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Benefits Of Talking To Yourself

Our inner speech

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First published: 01. Feb.2025

Overview

As children, we learned to talk out loud to ourselves during play. Later, we spoke to ourselves like adults did with us, to guide us as we learned tasks, and to regulate our behavior, and as we learned tasks. This is universal, across all languages and cultures.
As adults, our inner speech is still with us, helping us cope with our daily lives, hopefully a positive voice that motivates us, or a mild critic that prods us to accept challenges and guides us.

In this article we will discuss Self-Talk and six benefits of talking to ourselvelves: it improves cognition, lowers anxiety, and stress, relieves loneliness, helps you find things, and improves self-esteem & well-being.

In this Article (Index)

drawing of a head thinking with someone speaking to someone inside his head
A guiding inner voice: "self-talk". Austin Whittall

Our Inner Voice: Self-Talk

Although we commonly think we use language to communicate with others, we also use it to communicate with ourselves. This inner dialogue or monologue is known as self-talk. It is an inner voice that guides our moment-to-moment reflections.

Of course I talk to myself. I like a good speaker, and I appreciate an intelligent audience. Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), The Ladies of the Corridor (1954)

This internal dialogue has been studied by Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, and Early Christian theologists like Saint Agustine of Hippo.
Plato in Theaetetus described thinking as "the talk which the soul has with itself about any subjects which it considers... the soul... when it thinks, is merely conversing with itself, asking itself questions and answering, affirming and denying"

It is also known as private speech or inner speech, and helps us, as children, to solve problems, and learn.

It is the way by which our "self" can develop, and we become who we are.

We have all experienced motivational self-talk when facing a challenge, like "I got this; I can do it." Another variety of self-talk is the instructional kind, where we guide ourselves through an activity as we are practicing a skill "Hold the grip tightly, take a deep breath now, flex your knees and focus on the swing" when you are learning how to play tennis.

Natural self-talk is when your inner self can't help expressing itself like "Why did I say that?" On the other hand, strategic self-talk is directed ("If they say this... I will do that...").

Self-talk can be positive and facilitate a task ("That's it, you are doing fine, keep on like that") or negative, self-deprecative talk ("I messed up again" or "You're so dumb").

Different types of self-talk include "social assessment": how you imagine your current, past, and future social interactions. "Self-reinforcement" is a positive inner chat that improves self-esteem. "Self-management" talk consists of the inner conversations that guide your future actions. Then come the negative "self-criticism" and "self-blaming" talk that rehash negative experiences.

Self-talk has proven to be effective in treating addictions, anxiety, and depression, in adopting a healthier lifestyle, and in improving performance in sports or cognitive activities. (1)

Research has found that self-talk activates regions in the brain associated with cognition of the "self" and the "other," as well as regions linked to both "speaking" and "listening". So it appears that just like we use language to interact, with and manipulate others, we do the same to control our inner "self". This suggests that the "self" can be fragmented into an I and a You. (3)

First Person or Third Person Self-Talk

How you refer to yourself during self-talk may influence your self-control. Studies have shown that using your own name instead of the first-person pronoun "I" helps you control your behavior, feelings, and thoughts during stressful situations.

A study from 2017 (2) explained this as follows: we use proper names when we think about others, so using our name when thinking about ourselves will lead us to think about ourselves as we think about someone else, making it much easier to be calm and detached about our own emotions just as we are about those of others. Their experimental settings reported just that; third-person self-talk helps people to think about themselves in a similar way to how they think about others, this gives them "psychological distance" and helps maintain self-control and regulate emotions, reducing emotional reactivity and improving cognitive control.

Another study also looked into the use of "you" vs. "I" in self-talk. Referring to oneself as "You" in self-talk is found in situations that require self-guidance as if commanding another person (the imperative). It prevails when we are confronted with negative events. It also appears when we make autonomous choices or when we are performing an activity rather than planning or evaluating one. (3)

Loud or Silent Chatting?

What about talking to yourself out loud? Why do it if only you can hear your words?

No, you aren't losing your mind, voicing your inner conversations out loud can help you process your thoughts in a healthy, productive way. It gives substance to your thoughts and fixes them in the real world. A 2012 study mentioned further down found that voicing your inner talk out loud improved your control over a task, focusing your actions better than silent inner speech did.

Six Benefits of Talking to Yourself

Self-talk has been used in therapies aimed at modifying behavior. The idea behind it is that what you tell yourself affects the way that you behave. Modifying your thought patterns can improve the way you react, both emotionally, and rationally.

In the following sections, we will look into each of these "6 Benefits of self-talk".

1. It Relieves Loneliness

Social connection with other people helps maintain our well-being and happiness, however, taking time off to be with ourselves also helps maintain our social balance. Being alone is not necessarily a bad thing, loneliness, on the other hand, is associated with an increased risk of depression, anxiety, and health issues.

If you’re lonely when you're alone, you're in bad company. Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), The Essential Jean-Paul Sartre: The Emotions and Essays in Aesthetics

There are different ways to cope with loneliness, developing social connections, taking perspective, practicing solitude, and self-talk are some of them. (4)

Positive self-talk can provide a sense of internal companionship, reminding yourself that you are not alone. Either using silent talk or speaking out loud, soothing yourself with your voice fills in the void of loneliness.

Verbal cues can redirect your thoughts ("I am in good company") and prevent negative ones from taking over. Your inner voice can guide you to learn new social skills, develop new interests, and improve self-respect, all of which can lead to better social engagements.

But be aware, that excessive negative thoughts, rumination, and internal debates can be signs of mental health issues. You should seek professional help.

Research revealed that "self-talk might be a risk factor for an increased negative correlation between loneliness and mental health. Self-talk, which is supposed to be related to self-awareness, might reinforce the subjective feeling of loneliness and hence have a negative impact on psychological well-being." (5)

2. It Uplifts self-esteem

As children we internalized the voices of our parents, to guide our behavior and actions. So, the way they spoke to us helped mold our inner speech. If, as toddlers, we were criticized more often than praised, then our inner voice will be a critical one, and affect our self-esteem.

Be Positive

Lose those negative thoughts, and also the self-deprecatory ones, and be respectful to yourself. Positive self-talk reinforces self-esteem. There is no need to wait for others to tell you that you are great, do it yourself. It should arise from self-compassion and inner gratitude.

Even difficult situations can be rephrased positively in your internal dialogue. Below are some examples:

Don't say this: "I've never done this before, I'll mess things up."
Instead, say this: "This is a great opportunity to learn something new!"

Don't say this: "I won't be able to do this."
Instead, say this: "I can do it, and I will do my best to get it done."

A 2009 study (6) looked into the effects of motivational self-talk on self-confidence, anxiety, and task performance in young athletes. It reported that task performance improved, self-confidence increased, and cognitive anxiety decreased, while there were no changes in the control group that didn't practice self-talk.

A 2019 study (11) involving 117 young athletes reported that self-talk training led to a "(higher) state self-confidence, self-optimization, self-efficacy, and performance."

Take-home point

Self-talk improves self-confidence and reduces anxiety. It also helps you perform better.

3. It Helps you find lost things quicker

An experiment conducted in 2012 (7) had a group of participants search for common objects, and some were asked to speak out aloud the name of the object they were looking for ("Keys, keys, where are the keys?"). Those who used a spoken verbal cue helped them find the object faster than when they remained silent. These results highlight the power of one's words to guide the brain (in this case, its visual processing) during a task.

4. It Helps you Organize Yourself

Children deploy private and inner speech when they plan common tasks. Inner speech seems to act as a reminder of tasks and order, and studies in children show that the use of inner speech helps them in switching tasks, and there is evidence that this strategy is used during adulthood.

Although the brain and mind were not built to do more than one task at a time. We believe that we can multitask (trying to perform two or more tasks concurrently), but in fact, what we do is switch between one task and another; it is here that our inner speech helps guide us. (9)

As adults attempting to multitask, we often require sorting through alternative actions, and verbal cues help set up the plan. Self-talk can provide inner guidance.

We need inner clarity to schedule our daily activities, and a dialogue with our inner self helps assign priorities to our tasks.

5. It Improves Concentration

A study conducted in 2012(3) showed that subjects who were told to read a set of instructions out loud experienced higher levels of concentration, and performed the tasks better than those who read in silence.

6. It Reduces Stress

When you feel overwhelmed, speak to yourself, inner dialogue helps reduce stress, anxiety, and vent pressure. (6)

Worrying often takes on a verbal manifestation, mostly in the form of negative intrusive thoughts (you don't picture your worries, you verbalize them). (9). This can be confronted by avoiding the first-person talk and using a "You" speech when addressing yourself.

A series of studies (10) evaluated the effect of different kinds of self-talk on how socially anxious people behave under social stress. It reported that the non-first-person group performed better than the first-person group and that this type of language "leads people to appraise future stressors in more challenging and less threatening terms."

This is in line with what we mentioned further up (see First Person or Third Person Self-Talk), that non-first person inner-speech reduces emotional reactivity and improves cognitive control.

The 2019 study (11) mentioned previously (see It Uplifts Self-Esteem) also found that self-talk training led to less "somatic state anxiety." Somatic state anxiety is the physical manifestation of anxiety like a rapid heart rate, chest pain, dizziness, sweating, or feeling tense in the stomach. Cognitive state anxiety, on the other hand, is having distressing negative thoughts, apprehension, doubts, mental turmoil, and lack of concentration.

References and Further Reading

(1) Latinjak, A. T., Morin, A., Brinthaupt, T. M., Hardy, J., Hatzigeorgiadis, A., Kendall, P. C., Neck, C., Oliver, E. J., Puchalska-Wasyl, M. M., Tovares, A. V., & Winsler, A., (2023). Self-Talk: An Interdisciplinary Review and Transdisciplinary Model. Review of General Psychology, 27(4), 355-386. https://doi.org/10.1177/10892680231170263

(2) Moser, J.S., Dougherty, A., Mattson, W.I. et al., (2017). Third-person self-talk facilitates emotion regulation without engaging cognitive control: Converging evidence from ERP and fMRI. Sci Rep 7, 4519 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-04047-3

(3) Zell E, Warriner AB, Albarracin D., (2012). Splitting of the Mind: When the You I Talk to is Me and Needs Commands. Soc Psychol Personal Sci. 2012 Sep 1;3(5):549-555. doi: 10.1177/1948550611430164. PMID: 23766867; PMCID: PMC3678767

(4) Groff, Sarah Joy, (2024). Perspective-Taking, Self-Talk, and Social Connection: A Phenomenological Study of How Individual Practices Reduce Loneliness During the Menopausal Years. Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 5915.

(5) Reichl, C., Schneider, J. F., & Spinath, F. M., (2013). Relation of self-talk frequency to loneliness, need to belong, and health in German adults. Personality and Individual Differences, 54(2), 241–245. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2012.09.003

(6) Antonis Hatzigeorgiadis, Nikos Zourbanos, Sofia Mpoumpaki, Yannis Theodorakis, (2009). Mechanisms underlying the self-talk–performance relationship: The effects of motivational self-talk on self-confidence and anxiety. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, Vol 10:1, pp 186-192, ISSN 1469-0292, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2008.07.009

(7) Lupyan, G., and Swingley, D., (2012). Self-directed speech affects visual search performance. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65(6), 1068–1085. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2011.647039

(8) Alexander James Kirkham, Julian Michael Breeze, Paloma Marί-Beffa, (2012). The impact of verbal instructions on goal-directed behaviour. Acta Psychologica, Vol 139:1, pp 212-219, ISSN 0001-6918, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2011.09.016

(9) Alderson-Day B, Fernyhough C., (2015). Inner Speech: Development, Cognitive Functions, Phenomenology, and Neurobiology. Psychol Bull. 2015 Sep;141(5):931-65. doi: 10.1037/bul0000021. Epub 2015 May 25. PMID: 26011789; PMCID: PMC4538954

(10) Kross, E., Bruehlman-Senecal, E., Park, J., Burson, A., Dougherty, A., Shablack, H., Bremner, R., Moser, J., & Ayduk, O., (2014). Self-talk as a regulatory mechanism: How you do it matters. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(2), 304–324. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035173

(11) Walter N, Nikoleizig L, Alfermann D., (2019). Effects of Self-Talk Training on Competitive Anxiety, Self-Efficacy, Volitional Skills, and Performance: An Intervention Study with Junior Sub-Elite Athletes. Sports. 2019; 7(6):148. https://doi.org/10.3390/sports7060148

About this Article

Benefits Of Talking To Yourself, A. Whittall

©2025 Fit-and-Well.com. First Published: 01.Feb.2025. Update scheduled for 01.Feb.2028. https://www.fit-and-well.com/wellness/benefits-of-talking-to-yourself.html

Tags: Self Talk, mood, anxiety, depression, happiness, stress, self-esteem, concentration, loneliness, positivity

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