Does anyone talk to themselves

Talking to yourself can help you work through problems, but so can journaling. Maybe you tend to talk yourself through challenges when you get stuck at school or work. The people around you can also help. Instead of trying to puzzle something out yourself, consider chatting to a co-worker or classmate instead. Two heads are better than one, or so the saying goes. You might even make a new friend. Having to talk around something in your mouth can remind you not to say anything out loud, so you might have more success keeping your self-talk in your thoughts.

Another good option is to carry a drink with you and take a sip whenever you open your mouth to say something to yourself. If you slip up, try not to feel embarrassed. While people with conditions that affect psychosis such as schizophrenia may appear to talk to themselves, this generally happens as a result of auditory hallucinations.

A trained therapist can offer compassionate guidance and help you explore potential causes of these symptoms. Have a habit of running through your evening plans aloud while walking your dog? Feel free to keep at it! If self-talk inconveniences you or causes other problems, a therapist can help you explore strategies to get more comfortable with it or even break the habit, if you choose. Crystal Raypole has previously worked as a writer and editor for GoodTherapy.

Her fields of interest include Asian languages and literature, Japanese translation, cooking, natural sciences, sex positivity, and mental health. Shifting your inner dialogue from negative to positive can boost your mental health and overall outlook on life. It's like I get to rewind the negative tape playing in my head. A child learns by talking through his actions. By doing so, he remembers for the future how he solved the problem.

Talking through it helps him or her make sense of the world. What helps me the most when I talk to myself is that I'm able to organize the countless wild thoughts running rampant through my brain.

Hearing my issues vocalized calms my nerves. I'm being my own therapist: Outer-voice me is helping inner-brain me through my problems. According to psychologist Linda Sapadin , talking out loud to yourself helps you validate important and difficult decisions. Everyone knows the best way to solve a problem is to talk it out. Making a list of goals and setting out to achieve them can be hard to do. It can be overwhelming. Talking yourself through those goals is a much steadier way to achieve them.

If you walk yourself through the process, each step will seem less difficult and more concise. Talking to yourself means that you are self-reliant. Another study found instructional self-talking out loud helped basketball players pass and shoot more accurately. Interestingly, while everyone self-talks internally, those of us who talk to ourselves out loud have a bit of an edge. Which means talking to yourself out loud is not only normal but also very, very useful, if you can learn to channel it.

The study of basketball players, which also found motivational self-talk out loud led to faster passing, concluded that different types of verbal self-talk has different benefits, reports Kristin Wong for the New York Times : Talking to yourself out loud in a motivational way is best for improving speed, strength, and power, while talking to yourself out loud in an instructional way is better for boosting focus, strategy, and technique.

And he mocks me for it. He makes me feel insane for talking out loud to myself. Go figure! Follow us. Newsletter Exclusive news delivered to your inbox. External Monologue. For example, self-talking in a motivational or instructional way could improve performance. However, although negative self-talk may increase motivation in sport, it may not improve performance. There are three categories of self-talk that differ depending on the tone of voice. These include:.

People may also refer to talking to yourself as overt and covert self-talk. Overt talk is self-directed speech that other people can hear. Covert talk is speech that occurs internally that no-one else can hear, for example, by mouthing speech rather than speaking out loud. Self-talk may help regulate and process emotions. For example, if a person self-talks about feeling nervous or angry, it could help them by:. A study suggests that people with anxiety, including social anxiety, could benefit from engaging in self-talk.

The researchers found that people referring to themselves in the third-person could distance themselves from their distressing feelings and process, regulate, and analyze these emotions to help reduce anxiety. Engaging in self-talk may also decrease anxiety after stressful events. Writing down self-talk in a journal may help a person transfer thoughts from their mind, organize thought processes, and manage stress and anxiety.

Maintaining a journal can help people identify everyday situations that cause them to self-talk and become more aware of what could trigger these scenarios in the future. Practicing the shifting of self-talk to internal thoughts when they occur or mouthing speech instead of vocalizing it may also reduce self-talking. People may find their self-talk affects their mental health if they are negative and self-criticize when they talk to themselves. In these situations, they should speak with a mental health professional to find ways to improve self-esteem and adjust self-talk to focus on being more positive and encouraging.

If a person self-talks as part of a hallucination, they should seek help from a healthcare professional. Self-talk and hallucinations may indicate a mental health condition, such as schizophrenia. A person with schizophrenia may experience changes in their behavior and thoughts, such as hallucinations or delusions.