Chatter - Ethan Kross

•  a devout believer that paying attention to our self-talk is vitally important for out mental health
• inner experiences consistently dwarf outer ones. What participants where thinking about turned out to be a better predictor of their happiness that what they were actually doing
• Your mood is defined not by what you did but by what your thought about
• (2nd place in world championships feel like loosers)
• memorizing 200-350-2765 is much easier than memorizing 2003502765
• the more I stew over what you did to me, the more I keep those negative feelings alive, and the more likely I am to act aggressively against you as a result
• We can create a chronic physiological stress reaction just by thinking. And when our inner voice fuels that stress, it can be devastating to our health
• When people are going through a difficult experience, asking them to imagine how they'll feel about it ten years from now.
• experiences are temporary, which provides hope
• the understanding that the world is constantly in flux and circumstances are going to change.
• Saying my own name in my head, addressing myself as if I were speaking to someone else, allowed me to immediately step back.
• regained control of my emotions and internal conversation
• a high usage of first-person-singular pronouns, a phenomenom calles I-talk, is a reliable marker of negative emotion.
• Acknowledge the difficulty of creation, and then keep creating
• people think, feel, and perform better when they frame the stressor at hand as a challnge rather than a thread
• (Growth mindset)
• provide encouraging "you can do it" advice to themselves, rather than catastrophizing the situation
• a small shift in the words we use to refer to ourselves during introspection can influence our ability to control chatter in a variety of domains
• normalizing experiences - knowing that what you're experiencing isnt unique to you, but rather something everyone experiences. Its just the stuff of life
• In study after stdy rime found that talking to others about our negative experiences doesnt help us recover in any meaningful way
• we often need others to help us distance, normalize, and change the way were thinking aobut the experiences were going through
• The interlocutor ideally acknowledges the persons feelings and reflections, but then helps her put the situation in perspective
• big-picture advice
• + invisible support: supporting others while not making them feel bad about lacking the resources to cope on their own. Taking care of homework. Give quiet space.
• + affectionate touch: a sign that they are safe, loved, and supported
• improves our ability to deal with stress, promotes relationship satisfaction, and reduces feelings of loneliness
• Green spaces seem to function like a great therapist, anti-aging elixir, and immune-system booster all in one
• Rituals are so effective - helping us manage our inner voices. A chatter-reducing cocktail.