Apr 25, 2021 09:02 PM
(This post was last modified: Apr 26, 2021 03:34 AM by C C.)
If you find yourself isolated and alone for two weeks, a month or more (not even speaking to others via phone), then the most practical reason for talking to yourself is to exercise your vocal cords. Your throat will actually get sore once you communicate with people again, if you went a very long time without uttering anything.
Whereas the concerns below that "talking to yourself" address seem to suggest full-blown (auditory) aphantasia or some lesser level of aphantasia. Which is to say, the narrative voice usually associated with personal thoughts must be deficient in these individuals if they can't carry out the same vocal processes internally (i.e., derive sufficient satisfaction from the latter).
- - - - - -
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...al-problem
EXCERPT: Then the pandemic hit. I was isolated and lonely, with only myself for company. I have always talked to myself, usually only a few words of encouragement as I rise in the morning, or when I’m trying to navigate through a dense brain fog, but in lockdown the only person I was guaranteed to speak to every day was me. The problem with this is I know everything about me; me got boring fast, so I began to argue with me – . And I always lost.
Do I need help? Not particularly, says Paloma Mari-Beffa, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Bangor. She says that most of us talk to ourselves, silently, all the time – “and by ‘all the time’ I mean even when you sleep”, she says. Come to think of it, when I have paid attention to my resting thoughts I realise that I can’t claim authorship over any of them. Words, sounds and images just appear from nowhere, then dissolve into nothingness like a shooting star; there and then gone.
“The brain is always active,” says Mari-Beffa. “It is always generating images or words.” If we are always in conversation with ourselves, why don’t we all talk out loud? The answer, says Mari-Beffa, is down to the two sides of the brain: one that is chaotic and random and one that is orderly and in control. “When you talk out loud, it’s not random – you organise it, you control it, you give it shape. When people are under extreme stress, or suffering with mental illness, both networks can be active at the same time.” This phenomenon could explain conditions such as Tourette syndrome and schizophrenia, where the subconscious chaotic mind is encroaching on the more ordered conscious mind.
Controlled self-talk, however, can have enormous benefits. In 2012, Mari-Beffa conducted an experiment that asked 28 participants to read a series of instructions either silently or out loud. The group that read out loud showed higher levels of concentration and performance on the tasks they were given. Another study, from the University of Michigan, found that self-talk can increase self-esteem, improve confidence and help us overcome difficult challenges. The paper, published in 2014, said that those who referred to themselves with second- and third-person pronouns managed their thoughts better than those who spoke in the first person.
I feel slightly better about myself, but the kind of self-talk these studies point to – helping people keep on track with assignments, for example – sound like the innocuous words of encouragement I used to say to myself before the pandemic, not the kinds of internal rows I have with myself now.
Chris Gilham (not his real name), a 23-year-old IT student from Washington DC, started talking to himself out loud when the pandemic hit. Before lockdown, he used to socialise in coffee shops with his friends from college; now he spends most of his time alone. He says face masks have helped: on the rare occasions he visits his local grocery store, he can talk to himself under his breath and nobody can see his lips moving. Gilham suffers with anxiety and says the self-talk helps him slow down his “constant train of thought … It helps with processing something,” he says. “If I’m reading a textbook, rephrasing it out loud really helps.” Still, Gilham isn’t having full-blown shouting matches with himself in front of a mirror like I am... (MORE - details)
Whereas the concerns below that "talking to yourself" address seem to suggest full-blown (auditory) aphantasia or some lesser level of aphantasia. Which is to say, the narrative voice usually associated with personal thoughts must be deficient in these individuals if they can't carry out the same vocal processes internally (i.e., derive sufficient satisfaction from the latter).
- - - - - -
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...al-problem
EXCERPT: Then the pandemic hit. I was isolated and lonely, with only myself for company. I have always talked to myself, usually only a few words of encouragement as I rise in the morning, or when I’m trying to navigate through a dense brain fog, but in lockdown the only person I was guaranteed to speak to every day was me. The problem with this is I know everything about me; me got boring fast, so I began to argue with me – . And I always lost.
Do I need help? Not particularly, says Paloma Mari-Beffa, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Bangor. She says that most of us talk to ourselves, silently, all the time – “and by ‘all the time’ I mean even when you sleep”, she says. Come to think of it, when I have paid attention to my resting thoughts I realise that I can’t claim authorship over any of them. Words, sounds and images just appear from nowhere, then dissolve into nothingness like a shooting star; there and then gone.
“The brain is always active,” says Mari-Beffa. “It is always generating images or words.” If we are always in conversation with ourselves, why don’t we all talk out loud? The answer, says Mari-Beffa, is down to the two sides of the brain: one that is chaotic and random and one that is orderly and in control. “When you talk out loud, it’s not random – you organise it, you control it, you give it shape. When people are under extreme stress, or suffering with mental illness, both networks can be active at the same time.” This phenomenon could explain conditions such as Tourette syndrome and schizophrenia, where the subconscious chaotic mind is encroaching on the more ordered conscious mind.
Controlled self-talk, however, can have enormous benefits. In 2012, Mari-Beffa conducted an experiment that asked 28 participants to read a series of instructions either silently or out loud. The group that read out loud showed higher levels of concentration and performance on the tasks they were given. Another study, from the University of Michigan, found that self-talk can increase self-esteem, improve confidence and help us overcome difficult challenges. The paper, published in 2014, said that those who referred to themselves with second- and third-person pronouns managed their thoughts better than those who spoke in the first person.
I feel slightly better about myself, but the kind of self-talk these studies point to – helping people keep on track with assignments, for example – sound like the innocuous words of encouragement I used to say to myself before the pandemic, not the kinds of internal rows I have with myself now.
Chris Gilham (not his real name), a 23-year-old IT student from Washington DC, started talking to himself out loud when the pandemic hit. Before lockdown, he used to socialise in coffee shops with his friends from college; now he spends most of his time alone. He says face masks have helped: on the rare occasions he visits his local grocery store, he can talk to himself under his breath and nobody can see his lips moving. Gilham suffers with anxiety and says the self-talk helps him slow down his “constant train of thought … It helps with processing something,” he says. “If I’m reading a textbook, rephrasing it out loud really helps.” Still, Gilham isn’t having full-blown shouting matches with himself in front of a mirror like I am... (MORE - details)
