Feel like years have passed in the last 10 months? You’re not alone. Clinicians, researchers, and armchair psychologists alike are taking note of a similar phenomenon: since the beginning of 2025, more and more people are reporting a strange sensation in their experience of time. [1] On one hand, the days seem to speed by at a dizzying pace. On the other, looking back, the year already feels ridiculously long. It’s like we’re living two different time realities at once.

And we’re not crazy. This phenomenon is a well-documented psychological experience known as compressed time, a paradox where a short span filled with change, tasks, novelty, and emotional highs and lows feel longer in duration than they actually are. And if ever a time in modern history fit that description, it’s the first three quarters of 2025. So why do we feel this way?

One explanation comes from what’s called the Cognitive Load or Information-Density Model. The idea is simple: the more your brain had to deal with, the longer that period feels when you look back on it. [2] Think about a year of breaking news, multitasking, rapid-fire decisions, new routines, job changes, emotional roller coasters, and technological tectonic shifts. Each one leaves a minute memory trace behind. Add them up........

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