Time really does pass more slowly when you are gasping for cigarette, reveals a new study demonstrating that smokers who are deprived of cigarettes have an altered perception of time.
US researchers found that when regular smokers gave up their habit, their perception of passing time was stretched by 50 per cent.
They believe that this process is linked to underlying biological processes as well as psychological and behavioural ones.
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鈥淧eople [who abstain] are pretty irritable and they feel like time is going by more slowly than it really is,鈥� said Laura Cousino Klein, a medical psychologist at Pennsylvania State Univerisity, Pennsylvania, who led the study. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like when you鈥檙e trying to drive to work and the red light seems like it鈥檚 on forever.鈥�
She said the idea of time slowing was also linked to feelings of hostility and anger.
鈥淭he time perception impairment that we observed in the abstaining smokers may be part of the reason they also reported feeling more stressed and unable to focus or be attentive,鈥� she said.
Hormone changes
Klein and colleagues asked 20 regular smokers and 22 non-smokers to estimate the duration of a 45-second time period in the lab.
Subjects were simply told: 鈥淚n a moment, I鹿m going to say 鈥榮tart鈥� and then I will say 鈥榮top鈥�. When I say 鈥榮top鈥�, please tell me how much time you think has gone by in seconds.鈥�
The two groups initially had similar abilities in accurately estimating the amount of time that had passed. But when tested after abstaining for a day, most of the smokers estimated a much longer time interval. On average, they estimated the interval to be about 50 per cent longer than 45 seconds.
Although the concept that smoking cigarettes can alter time has been around for decades, few studies have directly investigated the link between abused drugs and time perception. This is the first to look at before and after scenarios in this way, says Klein.
She said that that dramatic hormone changes associated with quitting smoking may have an effect on time perception. The hormones, cortisol and arginine vasopressin, are suggested to be involved in this process although 鈥渢he literature is mixed鈥� about the effects of smoking and quitting on these hormones, she says.
The team is currently studying how these hormone levels change with cigarette smoking and stress. They will also be studying the effects of longer periods of abstinence in smokers, and will include those actively trying to quit.
Klein told 麻豆传媒 that the findings 鈥渙pen the door to trying to understand what鹿s going on clinically with stopping smoking鈥�.
Journal reference: Psychopharmacology Bulletin