Do you talk to yourself and does it matter how you do it?

Do you notice how often you talk to yourself? It may seem an odd thing to do yet talking to ourselves has been shown to have benefits in various domains of our lives, especially under stressful situations. There are many forms of self-talk we tend to engage in such as:

• Positive self-talk that refers to statements that are encouraging or self-assuring in tone, for instance, “Nice work!” or “Yes!”
• Negative self-talk that refers to statements that are negative in tone, for example, “I’m terrible” or “I am useless at this”
• Neutral self-talk has neither negative nor positive tone and may include tactic or strategy statements such as “take it slow and steady” or “remember to keep your head down”
• Instructional self-talk occurs when we guide ourselves through a specific task, such as learning a new skill. Examples are things like D (check for danger), R (check response), A (check airway), B (check breathing), C (check for circulation) when responding to a collapsed person.
• Motivational self-talk is used when we want to pump ourselves up for a challenging task, for example “Come on, let’s go!”, or “You can do it!”

Research shows that how you talk to yourself and what you say during stressful tasks can significantly influence your performance. In fact, a series of 7 studies with 585 participants, examined whether language use during self-talk influences our ability to self-regulate under a social stress situation (in this case giving a speech) and also how self-talk influences the way people appraise future stressors. From these studies, researchers demonstrated that by using non-first-person pronouns and one’s own name (rather than first-person pronouns such as “I”) during self-talk resulted in:

1. Better performance when measured objectively in studies.
2. Less perceived distress during stressful performance moments.
3. Engagement in less maladaptive behaviour (i.e. not adjusting adequately or appropriately to the environment or situation) post event.
4. Participants appraising future stressors in more challenging, and less threatening terms.

Our take at StriveStronger

Findings from this series of studies suggest that small shifts in the language we use to refer to ourselves during self-talk consequentially influence our ability to regulate our thoughts, feelings, and behaviour under stressful situations. From a neuroscience perspective, the researchers believe that self-talk may act like internal brain remodelling. They suggest that talking to yourself and using the word "I" can potentially stress you out more than referring to yourself by your name. Interestingly, the researchers also reported that these findings do not seem to be influenced by a person’s trait anxiety, so most likely can be translated in others beyond these research studies.

So, if you find yourself talking to yourself when under pressure, reflect on what language you use to refer to yourself and try making a shift in your language to non-first-person language and see if you find the task, and future tasks less stressful.

Reference:

Kross E, Bruehlman-Senecal E, Park J, Burson A, Dougherty A, Shablack H, Bremner R, Moser J, Ayduk O. Self-talk as a regulatory mechanism: how you do it matters. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2014 Feb;106(2):304-24. doi: 10.1037/a0035173. PMID: 24467424.

Available at: https://content.apa.org/record/2014-02577-006