Kylie Lang: I love a bargain, but can we not do Boxing Day sales a week early?

Everyone loves a sale, but with the hangover from Black Friday and Cyber Monday still real, I don’t need to be force-fed deals ahead of time, writes Kylie Lang. Vote in our poll.

Boxing Day sales a week early – could retailers just not?

I love a bargain as much as the next person but I don’t need another reminder that time is racing faster than you can say Easter eggs.

The year has moved quickly enough without being force-fed deals ahead of time.

I’m still shaking off the hangover from the deluge of online offers for Black Friday and Cyber Monday – the American commercialisation of its November Thanksgiving holiday that never needed to be visited upon Australia.

The pressure to buy more and more “stuff” – the politest way to describe things we can easily live without – is off the charts.

And the analytics of Dr Google crunching every silly thing we clicked on in a moment of boredom only adds to the onslaught.

I long for a simpler time when life didn’t seem so frenetic, when phones were devices used to talk to someone instead of marketing tools for others to talk us into something.

Do we really need Boxing Day sales a week early?

This year, my family – Mum, Dad and my son, so hardly a throng – have put a price cap on presents.

We see no sense in feeding the beast of commercialism.

Christmas means different things to different people, but to us it’s a time to celebrate loved ones and togetherness because, let’s face it, we’re not getting any younger.

My parents and I also toast relatives no longer with us, and reminisce about those blistering hot Christmases gathered around a clunky mobile air-conditioning box in a West-facing Queenslander.

Nan brought the tin of Quality Street chocolates, Pop, the macadamia nuts shaken from their tree, Grandad, the cashews, and Grandma, the rum balls.

Those larger family gatherings might be decades ago, but they seem like yesterday.

There is science behind the feeling that life goes faster the older we get – and why those childhood days dragged on as we impatiently counted down to Christmas.

A notable US researcher puts it down to physics – specifically, the physics of neural signal processing.

As depressing as it sounds, we get slower with age.

“People are often amazed at how much they remember from days that seemed to last forever in their youth,” says Professor Adrian Bejan, of Duke University in North Carolina.

“It’s not that their experiences were much deeper or more meaningful, it’s just that they were being processed in rapid fire.”

Prof Bejan, hailed by Stanford University as one of the most impactful scientists in the world, says over time the pace at which we access and process information decreases.

As nerves and neurons age, they get bigger and start to degrade, creating longer and more difficult journeys for visual signals to travel.

Consider how frequently babies’ eyes move compared to those of adults, Prof Bejan says, explaining infants’ ability to process images faster.

And because older people see fewer new images in the same time frame, it creates that sense of time passing faster.

Prof Bejan’s research, published in the European Review journal, makes for fascinating reading.

“The human mind senses time changing when the perceived images change,” he says.

“The present is different from the past because the mental viewing has changed, not because somebody’s clock rings. Days seemed to last longer in your youth because the young mind receives more images during one day than the same mind in old age.”

So, on that happy note – and “just because it’s Christmas, and at Christmas you tell the truth” (as per the movie Love Actually, which is unbelievably almost 20 years old) – there are ways to keep the mind agile.

These include doing crosswords and puzzles, trying new activities, and not sticking to routine.

If you like to walk, choose a different path every day.

If you like to read, try new genres.

If you enjoy cooking, branch out from your usual fare.

According to Harvard Health Publishing, challenging your brain with mental exercise is believed to activate processes that help maintain individual brain cells and stimulate communication among them.

And when it comes to things like forgetting where you left your keys – dear father, are you reading this? – designate a spot in the house for them so you can save that mental energy and put it to better use by learning and remembering new things.

“Pursuing a hobby, learning a new skill, volunteering or mentoring are additional ways to keep your mind sharp,” the Harvard website says.

Sounds simple enough, but as we age we do tend to become more set in our ways.

I, for one, find comfort in routine.

So forgive me if I sound boringly traditional, but Boxing Day sales belong on Boxing Day.

Merry Christmas everyone.

LOVE

The Secondbite charity, which provides food for people in need. Every $2 donated, via Coles supermarket checkouts until the end of Saturday trading, will provide 10 meals.

The thoughtfulness of a neighbour (four houses away) who took his whipper-snipper to my overgrown front lawn.

“I just noticed it needed a trim,” he said when I introduced myself.

Let’s hear it for random acts of kindness which bring communities together and increase social interaction.

LOATHE

The appointment of Kevin Rudd as Australia’s next ambassador to the US. What on earth was Anthony Albanese thinking?

Rudd was one of the most disliked politicians, including by members of his own party, and – like that other former PM with an inflated sense of his own relevance, Malcolm Turnbull – has proved himself to be a loose cannon, including on social media.

But never mind, let’s give him the plum gig with our nation’s most important ally.

Ridiculous.

Kylie Lang is Associate Editor of The Courier-Mail. Email [e-mail]