The world's clocks implacably mark every passing second, minute, and hour. But to humans, seconds of pain can feel like minutes, hours spent at a party can end in a blink, and a week of drudging through paperwork can vanish from the mind entirely.

The brain can stretch or compress the feeling of time for many reasons, including pleasure, pain, fear, age—and even the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Although the science behind this “subjective time” is not fully understood, some research suggests that an additional factor might influence the subjective length of your life: your income.

Research already suggests that, on average, wealthy people live longer, biologically. Now, emerging work hints that varied and novel experiences could create more “time codes”