TED Health Does your heartbeat shape your sense of time? | Irena Arslanova
Apr 8, 2025
In this insightful conversation, cognitive neuroscientist Irena Arslanova, a prominent figure in understanding the brain-heart connection, reveals how our heartbeat intricately shapes our perception of time. She discusses why moments feel elongated during boredom while they race by during excitement. Arslanova highlights how heartbeats influence cognitive processes and can even alter our temporal awareness. Listeners gain practical techniques for harnessing this knowledge to enhance mindfulness and enrich their experience of time in everyday life.
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Time Perception
- Irena Arslanova, a cognitive neuroscientist, studies how the brain perceives time.
- She highlights time's subjective nature, influenced by factors like boredom, pain, novelty, and busyness.
Interoception
- The brain needs to understand both the external world and the body's internal state.
- This internal sense, called interoception, includes perceiving the heart.
Heart-Brain Dance
- The heart and brain communicate rhythmically; the heart's contractions send signals to the brain.
- This influences brain activity, with each beat priming the brain for action and the time between beats for perception.