Please Don’t Interrupt My Conversation With Myself

If you haven’t tried it yet, you should plan a chat with yourself ASAP

by Pornsuda Witoonchatree, DET Corp Comms

HIGHLIGHTS

• Dr Jessica Nicolosi, Clinical Psychologist says, “Talking to yourself isn’t just normal, it’s good for your mental health – If you have the right conversation.”

• We talk to ourselves for many reasons. We can use self-talk to seek trusted companions to bounce ideas off of.

• This often occurs when we’re experiencing a deepened emotion, such as anger, nervousness, extreme focus, or excitement. Even in otherwise mundane scenarios, it’s typically an emotion that’s triggering us to speak out loud.”

Have you ever talked to yourself? 

“Where’s my key?   Crazy!  How forgetful I am!   Found it!   What’s going on with me?

For example, just the one day my friend – who finds parallel parking to be an endless struggle – was talking herself through the process. “Move a bit to the right… a bit left… now drive backward… don’t touch that sedan… almost there… and… oh darn it!” Sure, she grazed the sedan but she managed to park.

A New York Times essay points out, “The two types of self-talk you’re likely most familiar with are instructional self-talk, like talking yourself through a task, and motivational self-talk, like telling yourself, “I can do this.”

And did you know that self-talk is actually very important for children who are practicing speaking? This is one important way to develop memory and language ability. 

But what happens when you’re your worst critic? There are plenty of articles about the “Toxic Effects of Negative Self-talk” that “limit your ability to believe in yourself”. 

However, when self-talk is neutral—as in a statement like ‘What do I need to do?’—or positive, such as ‘I can get this done,’ then the outcome is much more effective.”

“The same NYT essay puts forth the idea of feedback hypothesis, explaining how instructional self-talk can speed up cognitive abilities and task performance. Essentially, Feedback Hypothesis is when a hopeless person can’t remember where they left their phone, so they go around the house repeatedly shouting “Phone!” out loud until they actually find it. “This helps you distinguish it from other items with different names,” says Mr Lupyan, a researcher and psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who conducted a series of experiments on the same.”

“It’s important to note that talking to yourself is a two-part process: the talking and the listening. Self-listening, otherwise known as self-awareness, is a primary factor in offering feedback for self-efficacy.”

So don’t forget to listen to yourself and try to cut out negative internal dialogue. 

References

https://thestandard.co/lone-talker-does-not-mean-crazy-but-a-healthy-mental-health/

https://www.arre.co.in/first-person/self-talk-conversation-chatting/

About the Author (Editorial Team)

Pornsuda Witoonchatree

You can call me by the nickname I got from my parents-Huang. I rejoined Delta in 2012 as a project manager before becoming a Digital Marketing Specialist in 2017. Learning digital marketing is an endless process because everything is always changing and I need to keep learning constantly. If you want to know more about me, you can contact me by https://www.facebook.com/pornsuda.witoonchatree/. 

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