Some people talk to themselves quite often. For example, while they are trying to find a solution to a problem. Or in order to deal with today. And also to find a lost item in the apartment. As in “The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath”: “Where did the glasses go? Boka-a-ala!”
And if you are embarrassed to mutter something under your breath while working or walking, then scientists are quick to support you: it is useful. Apparently, those who constantly talk to themselves for many years can boast of remarkable mental abilities.
Psychologist Gary Lupyan conducted a study in which he showed a certain set objects to 20 volunteers. He asked me to remember each of them. The first group of 10 participants had to repeat out loud the names of the objects shown, for example, “banana”, “apple”, “milk”. All subjects were then taken inside and asked to find objects on shelves.
The result of the experiment showed that those who repeated the names of objects out loud while searching found the desired products faster. The difference with the “silent ones” was from 50 to 100 milliseconds.
“I'm constantly chatting to myself while I'm looking for items in the supermarket or refrigerator,” says Gary Lupyan. Exactly personal experience became the reason to conduct a larger experiment. Another psychologist, Daniel Swingley, worked in Lupyan’s team. Together, scientists came to the conclusion: talking to yourself is not just useful - it can make a person a genius. And that's why.
Stimulates memory
When you talk to yourself, your sensory memory storage is activated. This structure is responsible for storing a limited amount of information for a short period of time. When you speak out loud, you visualize the meaning of the word. Therefore, it is remembered better.
This effect was recorded during a scientific experiment. The researchers asked participants to learn a list of words. One group of volunteers did this quietly, to themselves, while the other recited the terms out loud. It was those who pronounced each word who remembered the entire list better.
Maintains concentration
When you say a word out loud, you automatically evoke an image in your memory and consciousness. This helps you stay focused and not be distracted from the task at hand. In the case of searching for an item in a supermarket, this works flawlessly.
Wilson Hul/Flickr.comOf course, it helps if you know what the object you're looking for looks like. For example, say the word “banana” - and the brain recreates a picture of a bright yellow oblong object. But, let’s say, if you say “cherimoya” without having any idea what your favorite fruit looks like, it will be of little use.
Clears the mind
Do you know this feeling when thoughts are besieged from all sides? A variety of things: starting from “What am I doing with my life?” and ending with “Oh, still wash the dishes.” Talking to yourself will help you figure this out. Talk through what needs to be done right now. In this way, it is as if you are instructing yourself, encouraging you to act.
In the same way, you can get rid of unnecessary emotions. Anger, joy and frustration can be easily overcome with the help of such self-programming. Also, before you make a decision, voice it. Hearing yourself as if from the outside, it will be easier for you to understand whether you are really doing right choice or it sounds like the ravings of a madman.
“It’s like I’m writing subtitles for my life,” admits 37-year-old Alexandra. – Everything I’m going to do, I comment out loud: “It’s warm today, I’ll wear a blue skirt”; “I’ll withdraw a couple of thousand from the card, that should be enough.” If my friend hears it, it’s not scary - he’s used to it. But in a public place people start looking at me sideways, and I feel stupid.”
It helps me concentrate. By saying our actions out loud, we are not at all striving for communication - so why don’t we just remain silent? “The need for comments appears when the task facing us requires concentration,” notes psychotherapist Andrei Korneev, a specialist in somatic psychology. – There was a period in the lives of each of us when we described out loud everything that we did or were going to do. Although we may not remember it: it happened at the age of about three years. Such speech, addressed to no one, is a natural stage of development; it helps the child navigate objective world, go from spontaneous reactions to conscious actions and learn to manage them. Then external speech“collapses”, goes internal, and we stop noticing it.” But it can “unfold” again and sound out loud if we perform some kind of complex sequence operations, for example we collect electronic circuit or prepare a dish according to a new recipe. Its function is the same: it makes it easier for us to manipulate objects and helps us plan them.
Elena, 41 years old, Norwegian language teacher
“Criticizing myself out loud, or even scolding, was a habit for me. I never thought about it and somehow involuntarily made a remark to myself in the psychotherapist’s office. And he asked: “Who told little Lena that she was a klutz?” It was like an epiphany: I remembered that this was exactly how my friend had scolded me. school teacher. And I stopped saying that - because I don’t think so, these words are not mine!”
I'm letting out my emotions. Exclamations that have no addressee can be a manifestation of strong feelings: indignation, delight. One day, Pushkin, alone, “clapping his hands and shouting, “Oh yes Pushkin! what a son of a bitch!” - I was so pleased with my work. Replies: “At least it’s gone!” student before an exam, “so what to do about it?” the accountant over the quarterly report and the things we say while looking after the train we missed - they all have the same reason. “A statement in such a situation serves as an emotional release and is often accompanied by an energetic gesture,” explains Andrei Korneev. “Strong is a surge of energy, and it requires some kind of manifestation outside so that we can get rid of excess tension.” I continue to have an internal dialogue. Sometimes we seem to look at ourselves from the outside - and evaluate, scold, and lecture. “If these are monotonous statements in which the same assessments are made, little dependent on changes in circumstances, this is a consequence of emotional trauma, most likely received in childhood,” says Andrei Korneev. “An unresolved conflict turns into an internal one: one part of us conflicts with another.” Strong feeling that we experienced in the past found no outlet (for example, we could not express anger towards our parents) and remained locked inside. And we relive it, repeating out loud the words that were once addressed to us.
What to do?
Separate your thoughts from others
Who speaks to us during such monologues? Are we really expressing our own thoughts and opinions or are we repeating what our parents, relatives or close friends once told us? “Try to remember who it was. Imagine that this person is now in front of you, suggests Andrei Korneev. - Listen to his words. Find an answer that you can give now as an adult, taking into account your life experience and knowledge. As a child, you may have been confused or scared, unsure of how to respond, or afraid. Today you have something to say, and you will be able to defend yourself.” This exercise helps complete the experience.
Try to speak more quietly
“If talking through actions helps you, you don’t need to try to get rid of it,” reassures Andrey Korneev. – And if disapproving glances or comments from others who do not want to be aware of your plans interfere with this, then try to avoid them. What should I do for this? Speak more quietly, in a whisper. This is just that rare case when the more illegible, the better. Then those around you will not suspect for a second that you are addressing them, and awkward situations will become smaller. Gradually you can switch to silent pronunciation, it’s a matter of training.” Look closely and you will notice other people moving their lips near a store shelf with twenty types of cereals. But this doesn't bother anyone.
Prepare in advance
Make a grocery list when going to the store. Calculate your time when getting ready for the train. Learn everything exam papers. Planning and careful preparation will eliminate the need to think on your feet and worry out loud. Of course, there are emergencies that are beyond our control and that cannot be foreseen. But, hand on heart, we admit that they happen rarely.
Have you ever noticed that you talk to yourself out loud? This happens when a person is very tense, concentrated, or his emotions are “overflowing.”
Surely, when you catch yourself doing this, you will think: “Horror, I’m talking to myself! Am I really sick? That’s it... schizophrenia is on the doorstep!” Is this really true? Let's figure out whether talking to yourself always means a mental disorder and whether in this case you need to see a doctor.
I'm talking to myself, does that mean I'm crazy?
Any disease related to the object of psychiatry has not one, but several symptoms. If, in addition rare cases, when you noticed that you were communicating with yourself, nothing else suspicious happened to you, there was nothing to worry about. But still, knowledge of these signs will not be superfluous:
- hallucinations (auditory and visual);
- frequently recurring feeling of déjà vu;
- obsessive ideas, as if someone is stalking you, wishing you harm, spying on you, constantly mocking you;
- a feeling of unreality of what is happening;
- complete apathy, reluctance and/or inability to do anything;
- strong causeless fear, out of nowhere extreme anxiety and similar sensations.
In sick people they are greatly exaggerated and have the character of obsessive delirium, annoying and painful. Often these symptoms can be combined with pure physiological reactions. For example, during panic attack (strong fear) the person begins to choke, his hands sweat, and other intense sensations arise. If something like this happens to you, you need to see a psychotherapist. There is nothing scary or shameful about this. Perhaps you have experienced some kind of tragedy and cannot on our own deal with it.
In addition, it is necessary to distinguish between mental illnesses themselves and neuroses. The latter are temporary and are usually caused by some kind of strong shock. Mental illness often accompanies the patient throughout his life (for example, schizophrenia). It is accompanied by a whole “bouquet” of extremely severe symptoms.
Self-talk as a child's learning method
Have you noticed that children often talk to themselves while playing? So they play out some situations, play roles (matter or her daughter, a scary bear, etc.). For kids, talking to themselves out loud is absolutely normal and even useful. This is how they learn. This is very good way concentrate. As soon as a person grows up, he tries to avoid talking to himself out loud, just so as not to seem strange to others.
Why do people talk to themselves as adults?
Have you ever wondered why people talk to themselves as adults? It's about about mentally healthy citizens. Our thinking is structured in the following way: millions nerve cells constantly interact and send each other nerve impulses. We literally find ourselves “attacked” different thoughts, memories, questions and suspicions.
It’s as if some kind of “hell brew” is seething in the human head. Moreover, this process does not stop for a minute. It is especially pronounced in women, whose thinking is not linear by nature. It is similar to many open tabs in the browser that are active at the same time.
Often people talk to themselves in order to focus on one thing, to highlight this thought and completely direct their mental flow to it. Especially if the question concerns something very important and urgent. Emotional people often use this method in tense situations. In this case, talking to yourself is normal and has nothing to do with mental disorders.
Talking to yourself is normal and sometimes even useful
IN different time There have been studies done on why people talk to themselves. It has been found that in some situations this method of self-organization helps to better cope with the task. When people talk to themselves, it is as if they are programming themselves verbally for a certain result. In other words, they lead themselves.
For example, if you lost a key in your apartment, then commenting on your actions will help you quickly build a logical chain and find the loss. After all, why does a person talk to himself? Using this simple method, it forces the brain to concentrate as much as possible on one thing, to collect all resources to solve the problem. And it works well. In addition, talking to yourself, you can, for example, from the same lost key.
Bitter feeling of loneliness
But it also happens that a person starts a dialogue with himself solely from a lack of communication. Every person has a need for communication, and if he does not find interlocutors, it does not disappear anywhere. This is the most sad reason why does a person talk to himself? In such a situation, we can recommend starting to correct the situation as soon as possible: sign up for a club, take master classes, start going to Gym or any other public place. Do not get drawn into this state of loneliness, otherwise the habit of communicating with yourself will develop into a painful strangeness.
Talking to yourself is an adequate phenomenon if it looks like a monologue inside yourself. In addition, the norm is to talk to oneself out loud, if such a monologue helps to coordinate own actions, helps to cope with emotions. The inner voice is an important assistant; it gives you a chance to put thoughts in order, plan actions, and look for things.
Scientists are sure that a person talks to himself 70% of the time. If a person tells himself something out loud, then this is evidence of an encounter with an unusual task or a search for things.
Conducting an experiment. Self-Dialogue Help
Researchers started an experiment to find out how a monologue helps find lost things. The volunteers were divided into 2 parts. One group looked for a thing, thinking out loud, and the other - silently.
The results were surprising. The first group found what was lost sooner than the second. This study proves that self talk helps to more correctly perceive and understand brain data.
Where does systematic self-talk come from, and why is the voice within us exactly like this? Like other factors in personality development, it is formed in early age. It is upbringing that influences our consciousness and internal dialogues. If you constantly hear insults directed at yourself, characterizing you as a lazy incompetent, then the voice inside will only utter insults. Such children become pessimists, aggressive or apathetic.
A conversation with yourself will help you find a lost item, understand complex problem, make the right choice.
If your parents made such a mistake, then do not despair. Everyone can help themselves. If you work on yourself, sooner or later you will hear an exclamation from within: “I’m doing great.” Researchers have expressed opinions about the primary inner voice. In 70% of cases, the inner “man” is the one who brings criticism and negativity in life. For positive result try to change it, subjugate it. Present all reproaches as a cute animal or an overly pretentious personality. If you focus on the way you speak internally, it will distract from the essence of the phrases, they will not offend your personality as much.
Then learn if it is a hindrance. This is difficult, but training will make the task easier: concentrate on several points at once, try to keep 3 things in your field of vision, perceive 3 sounds around you. Such workload will “drown out” the conversation inside.
If your inner “resident” loves you, then he helps in fulfilling your plans. And turning it off often helps not only in relationships (the voice talking about problems and past failures often spoils romance and intimacy), but also in work.
Remember, a conversation with yourself should support a person in everything, not cause panic, and not distract from important thoughts and moments.
Self talk. Signs of psychosis
If a person talks to himself and does not expect an answer, then this often turns out to be early sign psychosis – schizophrenia. If you just mumble something, this is not always a sign of such a disease. But laughter and long conversations in combination with other behavioral abnormalities (isolation, hallucinations) require immediate consultation with a doctor.
Conversations with yourself as mental disorder easy to distinguish. A person in such a state disconnects from everything, he is not interested in communicating with other people.
The most typical symptom of psychosis is hallucinations. This is an incorrect perception of reality in one of the sensory categories. In this case, in life there is no external stimuli, but a person hears, sees or feels something. Such phenomena appear at the moment between awakening and sleep, in an unconscious state, in delirium tremens, in severe exhaustion. Another reason is hypnosis. Most often, hallucinations are visual.
Clear hallucinations are a symptom of schizophrenia. With one of the varieties of this disease, people are sure that they hear orders inner voice or voices from outside, they obey, defend themselves, or commit suicide.
But you should not, contrary to popular opinion, assume that schizophrenia is the same as personality disorders in the form of duality, when a person also has conversations with himself.