11/20/2024

The Surprising Benefits of Talking Out Loud to Yourself

Talking out loud to yourself is perfectly normal

When Ellie Shoja goes for a walk, she slips on her headphones and starts talking—but there's no other voice ricocheting through the speakers. It's merely a convenient way to disguise the fact that she's engrossed in a conversation with herself.

"As far back as I can remember, I've talked to myself," said Shoja, 43, who lives in Los Angeles. "If I'm processing something, I’m 100 percent talking it out with myself. When I put my earbuds in on my walk, that allows me to gesture and be able to talk a little more loudly, instead of whispering."

When Shoja wakes up in the morning or hits the gym, that dialogue turns motivational: "You got this. You can do it." Throughout the day, she talks out ideas for the writing group she runs, as though she were in conversation with another person; when she makes dinner, she chatters away whether someone else is in the kitchen or not. She credits the habit with helping her achieve a state of calmness and confidence. "It slows down your thinking just by the nature of verbalizing something," she said. "You have language that limits the amount of chaos, because you have to express it. You become more focused, and your anxiety levels and stress actually lower significantly."

Please select this link to read the complete article from TIME.