Can You Hear Me?

Talking to yourself is one of those human behaviors that everyone does, but no one likes to admit. Societal norms have instructed us that if we “catch” anyone conversing with themself, we should make them feel bad for doing so and confirm for them that this behavior is strange and not socially acceptable. I won’t name names, but someone has made me feel this way. I felt paranoid about my self-talk until I heard the unnamed source above speaking aloud with no one in sight. Because talking to ourselves has been associated with mental illness/schizophrenia, it got a bad rap. However, there’s a growing body of research to indicate that self-talk can help memory recall, confidence, focus and more. Ideally, self-talk should have an overall positive theme to reap the most benefits including stress management. Besides, once in a while, it’s nice to have a conversation where no one will disagree with you. That’s not so crazy, right?