How to Use Your Brain to Make Time Work for You

Have you ever noticed how time stretches endlessly during a tedious presentation yet passes quickly when you’re engaged in something exciting? This isn’t just a trick of the mind, but a process shaped by the brain, and new results show anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) neurons reveal how it might work. These neurons respond to experiences and events in ways that influence time perception. At our lab, we uncovered a novel temporal encoding mechanism—where neural representations of events slowly drift over time.

This discovery raises questions about productivity, time management, and mental well-being. Could restructuring daily routines—such as time-blocking, role rotation, and mindful breaks—alter our perception of time? How effective is this alteration? More importantly, this study explores how much control we can exert over time perception to improve efficiency and reduce burnout. Here, we see the ACC supporting productivity strategies, particularly those relevant to researchers and graduate students.

Temporal Drift in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex: A Neural Mechanism for Mastering Time, In Brief

We analyzed ACC neural activity, a region crucial for decision-making and cognitive flexibility. By tracking neuronal firing patterns in rodents performing a repetitive task. Animals performed a nose-poke task for about 200 trials. Despite performing the same sequence of actions on each trial, ACC neurons logged each repetition separately. Since some participants performed trials faster than others, we could examine whether time or number of repetitions drove these changes. Machine learning-based analysis found that events closer in time had more similar neural representations than those further apart. We found that time isn’t stored in a fixed format but represented by a continuous, slow drift of neural activity over minutes. This suggests the ACC integrates time experientially, acting as an "event counter" rather than relying on an absolute clock.

How This Affects Everyday Life

Time perception directly impacts focus, motivation, and fatigue. Understanding these neural processes can help optimize work strategies.

1. Time-Blocking for Productivity: The Pomodoro technique (working in short intervals with breaks) aligns with our findings—our brains segment time by events, not minutes. Structuring tasks into distinct units (e.g., writing, emails, brainstorming) may be more effective than rigid time limits, keeping you engaged while reducing effort.
2. Variety to Fight Fatigue: Monotony can make time feel like it’s dragging. Introducing variety—switching tasks, engaging in discussions, or incorporating creative elements—can counteract this effect. This also explains why collaborative work often feels energizing compared to solitary, repetitive tasks.
3. Breaks Reset Time Perception: Strategic breaks help reset how the brain encodes time. When prolonged work is unavoidable, inserting "landmark" events—such as a change of environment or a moment of reflection—prevents time from feeling sluggish and stretched.
4. Managing Stress-Induced Time Dilation: Stressful situations can make time feel prolonged. Recognizing this as a dynamic neural process rather than a fixed reality helps reframe perception. Techniques like controlled breathing, cognitive reframing, and intentional focus shifts can regulate this sensation.

Making Time Work for You

Understanding how our brain perceives time goes beyond academic research curiosity. It is a powerful tool for those looking to be more efficient, improve mental well-being, or overall quality of life. Irrespective of the category, the underlying theme remains constant–that these insights offer actionable ways to leverage neural functions for better outcomes.

Rather than feeling trapped by deadlines and exhaustion, we can recalibrate our internal clock to work for us, not against us. As research continues to uncover the neural basis of time perception, these findings offer a practical roadmap for optimizing focus, reducing burnout, and ultimately making time our ally.

For more details, read the full study in Current Biology.

About the Contributors

Talha Soluoku

Talha Soluoku is a doctoral researcher at the Hyman in vivo Electrophysiology Lab at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he explores the interaction between the anterior cingulate cortex and hippocampus in cognitive functions and memory formation. With clinical experience in neurophysiology, Soluoku investigates how neuroinflammation disrupts memory formation in neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s disease and temporal lobe epilepsy. Using electrophysiology and machine learning tools, his work focuses on uncovering the neural mechanisms behind these impairments and their wider effects on learning and memory.

James M. Hyman, PhD

James M. Hyman, PhD, received his PhD in psychology from Boston University, where he examined how hippocampal oscillations control neural network activity. As a postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia, he studied information coding in anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Hyman has made several notable discoveries on the topics of hippocampal-cortical theta interactions, contextual and temporal representations in ACC ensembles, multiple neural prediction error signals in rodent ACC, and ACC driven recall of long-term memories. His team researches how coordinated neural activity underlies our ability to learn new information, recall past memories, and dynamically incorporate new and old information for optimal decision making, as well as how these processes are affected by Alzheimer’s disease, Type 2 diabetes, and how different pathologies affect neural communication related to higher level cognition. Hyman’s work is funded by the National Institutes On Aging and the National Institutes of General Medical Sciences.