Talking to yourself has health benefits

Talking to yourself in the third person can help control your emotions when you’re upset, new research suggests.

The findings are based on experiments in which volunteers underwent brain scans while confronted with upsetting situations.

For example, a man named Fred is upset about a recent romantic breakup. By reflecting on his feelings in the third person (“Why is Fred upset?”), he is better able to keep his emotions in check than if he uses the first person (“Why am I upset?”), according to the study authors.

“Essentially, we think referring to yourself in the third person leads people to think about themselves more similar to how they think about others, and you can see evidence for this in the brain,” said Jason Moser, an associate professor of psychology at Michigan State University.

“That helps people gain a tiny bit of psychological distance from their experiences, which can often be useful for regulating emotions,” he explained in a university news release.

Source: Health24.com