People experiencing depression may experience time differently than those who are not.
That’s right, being in a bad place could actually mean being there for a longer time than normal.
A recent study revealed some pretty crazy (and sad) insight into the effects of depression. People experiencing depression report that time seems to pass extremely slowly or even stand still.
When the subjects were asked to estimate the length of a specific time interval, however – like two seconds or two minutes – their judgments were as accurate as the healthy individuals.
Which means that, while depressed people are aware of keeping accurate time, that time simply feels much longer to them. As Einstein might point out, time is indeed relative.
And apparently torturous as well.
The results were the result of work by psychologists at Mainz University, who collated 16 relevant studies on the subject to analyze them as part of a meta-study. The studies included the participation of 444 depressed subjects and 485 non-depressed control subjects.
What does this all mean?
Well, that further research is required, of course.
In the opinion of the authors, future studies are needed to differentiate between the subjective perception of the passage of time and the ability to estimate the length of a defined time interval.
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