmth in your chest
You sense a gentle expansion or opening, as if your body has more space inside
You feel grounded, with a pleasant heaviness or rootedness in your lower body
A tingling or warmth might flow through your hands, feet, or spine

Mental Experiences:

Your thoughts slow down and become clearer, more spacious
You feel mentally present, aware of what’s happening right now
There’s no rush—you have plenty of time for whatever you’re doing
You can hold your attention steadily on one thing without strain
You notice gaps or pauses between thoughts—moments of quiet

Perceptual Shifts:

Minutes feel rich and full—you’re amazed at how much you notice
Everything around you appears more vivid, clear, and detailed
Colors seem brighter or more saturated
You feel deeply connected to your environment, part of everything around you
Sounds become more distinct—you can hear layers you didn’t notice before
You might notice the space between sounds, or silence itself

Practice This Awareness: Throughout your day today, pause occasionally and notice which state you’re in. Are you experiencing contracted time or expanded time? Simply noticing—without judgment—is the first step to shifting your experience.

Why Does Everything Feel Like It’s Speeding Up?

Think of your awareness like a radio that’s starting to pick up more stations. When you were younger, you might have only tuned into one or two channels. Now, you’re sensing many different frequencies at once—your thoughts, your feelings, your body sensations, other people’s emotions, and even subtle energies around you.

This expanded awareness is actually a natural part of growing and evolving as a person. Your sensitivity is increasing. You’re becoming more perceptive. But when you first notice all these new “channels” playing at once, it can feel overwhelming, like someone turned up the volume on everything in your life.

Quick Check-In: Take a moment right now to notice how many things you’re aware of. Can you feel your breathing? The temperature of the room? Sounds around you? Your thoughts? Any emotions? Just notice without judging. This is your expanded awareness at work.

The sensation of time speeding up comes from experiencing all these levels of awareness at once without a way to organize them. It’s like trying to have five conversations simultaneously—exhausting and confusing. Your mind, your feelings, and your senses are all receiving more information than they used to, and this can make you feel scattered or anxious.

But here’s the important part: this expanded awareness isn’t the problem. In fact, it’s a gift. The challenge is learning how to be present with all of it without feeling overwhelmed. And that’s exactly what we’re going to explore together.

The Missing Piece: Present-Moment Awareness

Remember how as a child, you could lose yourself completely in watching a bug crawl across the sidewalk? Or how five minutes of playing could feel like forever? That wasn’t just because you had more free time. It was because you were fully present in the moment.

That kind of presence is like a lens that brings everything into focus. When you’re fully here, now, time actually feels like it expands. A single breath can feel rich and full. A conversation can feel deep and meaningful. The opposite happens when you’re scattered across past and future, worrying about what happened or what might happen next.

Think of it this way: Your expanded awareness is like having a beautiful, powerful telescope. But if you don’t know how to focus it, everything looks blurry and overwhelming. Present-moment awareness is learning how to focus that telescope so you can see clearly and enjoy what you’re observing.

Practice 1: The Anchor Breath

Let’s start with the simplest and most powerful tool you have: your breath. This practice takes less than one minute and can be done anywhere, anytime you feel rushed or overwhelmed.

Stop what you’re doing for a moment. You can keep your eyes open or close them—whatever feels comfortable.
Place one hand on your belly, just below your ribcage.
Take a slow breath in through your nose, feeling your belly gently expand under your hand. Count slowly to three as you breathe in.
Pause for just a moment at the top of the breath.
Breathe out slowly through your mouth, feeling your belly soften. Count to four as you exhale.
Repeat this three to five times, paying attention to the feeling of your hand rising and falling.

Subtle Signs to Notice:

Your jaw might soften or release tension you didn’t know was there
You might feel a subtle shift in your chest—a slight opening or expansion
The quality of sounds around you may change—they might seem less harsh or more distinct
Your thoughts may slow just a bit, with tiny pauses appearing between them
Time itself might feel like it’s moving slightly slower—you notice more in each moment

Notice: After doing this practice, do you feel any different? Is there a bit more space in your awareness? Does time feel even slightly slower? Whatever you notice is perfect—there’s no right or wrong experience. The key is simply paying attention to these subtle shifts.

This simple practice works because it brings your attention into your body and into this present moment. Your breath only exists now—not in the past or future. When you pay attention to it, you automatically become more present.

Discovering the Calm Center Within You

Inside you, beneath all the mental chatter and emotional waves, there’s a place of deep calm and wisdom. Some people call it their soul, their true self, their divine essence, or simply their center. The name doesn’t matter—what matters is that it’s real, and you can learn to feel it.

Imagine an old oak tree in a windstorm. On the surface, the branches and leaves are whipping around wildly. But deep down at the roots, deep in the core of the trunk, there’s stillness and strength. That’s what this inner calm is like. The storm of modern life can rage on the surface, but at your core, you can remain steady.

This calm center isn’t something you need to create or achieve. It’s already there. You’ve just been taught to focus on all the outer noise instead. Learning to find this inner calm is like remembering a skill you’ve always had but forgot how to use.

Practice 2: Finding Your Heart Center

This practice helps you connect with the calm, wise place inside your chest. Many wisdom traditions teach that the heart is not just a physical organ but a center of deep knowing and peace.

Sit comfortably with your spine relatively straight but not rigid. Feel the support of the chair or floor beneath you.
Place both hands over the center of your chest, one hand on top of the other.
Close your eyes if that feels safe, or soften your gaze toward the floor.
Breathe naturally and imagine that you’re breathing directly into the space beneath your hands. Don’t force this—just imagine the breath flowing into your heart area.
With each breath, let your attention settle deeper into this center. You might feel warmth, tingling, expansion, or simply a sense of presence. Trust whatever you feel.
Stay here for two to five minutes, just breathing into your heart center and noticing what you experience.
When you’re ready, take a deeper breath, gently open your eyes, and notice how you feel.

Sensory Markers of Connecting:

A gentle warmth or pleasant heat spreading through your chest
Tingling, buzzing, or gentle pulsing sensations in your heart area
A feeling of softening or melting, like ice turning to warm water
Your chest feeling more spacious, as if it’s bigger on the inside
Emotional sensations: peace, joy, love, or a sweet sadness
Colors appearing behind your closed eyelids—soft gold, green, or blue light
Your perception of time becoming dreamlike—neither fast nor slow, just present

Insight to Notice: This center is always available to you. When life feels too fast, you can return here in just a few breaths. Over time, you’ll find this calm center becomes easier and easier to access, and the sensory markers become more distinct and recognizable.

The Power of Your Senses: Slowing Down Through Your Body

Your body is always in the present moment. Your thoughts might be racing through past and future, but your physical senses—what you see, hear, touch, taste, and smell—only exist right now. This makes your senses incredibly powerful tools for slowing down time.

Think of your senses as anchors that tie your awareness to the present moment. When you deliberately tune into what you’re sensing, time naturally begins to feel more spacious and manageable.

Practice 3: The Five Senses Reset

This practice engages all your senses to quickly bring you into the present moment. It’s especially helpful when you feel anxious, scattered, or like things are moving too fast. You can do this anywhere—at your desk, in your car, while taking a walk, or standing in line.

SIGHT: Look around and name five things you can see. Really look at them—notice their colors, shapes, and textures. For example: “I see a blue mug, a wooden table, a green plant, a silver pen, and a white wall.”
TOUCH: Notice four things you can feel right now. The weight of your body on the chair. Your feet on the floor. The air on your skin. The fabric of your clothing. Really feel each sensation.
SOUND: Listen for three sounds in your environment. Maybe you hear a fan humming, birds outside, traffic in the distance, or your own breathing. Just listen without labeling them as good or bad.
SMELL: Notice two things you can smell, or take a moment to smell something nearby—your coffee, a flower, even just the air around you.
TASTE: Notice one thing you can taste. This might be subtle—the taste in your mouth right now, a lingering flavor from a drink, or you could take a sip of water and really taste it.

Watch for These Time-Shifting Signs:

Colors may suddenly appear more vivid or saturated—the blue mug seems bluer
You notice textures and details you hadn’t seen before, even though they were always there
Sounds separate into distinct layers—you can hear individual birds instead of just “bird noise”
The room or space around you feels more three-dimensional, more real
Your sense of urgency dissolves—you realize you actually do have time
Each moment feels fuller, richer, more textured with experience

What Happens: By moving through your senses this way, you’ve taken your mind away from its worries about past and future and anchored it firmly in now. This immediately creates a feeling of time expanding and stress reducing. Pay close attention to how different your perception feels after this exercise.

Creating Space Between Your Heartbeats

Here’s a beautiful secret: time isn’t really speeding up—your perception of it is. And you can change your perception by paying attention to the tiny spaces between moments.

Between each heartbeat, there’s a space. Between each breath, there’s a pause. Between each thought, there’s a gap. These spaces are where true calm lives. When you learn to notice and rest in these spaces, time seems to slow down naturally.

Practice 4: Heartbeat Meditation

This practice helps you discover the spaciousness that exists between your heartbeats. It’s remarkably calming and gives you a felt sense of time expanding.

Sit quietly and place your hand over your heart, or find your pulse on your wrist or neck.
Close your eyes and feel for your heartbeat. It might take a moment to sense it—be patient.
Once you can feel your heartbeat, notice the rhythm: beat… space… beat… space… beat.
Let your attention rest in the space between the beats. Don’t strain or try too hard—just gently notice the quiet pause between each beat.
Stay with this for three to five minutes. If your mind wanders, gently bring it back to the space between your heartbeats.

The Subtlety of Spaciousness:

The space between beats may feel like a gentle emptiness or a soft silence
You might sense this space as dark, like velvet, or as luminous, like moonlight
Time itself seems to pause in that space—neither moving forward nor backward
You may feel a sweet restfulness in these gaps, like tiny moments of complete peace
The space may seem to stretch or expand the longer you rest in it
You might notice that the space between heartbeats is actually filled with a subtle aliveness
Your sense of self may soften or dissolve slightly—you become the space itself

Deep Understanding: In that space between your heartbeats, you’re touching the eternal present moment. This is where your deepest peace lives. The more you visit this space, the more you’ll feel time stretching out, giving you room to breathe and be. Notice how even a few minutes of this practice can shift your entire experience of time for hours afterward.

Letting Go of the Need to Go Back

You might find yourself wishing you could return to a simpler time—when life felt slower, easier, less complicated. This is natural, especially when you’re feeling overwhelmed. The past can look golden and peaceful through the lens of memory.

But here’s the truth: if you went back to that simpler awareness now, it would actually feel limiting and dull. You’ve grown. Your capacity to experience life has expanded. You can’t unknow what you now know or unfeel what you can now feel.

The real gift isn’t going backward—it’s bringing forward the best parts of that simpler time (the presence, the wonder, the ability to be amazed by small things) and combining them with your expanded awareness now.

Imagine you’re like a skilled musician who once played simple songs and now plays complex symphonies. You wouldn’t want to go back to only playing simple songs, but you can bring the joy and ease you felt then into the richer music you create now.

Practice 5: Childlike Wonder Walk

This practice helps you recover the sense of wonder and presence you had as a child while maintaining your adult awareness. It’s best done outdoors, but you can do it anywhere.

Go for a short walk—even just around your yard or down the street.
Imagine you’re seeing everything for the first time, like a curious child. Let yourself be amazed by ordinary things.
Really look at things: the way light falls on a leaf, the pattern in tree bark, the colors in the sky, the shape of a cloud.
Touch things: feel the texture of a flower petal, the roughness of stone, the smoothness of glass.
Move slowly. Let yourself pause whenever something catches your attention.
Don’t judge what you notice as important or unimportant, beautiful or ugly. Just let yourself be curious and interested.
Walk for ten to twenty minutes, or as long as feels good.

Signs That Wonder Is Awakening:

A spontaneous smile or feeling of delight arises for no particular reason
You find yourself stopping to really look at something ordinary—a pebble, a shadow, a puddle
Time seems to disappear—five minutes feels like a complete experience
Your chest opens and your breathing deepens without effort
You feel a gentle happiness or contentment that has no specific cause
Everything appears fresh and new, even familiar sights you’ve seen a thousand times
You forget about your to-do list completely—worries feel distant and unimportant

The Gift: This practice reconnects you with your natural ability to be fully present and delighted by life. When you do this regularly, you’ll find that sense of wonder starts showing up in other parts of your day, naturally slowing down your experience of time. Notice how this wonder-state affects your body, thoughts, and perception.

Making This Practice Part of Your Daily Life

Learning these practices is one thing. Living them is another. The key to actually experiencing more calm and a slower sense of time is to weave these awareness practices into your everyday routine.

You don’t need to meditate for hours or completely change your life. Even a few minutes each day of connecting with your breath, your heart center, your senses, or the space between your heartbeats can transform how you experience time.

Building Your Daily Practice

Here’s a simple way to integrate these practices into your day:

MORNING: Start with the Anchor Breath practice (one minute) as soon as you wake up, before checking your phone or thinking about your to-do list.
MIDDAY: Use the Five Senses Reset whenever you feel rushed or overwhelmed. It takes less than two minutes and can be done anywhere.
EVENING: Practice Finding Your Heart Center for five minutes before bed. This helps you process the day and prepares you for restful sleep.
WEEKLY: Take a Childlike Wonder Walk at least once a week to reconnect with presence and joy.
ANYTIME: Use the Heartbeat Meditation whenever you need to feel grounded and centered in a deeper way.

The beautiful thing about these practices is that they get easier and more powerful the more you do them. Your body and mind will start to recognize these moments of presence, and you’ll find yourself naturally dropping into that calm, centered state more often.

Tracking Your Progress:

Keep a simple awareness journal. Each evening, jot down:

Which practices did you do today?
What sensory markers did you notice? (warmth, spaciousness, clarity, etc.)
Did time feel different? How?
What moments felt most present or alive today?

This helps you recognize patterns and deepen your ability to notice the subtle signs of time shifting.

Understanding the Bigger Picture

What you’re experiencing—this sense of everything speeding up—isn’t just personal. It’s happening to many people right now. Some describe it as a collective awakening, a planetary shift in consciousness, or simply the natural evolution of human awareness in our interconnected age.

Your increased sensitivity, your expanded awareness, your feeling of picking up more “channels”—these are all signs that you’re part of this larger shift. You’re not going crazy, and you’re not alone. You’re actually becoming more aware, more conscious, more fully alive.

But with this expansion comes a responsibility: to learn how to stay grounded and centered. If you don’t develop these skills, the expansion can feel overwhelming and you might feel scattered, anxious, or disconnected from yourself.

Think of it like learning to drive a more powerful car. The car itself isn’t the problem—it’s learning how to handle it skillfully. The practices in this article are your training for how to navigate your expanded awareness with grace and stability.

The Truth About Escaping

Some spiritual teachings talk about “ascending” or escaping from this world into some higher realm where everything is peaceful and problems don’t exist. But that’s not what this is about.

There is no escape from the present moment because the present moment is all there is. The past is memory, the future is imagination, but this moment right now is reality. And within this moment, there’s nowhere else to go.

The real liberation isn’t about going somewhere else—it’s about being fully here with more awareness, more peace, and more wisdom. It’s about discovering that right in the middle of your ordinary life, right in the middle of all the changes happening in the world, you can access extraordinary calm and clarity.

This is true empowerment: not denying what’s happening in your life or the world, but meeting it from a place of deep inner stability and peace.

Connecting With Your Infinite Nature

Within you is something vast and eternal. You might call it your soul, your divine essence, your true nature, or simply your deepest self. Whatever words feel right to you, the reality is the same: you are more than just your thoughts, emotions, and physical body.

This deeper you is connected to everything. It’s like a wave that’s part of the ocean—you have your individual form and experience, but you’re also made of the same substance as the entire sea. You’re a unique expression of the divine universe itself.

When you connect with this infinite part of yourself, something amazing happens. The things that usually stress you out seem smaller. Time feels more spacious. You feel inspired, confident, and at peace—not because your circumstances have changed, but because you’re experiencing yourself and life from a deeper place.

Practice 6: Connecting With Your Vast Inner Presence

This practice helps you feel the reality of your infinite nature. It’s simple but profound.

Sit or lie down comfortably. Close your eyes.
Take a few deep, slow breaths, letting your body relax with each exhale.
Imagine that your awareness is like space—vast, open, and unlimited. Feel into the space inside your body, then imagine that space extending beyond your body in all directions.
Sense this spacious presence within you. It’s always been there. It doesn’t come and go—you just forget to notice it.
Rest in this feeling of vastness for five to ten minutes. You might feel peace, love, joy, or simply a quiet sense of being. Whatever arises is perfect.
When you’re ready, take a deep breath and slowly open your eyes, bringing this sense of spacious presence with you into your day.

Experiencing Infinity:

Your body boundaries may seem to soften or become less defined
You might sense yourself as both very small (a point of awareness) and very large (infinite space) simultaneously
Time may lose its usual quality—you’re not sure if five minutes or twenty minutes have passed
You may experience a profound sense of peace or okayness about everything
Sensations of floating, weightlessness, or being held by something vast and loving
Your usual concerns feel very distant, as if they belong to someone else
You might perceive subtle light, energy, or presence even with closed eyes

Remember: This vast presence is who you really are. Your thoughts, emotions, and experiences come and go, but this deeper awareness remains constant. The more you connect with it, the more stable and peaceful you’ll feel, no matter what’s happening around you. Notice how this state affects your experience of time itself.

Embracing Your Empowered Path Forward

You now have practical tools to stabilize yourself when life feels too fast:

Your breath as an anchor to the present moment
Your heart center as a place of calm wisdom
Your senses as doorways to right now
The spaces between your heartbeats where time expands
Your childlike wonder that sees freshness in every moment
Your infinite inner presence that remains peaceful beneath all change

These aren’t just nice ideas or temporary fixes. They’re gateways to a fundamentally different way of experiencing your life. When you practice them regularly, you’re not just coping with the speed of modern life—you’re discovering how to thrive in it with grace, wisdom, and joy.

The world around you may continue to change rapidly. Technology will keep advancing. Information will keep flowing. But inside you, there can be a steady center, a calm core, a place of deep peace that nothing can disturb.

This is your birthright. This is what’s possible when you align with your body, your heart, and your soul’s deep presence. You don’t need to escape reality—you can experience it from a place of empowered, loving awareness.

Integration: The Cumulative Effect

As you practice these techniques over days and weeks, watch for these cumulative changes:

You catch yourself naturally slowing down without conscious effort
The sensory markers become more pronounced and easier to notice
You can shift into expanded time within just a few breaths
Your baseline experience of time becomes more spacious overall
You recognize contracted time earlier and can shift it before stress builds
Life feels richer, fuller, more vivid—even ordinary moments carry depth

Your Invitation

Right now, in this very moment, take a gentle breath. Feel it moving in and out of your body. Notice that you are here, alive, aware. This is the only moment you ever truly have.

The infinite divine presence that created the stars and the oceans lives inside you as your own deepest self. It has always been there, patiently waiting for you to remember it. It doesn’t need you to be perfect or enlightened or special. It simply invites you to be present, to be aware, to be here now.

When you feel rushed or overwhelmed, come back to these practices. Come back to your breath, your heart, your senses, your body. Come back to the space between your heartbeats. Come back to wonder. Come back to the vast, peaceful presence within you.

Pay attention to the subtle signs. Notice the warmth in your chest, the spaciousness behind your eyes, the quality of silence between sounds, the way colors brighten when you’re truly present. These sensory markers are your guideposts, showing you that time is shifting, that you’re moving into the expanded, peaceful state that’s always available.

This is how you stabilize yourself. This is how you find your calm in the midst of change. This is how you discover that even in a rapidly changing world, you can move through life with ease, grace, confidence, and deep inner peace.

May these practices serve you well with every breath you take. May you discover the joy of living fully present in this infinite moment. And may you know yourself as the vast, wise, peaceful being you truly are.

Joel Bruce Wallach

Finding Your Calm When Life Feels Too Fast – A Practical Guide to Slowing Down Time from the Inside