Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It

by Ethan Kross

In the most basic sense, introspection simply means actively paying attention to one’s own thoughts and feelings. The ability to do this is what allows us to imagine, remember, reflect, and then use these reveries to problem solve, innovate, and create.

Chatter consists of the cyclical negative thoughts and emotions that turn our singular capacity for introspection into a curse rather than a blessing. It puts our performance, decision making, relationships, happiness, and health in jeopardy. We think about that screwup at work or misunderstanding with a loved one

and end up flooded by how bad we feel. Then we think about it again. And again. We introspect hoping to tap into our inner coach but find our inner critic instead.

We

spend one-third to one-half of our waking life not living in the present.

When we’re upset and feel vulnerable or hurt or overwhelmed, we want to vent our emotions and feel consoled, validated, and understood. This provides an immediate sense of security and connection and feeds the basic need we have to belong.

“tend and befriend” response. They seek out other people for support and care.

We often need others to help us distance, normalize, and change the way we’re thinking about the experiences we’re going through. By doing so, we allow our emotions to cool down, pulling us out of dead-end rumination and aiding us in redirecting our verbal stream.

term. But even if we do signal that we want more cognitive assistance, research demonstrates that our interlocutors tend to miss these cues.

even when support providers are explicitly asked to provide advice to address cognitive needs, they still believe it is more important to address people’s emotional needs. And it turns out that our attempts to satisfy those emotional needs often end up backfiring in ways that lead our friends to feel worse.

Co-rumination is the crucial juncture where support subtly becomes egging on. People who care about us prompt us to talk more about our negative experience, which leads us to become more upset, which then leads them to ask still more questions. A vicious cycle ensues, one that is all too easy to get sucked into, especially because it is driven by good intentions.

The most effective verbal exchanges are those that integrate both the social and the cognitive needs of the person seeking support.

The desire to have control over oneself is a strong human drive. Believing that we have the ability to control our fate influences whether we try to achieve goals, how much effort we exert to do so, and how long we persist when we encounter challenges.

The fascinating thing about seeking compensation for chaos in one area (that is, our minds) by creating order in another (that is, the physical environment) is that it doesn’t even have to have anything to do with the specific issue that is throwing off our inner voice. This is why imposing order on our environments is so useful; it’s almost always easy to do. And the value of engaging in this practice is impressive. For instance, one experiment demonstrated that just reading about the world described as an orderly place reduced anxiety. Unsurprisingly, research indicates that people who live in more disadvantaged neighborhoods—such as the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago, and likely the areas of Iraq where Suzanne Bott worked—experience more depression, in part because of disorder they perceive in their surroundings.

Distancing is a tool, whether it’s imagining yourself as a fly on the wall, mentally traveling through time, or visualizing yourself and your predicaments as physically smaller in your mind. So is distanced self-talk: You can talk to yourself or about yourself using non-first-person pronouns or your own name, and you can normalize your challenges with the universal “you.”

avoiding co-rumination and finding a balance between providing caring support and helping others constructively reframe their problems when their emotions cool.

Mother Nature is a veritable toolshed for our minds, containing pleasant and effective ways of restoring the attentional tools that are so helpful for reducing chatter and bolstering our health. It can fill us with awe, as can plenty of experiences found not on mountaintops but at concerts, in places of worship, and even in special moments in our own homes (just remembering when each of my daughters said “Dada” for the first time rekindles awe in me).

Imposing order on our surroundings likewise can be comforting and allow us to feel better, think more clearly, and perform at higher levels.

Through the neural apparatus of expectation, sugar pills that we know are just sugar pills can improve our health, as can the exercise of rituals, both those that are cul...

Tools You Can Implement on Your Own

Use distanced self-talk. One way to create distance when you’re experiencing chatter involves language. When you’re trying to work through a difficult experience, use your name and the second-person “you” to refer to yourself. Doing so is linked with less activation in brain networks associated with rumination and leads to improved performance under stress, wiser thinking, and less negative emotion.

Imagine advising a friend.

Broaden your perspective. Chatter involves narrowly focusing on the problems we’re experiencing. A natural antidote to this involves broadening our perspective. To do this, think about how the experience you’re worrying about compares with other adverse

events you (or others) have endured, how it fits into the broader scheme of your life and the world, and/or how other people you admire would respond to the same situation.

Reframe your experience as a...

Reinterpret your body’s chatter response.

Normalize your experience.

Engage in mental time travel.

Change the view.

Write expressively.

Adopt the perspective of a neutral third party.

Clutch a lucky charm or embrace a superstition.

Perform a ritual.

Tools for Providing Chatter Support

Address people’s emotional and cognitive needs.

Provide invisible support.

Tell your kids to pretend they’re a superhero.

Touch affectionately (but respectfully).

Be someone else’s placebo.

Tools for Receiving Chatter Support

Build a board of advisers.

Seek out physical contact.

Look at a photo of a loved one.

Perform a ritual with others.

Minimize passive social media usage.

Tools That Involve the Environment

Create order in your environment.

Increase your exposure to green spaces.

Seek out awe-inspiring experiences.