THE PERKS OF TALKING TO YOURSELF
Being caught talking to yourself, especially if using your own name in the conversation, is beyond embarrassing. And it's no wonder - it makes you look like you're hallucinating. Clearly, this is because the entire purpose of talking aloud is to communicate with others. But given that so many of us do talk to ourselves, could it be normal after all - or perhaps even healthy?
We actually talk to ourselves silently all the time. The inner talk is very healthy indeed, having a special role in keeping our minds fit. It helps us organise our thoughts, plan our actions, consolidate memory, and modulate emotions. In other words, it helps us control ourselves. Talking out loud can be an extension of this inner silent talk, caused when a certain motor command is triggered involuntarily.
Our brains can operate much like those of monkeys, if we just stop talking to ourselves - whether it is silently or out loud. Telling yourself not to think about anything and go to sleep sends your mind wandering, activating all kinds of thoughts - including inner talk - in an almost random way. This kind of mental activation is very difficult to control, but seems to be suppressed when we focus on something with a purpose. Reading a book, for example, should be able to suppress inner talk in a quite efficient way, making it a favourite activity to relax our minds before falling asleep.
Patients suffering from anxiety or depression activate these "random" thoughts even when they are trying to perform an unrelated task. Our mental health seems to depend on both our ability to activate thoughts relevant to the current task, and to suppress the irrelevant ones - mental noise. Several clinical techniques such as mindfulness, aim to declutter the mind and reduce stress. When mind - wandering completely becomes out of control, we enter a dreamlike state displaying incoherent and context - inappropriate talk that could be described as mental illness.
So your inner talk helps to organise your thoughts and flexibly adapt them by changing demands, but is there anything special about talking out loud? Why not just keep it to yourself, if there is nobody else to hear your words?
Talking out loud actually improves control over a task, above and beyond what is achieved by inner speech. Even if we talk to ourselves to gain control during challenging tasks, performance substantially improves when we do it out loud. This can probably help explain why so many sports professionals, such as tennis players, frequently talk to themselves during competitions, often at crucial points in a game, saying things like "Come on!" to help them stay focused. Our ability to generate explicit self - instructions is actually one of the best tools we have for cognitive control, and it simply works better when said aloud.
So there you have it. Talking out loud, when the mind is not wandering, could actually be a sign of high cognitive functioning. Rather than revealing mental illness, it can make you intellectually more competent. The stereotype of the mad scientist talking to themselves, lost in their own inner world, might reflect the reality of a genius who uses all the means at their disposal to increase their brain power.
We actually talk to ourselves silently all the time. The inner talk is very healthy indeed, having a special role in keeping our minds fit. It helps us organise our thoughts, plan our actions, consolidate memory, and modulate emotions. In other words, it helps us control ourselves. Talking out loud can be an extension of this inner silent talk, caused when a certain motor command is triggered involuntarily.
Our brains can operate much like those of monkeys, if we just stop talking to ourselves - whether it is silently or out loud. Telling yourself not to think about anything and go to sleep sends your mind wandering, activating all kinds of thoughts - including inner talk - in an almost random way. This kind of mental activation is very difficult to control, but seems to be suppressed when we focus on something with a purpose. Reading a book, for example, should be able to suppress inner talk in a quite efficient way, making it a favourite activity to relax our minds before falling asleep.
Patients suffering from anxiety or depression activate these "random" thoughts even when they are trying to perform an unrelated task. Our mental health seems to depend on both our ability to activate thoughts relevant to the current task, and to suppress the irrelevant ones - mental noise. Several clinical techniques such as mindfulness, aim to declutter the mind and reduce stress. When mind - wandering completely becomes out of control, we enter a dreamlike state displaying incoherent and context - inappropriate talk that could be described as mental illness.
So your inner talk helps to organise your thoughts and flexibly adapt them by changing demands, but is there anything special about talking out loud? Why not just keep it to yourself, if there is nobody else to hear your words?
Talking out loud actually improves control over a task, above and beyond what is achieved by inner speech. Even if we talk to ourselves to gain control during challenging tasks, performance substantially improves when we do it out loud. This can probably help explain why so many sports professionals, such as tennis players, frequently talk to themselves during competitions, often at crucial points in a game, saying things like "Come on!" to help them stay focused. Our ability to generate explicit self - instructions is actually one of the best tools we have for cognitive control, and it simply works better when said aloud.
So there you have it. Talking out loud, when the mind is not wandering, could actually be a sign of high cognitive functioning. Rather than revealing mental illness, it can make you intellectually more competent. The stereotype of the mad scientist talking to themselves, lost in their own inner world, might reflect the reality of a genius who uses all the means at their disposal to increase their brain power.
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