PDF Summary:Chatter, by Ethan Kross

Right now, you’re not only reading these words. You’re also engaging in self-talk: your thoughts taking the form of words, all within your mind. Self-talk is the encouraging voice that tells you, “Nailed it!” after you rock an interview, as well as the inner cynic that grumbles, “You’re a failure” after you bomb a first date. In Chatter, neuroscientist and psychologist Ethan Kross highlights this last type of voice—negative self-talk, which he believes interferes with your happiness, health, and success. He argues that you can improve your life by quieting your negative self-talk.

In this guide, we’ll present Kross’s insights on self-talk and share his research-based strategies for managing its negative form. For instance, you’ll learn why seeking support from others may make you feel worse and why feelings of amazement quiet your inner critic. Throughout this guide, we’ll compare Kross’s ideas and strategies to those of other experts on self-talk. Furthermore, we’ll provide additional actionable steps for quieting your negative self-talk.

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Step 3: Your brain’s threat response makes you feel worse, which amplifies your negative self-talk. Your internal cynic reflects your increasingly negative feelings by becoming increasingly cynical.

How to Interrupt a Cycle of Negative Self-Talk

Some psychologists claim that you can interrupt this cycle of negative self-talk through self-compassion: consciously engaging in gentle, kind self-talk. While Kross shares a variety of strategies for quieting your self-talk (which we’ll explore later), self-compassion isn’t a strategy he touches on.

To interrupt your negative self-talk with self-compassion, use any of the following strategies:

Take deep breaths. Research reveals that deep breathing reduces your body’s threat response.

Question your internal cynic’s negative words. First, write down your stream of negative self-talk. Then, evaluate what you wrote down by asking how true each statement is. This technique helps you identify negative self-talk that’s overly critical or exaggerated.

Summon honest, optimistic thoughts to “talk back to” your negative self-talk. For instance, imagine that a publisher rejected your manuscript. You may think, “I’ll never be a writer.” To combat this, summon a more honest, optimistic thought: “A lot of writers face rejections early in their career. I’ll keep sending my work to publishers—maybe there’s a publisher out there who would be thrilled to publish my work.”

Effect 2: Reduced Access to Your Skills

Negative self-talk not only makes you feel worse—it also makes you perform worse. Kross explains that when your internal cynic plagues your mind, you lose access to some of your skills. Specifically, you can lose access to automatic skills stored in your muscle memory (such as driving a car, dancing, or reading).

To understand why negative self-talk has this effect, we have to understand your brain’s executive functions. These are the jobs your brain performs to guide you through your day, such as shifting your attention to a new task and holding information temporarily in your mind. Kross explains that when you’re immersed in negative self-talk, your brain—which has limited capacity—lacks enough energy to fully perform its executive functions.

(Shortform note: If negative self-talk reduces your access to your skills, as Kross claims, is the opposite also true—that positive self-talk makes you more skillful? Research suggests that the answer is yes. For instance, a recent study found that basketball players who engage in positive self-talk make more free throw shots compared to players who don’t. Researchers theorize that positive self-talk increases a player’s ability to pay close attention to their shot. Since directing and sustaining your attention is one of your brain’s executive functions, this research suggests that positive self-talk makes you more skillful via your executive functions.)

Effect 3: Social Isolation

Third, Kross argues that your negative self-talk harms your social relationships and makes you feel isolated. He describes two ways in which this happens:

1) You behave aggressively. Kross cites research revealing that people who repeatedly verbalize their negative self-talk are more likely to act aggressively. Negative self-talk multiplies our frustration, and we unfairly direct it toward others. (Shortform note: Acting aggressively may do more than harm your social relationships: In many countries, certain forms of aggression, like violence or intimidation, can have legal consequences.)

2) You frustrate and repel others. When you repeatedly share your negative self-talk with others (whether verbally or in writing), people may grow frustrated with your negativity and start avoiding you.

(Shortform note: Other experts identify more subtle, insidious ways that your negative self-talk can harm your relationships. For instance, your internal cynic may critique your choices, such as your choice of a romantic partner. You may worry excessively that you have poor judgment and chose a partner who’s not right for you. Furthermore, your negative self-talk may inundate you with thoughts that you’re unlovable. Both of these types of self-talk make it harder to commit to and experience intimacy with your partner. This in turn may lead to the effect Kross outlines here: your partner feeling frustrated and repelled by your lack of commitment.)

Effect 4: Poor Mental Health

Kross contends that negative self-talk also degrades your long-term mental health. He explains that people who deal with depression and anxiety often have an overactive internal cynic.

(Shortform note: Research demonstrates the links between negative self-talk, mental health issues, and social isolation. Studies reveal that for some people with anxiety and depression, negative self-talk can cause them to self-isolate; for others, it can cause them to be overly negative, which drives others away. Both outcomes reduce a person’s access to a mental health support network. Later, we’ll explore Kross’s strategies for deepening your connections and access to your support network as a way to reduce your negative self-talk.)

Effect 5: Poor Physical Health

Lastly, Kross provides evidence that negative self-talk also harms your physical health. As previously noted, when you can’t switch off your internal cynic, your hypothalamus activates a threat response, quickening your heartbeat and releasing stress hormones. If your negative self-talk persists for too long, this physical threat response does as well. This causes problems related to chronic stress, such as heart problems and insomnia.

(Shortform note: Kross discusses the negative effects of self-talk on your physical health, but he doesn’t discuss ways to manage symptoms of chronic stress. Experts recommend the following treatments: 1) improving your physical well-being (such as through exercise, getting plenty of sleep, and healthy eating); 2) improving your mental well-being (such as through mindfulness meditation and engaging in leisure activities); and 3) reducing stressors by learning strategies for time management and realistic goal-setting.)

Part 3: How to Manage Your Negative Self-Talk

Kross argues that, fortunately, we can prevent our negative self-talk from interfering with our success, happiness, and health. He claims that we can’t get rid of our internal cynic completely, but we can quiet it and therefore reduce its power over us. In this section, we’ll share five of Kross’s research-based strategies for quieting your negative self-talk.

Exploring and Questioning the Idea of Trying to Quiet Your Internal Cynic

Kross doesn’t fully explain why quieting your internal cynic is the best way to manage it, nor does he explain why we can’t silence our internal cynic completely. Let’s further explore these two claims.

Claim 1: Quieting your negative self-talk is the best way to manage it. We can infer that Kross believes quieting your internal cynic is an effective approach because doing so reduces the negative effects that we explored in the previous section. However, quieting your internal cynic isn’t the only way of managing your negative self-talk: Some experts argue that you should spend time processing your negative self-talk, either instead of quieting it or before quieting it.

For instance, rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) is a type of therapy in which you investigate the beliefs that underlie your internal cynic’s words. A therapist who uses REBT may ask you to identify where those beliefs may have come from (such as a verbally abusive parent) as well as determine whether those beliefs are irrational or rational. Then, the therapist teaches you strategies for forming new beliefs. A possible benefit to this approach is that it pushes you to question and reformulate the underlying causes of your negative-self talk, which may help prevent negative self-talk in the future.

Claim 2: You can’t silence your internal cynic completely. Neuroscience supports Kross’s claim that you can’t turn off your internal cynic. Research reveals that your subconscious thoughts tend to bubble up into conscious thoughts without you directing them to do so. You can’t choose which thoughts bubble up—but you can choose how much attention you give them. This research particularly supports a strategy Kross shares for quieting your internal cynic: directing your attention elsewhere. We’ll explore this strategy next.

Strategy 1: Pursue Amazement

According to Kross, you can quiet your internal cynic by directing your attention away from your negative self-talk and toward something amazing. Kross explains that amazing experiences can quiet your inner cynic because they reduce brain activity associated with self-immersion: getting lost in your thoughts, including negative self-talk.

(Shortform note: Amazing experiences also provide additional important benefits that Kross doesn’t mention. For instance, research reveals that experiencing amazement helps you feel like you have plenty of time. This may help reduce some of the stress you experience when you feel rushed. Furthermore, amazing experiences inspire creativity. Studies show that amazing experiences make you more open-minded about different perspectives.)

Here are four of Kross’s tips for seeking out amazing experiences:

1) Notice everyday, incredible moments. Enjoy the moment when your child uses a new word they’ve learned, or revel in the miraculous taste of your morning coffee. (Shortform note: In The Book of Delights, poet and essayist Ross Gay offers a strategy for noticing and appreciating everyday, incredible moments (which he calls “delights”): Write about them. He resolved to write every day about delights, from a bright red flower shooting up from a crack in the asphalt to getting a cheerful text message from a friend. He claims that the act of noticing and writing about delights led him to notice and appreciate even more everyday delights.)

2) Enjoy some art. Read a work of fiction, see a play, or attend a live performance. (Shortform note: Consider not only appreciating amazing art but also creating your own. Research reveals that making art (such as writing a song) increases blood flow to your brain’s reward center and lowers stress. Given the aforementioned links between experiencing stress and engaging in negative self-talk, stress-reducing art projects may also quiet your inner cynic.)

3) Witness something mind-blowing. Have a conversation with someone who survived a life-changing disaster or read a book about the neuroscience of octopi. (Shortform note: Research shows that mind-blowing experiences can increase your desire to connect positively with others. One study found that after participants viewed panoramic videos of Earth’s natural beauty, they were more social, more likely to volunteer, and more likely to donate money. This research suggests that witnessing something mind-blowing could prevent the social isolation negative self-talk creates.)

4) Spend time near nature. Go on a walk, visit an aquarium, or gaze at the night sky. (Shortform note: A recent study reveals that spending time in nature also improves your body image. Researchers theorize that being outdoors distances you from sources that tend to trigger negative thoughts about your body (such as social media). Improving your body image may in turn help to silence your inner critic, as critical thoughts about your body often manifest as negative self-talk.)

Strategy 2: Seek Out Actionable Empathy

When we’re struggling with something, many of us seek out others for emotional support. But Kross warns that seeking support from other people can sometimes make you feel worse and increase your negative self-talk.

Why does this happen? Kross explains that support-seeking often results in what psychologists call co-rumination: when the person supporting you asks too many questions about your challenge. Excessive questioning makes you re-experience the pain of the challenge and resurfaces related, painful memories. This is because brains process thoughts by making associations: When you recall one negative memory, your brain resurfaces other, related negative memories. When you re-experience all these memories, your internal cynic grows louder, intensifying your negative emotions.

(Shortform note: Research supports Kross’s claim that co-rumination can make you feel worse. A recent experimental study found that co-rumination makes the person sharing their problem feel more stressed and upset. Researchers also found that co-rumination causes a physical threat response that may harm your health in the long term, underscoring Kross’s claim that you should avoid it.)

According to Kross, you can limit co-rumination and quiet your internal cynic by seeking out actionable empathy: when someone offers you empathy and provides solutions to your challenge. They show empathy by validating the difficulty of your situation and the emotions it’s giving you. Then, instead of engaging in co-rumination by asking you too many reflective questions about your situation, they instead offer advice. This advice prevents you from revisiting painful memories and directs your attention toward a more hopeful future.

(Shortform note: Kross describes the method and benefits of actionable empathy, but he doesn't provide strategies for explicitly requesting this specific type of support. According to experts, you should use direct, assertive language to specify what type of support you need. For instance, imagine that your friend is providing you with emotional support after a rough breakup, and you notice the two of you are co-ruminating. You might tell your friend, “I think I’m done re-hashing the breakup. Can we shift to brainstorming ways I can make it through the next several weeks?”)

Strategy 3: Adopt a New Perspective

Seeking out actionable empathy works if you have access to others—but what if you’re by yourself and you need relief from your internal cynic? Kross claims that you can quiet your internal cynic by adopting a new perspective. This allows you to get outside of your head, bringing you clarity and a break from your body’s threat response. In this section, we’ll share four of Kross’s tips for quieting your internal cynic by adopting a new perspective.

Tip 1: Think of Your Problem as a Project

First, according to Kross, studies reveal that you can reduce your brain’s threat response by thinking of your problem as a project instead of a threat. When you approach your problem as a project that will develop your skills, you call upon your internal mentor, whose encouragement can drown out your internal cynic.

For instance, imagine you’re an organizer for housing justice and you’re feeling discouraged by your city’s lack of affordable housing. Instead of framing this as a threat to your coalition’s goals, think of it as a project that’ll push you and your coalition to develop new skills and tactics.

(Shortform note: Experts on public speaking offer wisdom that may further explain why it’s effective to reframe your problem as a project. When preparing for a speech or performance, experts recommend channeling nervous energy into excitement because it’s easier than trying to achieve calmness. This is because nervousness and excitement are more similar feelings than nervousness and calmness. This advice overlaps with Kross’s: Reframing your nervousness as excitement and reframing your problem as a challenge both involve accepting and embracing your energy level instead of trying to alter it.)

Tip 2: Compare Your Present to the Past

Kross claims that you can also quiet your internal cynic by comparing your present situation to other challenges you’ve endured in the past. Remembering these past successes offers hope that you’re capable of persisting through your current challenge. These feelings of hope can transform your internal cynic into an internal mentor.

For example, imagine you’re having trouble setting boundaries with a family member and your internal cynic is chastising you for being a pushover. To counteract this negativity, remind yourself of times in the past when you’ve effectively set boundaries with other people.

(Shortform note: During stressful moments when your internal cynic is reverberating in your mind and taking over your thoughts, it might be hard to focus enough to recall past challenges and follow Kross’s advice to compare them to your present. To make it easier to use Kross’s method in these difficult moments, start a list of your past challenges and accomplishments. Keep the list accessible so you don’t have to hunt it down next time you need it. For instance, keep the list at the top of your phone’s notes app or keep it in a small journal on your desk.)

Tip 3: Imagine How You’ll Feel in the Future

If comparing your current situation to the past doesn’t provide relief, look to the future instead. Kross claims that you can quiet your negative self-talk by imagining a positive future. Consider how you’ll feel about your current situation in one month, a year, and 10 years. Contextualizing your present in your future can trigger the hopeful realization that your current situation is temporary. As previously noted, hopefulness hushes your internal cynic.

(Shortform note: This strategy resembles one of the central tenets of Buddhist philosophy: that everything—including negative experiences—is impermanent. According to experts on Buddhist wisdom, remembering this tenet can help you endure difficult moments. Tell yourself, “These difficult emotions will pass.” The idea of impermanence also applies to positive experiences, which may feel disappointing: We often want positive moments to last forever. Buddhist leaders such as the Dalai Lama claim that you can deal with the impermanence of positive experiences by reminding yourself to savor them.)

Tip 4: Avoid Using the “I” Pronoun in Your Self-Talk

A final way to adopt a new perspective is to shift the pronouns your internal voice uses. Kross claims that the pronouns you use in your self-talk affect the power of your internal cynic. People who address themselves using the first-person pronoun “I” experience more negative emotions than people who address themselves using different pronouns. Pronouns other than “I,” such as “he,” “she,” “they,” and “you,” give you distance from your current situation, preventing you from losing yourself in negative emotions that fuel your negative self-talk. When you use these other pronouns, your brain’s threat response is less activated.

(Shortform note: Kross’s suggestion that you shift the pronouns in your self-talk suggests that you have some degree of control over what your internal voice says and how it says it. However, as previously noted, some experts claim that we can’t control which thoughts arise in our minds. This suggests that you can’t prevent your internal voice from using the negative “I” pronoun when the voice first arises. Therefore, think of Kross’s pronoun-replacing strategy as one you employ after your internal cynic says something negative using the “I” pronoun.)

Combining Kross’s Pronoun-Replacing Strategy With His Other Strategies

Although Kross doesn’t say so in his book, it may work well to combine his pronoun-replacing strategy with his other perspective-adopting strategies. Since each strategy targets your internal cynic in a slightly different way, combining them may increase your ability to quiet your internal cynic. To try this, avoid using first-person pronouns when using Kross’s first three perspective-adopting strategies. We’ll illustrate how to do so using this scenario: You did poorly on your job’s first performance review.

• Use second-person pronouns to think of your problem as a project. Tell yourself, “You have a number of areas of growth, and making progress on these will both strengthen your skills and impress your superiors.”

• Use third-person pronouns to compare your present to the past. Tell yourself, “In her previous job, she also had a rocky start. She improved her skills in that job, so she can improve her skills in this one, too.”

• Use second-person pronouns to imagine how you’ll feel in the future. Tell yourself, “The embarrassment of receiving a negative review will eventually pass, and then you’ll be able to focus on making improvements based on your boss’s advice.”

Strategy 4: Increase Your Sense of Control

According to Kross, you can also quiet your internal cynic by increasing your sense of control. Any time your internal cynic takes over, you feel overwhelmed by its voice and lose your sense of control. Strategies that replenish your sense of control give you hope that you can steer your future toward a positive outcome.

One way to regain control, Kross claims, is to organize your time and your physical space. For example, organize your time by making a schedule for your day or week. You can organize your space on a small scale (such as sorting your desktop files into folders) or on a large scale (such as cleaning your home).

(Shortform note: If your life is particularly busy, it can be hard to find time to replenish your sense of control by organizing your time and physical space. One technique for making this happen is scheduling time to devote to these tasks. First, consider setting aside 15 minutes each day to declutter your physical space. Some experts claim that you’re more likely to declutter if you do a little bit every day instead of waiting to do it all in one day. Second, commit to organizing your time by creating a consistent daily routine that prioritizes important tasks and also includes times for breaks. Experts claim that daily schedules save you mental energy because it’s mentally taxing to formulate a new schedule from scratch every day.)

Strategy 5: Engage in Rituals

Finally, according to Kross, rituals—from wearing a lucky hat to uttering a prayer—quiet our internal cynic. Kross explains that rituals combine the benefits of multiple other strategies that also reduce negative self-talk (some of which we discussed in earlier sections). Let’s explore three reasons why rituals are effective at quieting your internal cynic.

Reason 1: Rituals Often Involve Our Communities

Kross claims that rituals that involve other people, such as religious ceremonies, quiet our negative self-talk. This is because other people can reduce feelings of isolation and help us cope with negative emotions.

(Shortform note: Kross doesn’t explicitly explore why spending time with others reduces your negative self-talk, but we can infer that it accomplishes this in two ways. First, spending time with others reduces your self-immersion by directing your thoughts away from your cyclical self-talk and toward socializing. Second, community rituals can expose you to your support network, which increases your access to actionable empathy.)

Reason 2: Rituals Direct Our Attention Elsewhere

Kross also argues that rituals require you to channel your brain power away from negative self-talk and toward the steps in the ritual behavior. For instance, imagine you’re one half of a comedy duo. You and your partner engage in the following ritual before every performance: You drink a shot of soju, do a secret handshake, then look into each other’s eyes and exclaim, “You’re the funniest person I know!” This ritual distracts you from your internal cynic’s worries that you’ll freeze on stage and fail to deliver a funny routine.

(Shortform note: Rituals may be particularly effective before you engage in some sort of performance. While Kross focuses on the ways that rituals distract you from negative self-talk, other neuroscientists emphasize that rituals reduce overall performance anxiety. When you perform a ritual before a performance (such as a comedy act or a sports game), you experience less anxiety if you fail during the performance (for instance, by botching a joke or missing a goal).)

Reason 3: Rituals Give You a Sense of Control

Finally, according to Kross, rituals give you a sense of control. As we discussed earlier, having a sense of control reduces your internal cynic’s power over you. Kross elaborates that rituals create a sense of control because they’re a type of placebo. A placebo is something that you believe will help you, even if there’s nothing specifically about the placebo itself that helps you. Believing in a placebo reassures you that the future will be better, which quiets your internal cynic’s pessimistic worries. Furthermore, when you believe a placebo will make things better, your brain’s threat response decreases.

For instance, imagine that you’re in the process of searching for a new job, and you develop the ritual of listening to your favorite song before each interview. Even if there’s nothing about the song itself that reduces your nerves, your belief that it reduces your nerves gives you a sense of control. This sense of control quiets your internal cynic before and during your interviews.

(Shortform note: You may find it hard to commit to a ritual that you know is a placebo: It may feel hard to “trick” yourself into believing it’ll help you if you know the ritual isn’t inherently helpful. Therefore, consider engaging in rituals that provide other clear benefits. You’ll engage in the ritual to experience those benefits, then you may also experience the benefit Kross names—an increased sense of control, which can quiet your internal cynic. For instance, engage in a gratitude ritual every evening. Reflect on three things from your day that you’re grateful for. Research reveals that feelings of gratitude boost your well-being. The sense of control this ritual provides you with may also help quiet your negative self-talk.)