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| Fourteen years ago, I visited a boyfriend in Israel. One afternoon, he took me biking at a nature preserve in the Galilee. Hundreds of herons were making a racket. A big fish leaped out of the water, and the sunset lit up the green hills to the east, crowned by a snowy mountain peak. My memories of that experience are so vivid, that it feels as if time had slowed down.
NPR’s Rhitu Chatterjee describes a similar feeling when she talks about early moments with her son. “When he flashed his first voluntary smile at my husband and me,” she writes “it felt as if the seconds expanded into minutes.” She became a mom in her 40s, she writes, so “time already felt precious.” But now that her kid is 3, she finds herself wondering: how did the years go by so fast? What happened to my cuddly baby?
Neuroscientist Peter Tse says humans experience time in more than one way. "We have a perception of time in the moment,” he says. “And then you have how you regard time by looking through your memories."
When we’re really, really, paying attention to what’s going on around us, Tse says, we’re processing more information second by second and minute by minute, then we are in everyday life. That makes time feel subjectively longer. When you're cuddling with a newborn, or when you’re biking through breathtaking scenery, you can get into that state of attention automatically.
Of course life, and parenting, is mostly not those moments. For most of us, it’s more repetitive routine than time-expanding wonderment. And all that monotony can actually squish our sense of time, Tse says. But with some planning and intention, you can break away and make memories more often.
ICYMI: The 5 minute playtime ritual that can get your kids to listen better
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Todd H. Ahern/Emory University |
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Speaking of baby cuddles, you’ve probably heard about oxytocin, a hormone that’s released during labor, breastfeeding, physical affection, and sex. Books have been written about the chemical, offering advice on how understanding oxytocin can help you become a better parent or find love. One even credits the hormone for human morality and empathy writ large.
To learn about how oxytocin may work in humans, researchers often study prairie voles, cute little rodents that mate for life. They’re known for cuddling and grooming their monogamous partners. Past studies have shown that when adult prairie voles are given drugs to block oxytocin, they lose interest in pair-bonding behavior.
In a recent study, researchers used gene editing to remove oxytocin receptors from vole embryos. They expected the resulting pups would grow up to be cold, loveless voles like the ones given drugs to block oxytocin. But their actual findings shocked them, and may have implications for understanding autism and human social behavior.
Also: Is your dog looking at you like that because she wants a treat, or because she loves you? This oxytocin study offers a clue.
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We hope you enjoyed these stories. Find more of NPR's health journalism on Shots and follow us on Twitter at @NPRHealth.
All the best,
Andrea Muraskin and your Shots editors |
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