The Human Upgrade: Biohacking for Longevity & Performance

How to Control, Reframe and Change the Chatter in Your Head! – Ethan Kross, Ph.D. : 1072

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Jul 25, 2023

Ethan Kross, an award-winning professor and founder of the Emotion & Self Control Laboratory, shares insights on how to harness your inner voice. He explains how self-talk can either soothe anxiety or create chaos. Techniques like distant self-talk help manage negative chatter, and awareness of negativity bias can transform emotional regulation. Kross emphasizes the role of altruism in enhancing well-being and discusses how our environment influences our thoughts. He provides practical tools to reframe internal dialogue and improve relationships.

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INSIGHT

Inner Voice Functions

The inner voice, using language for reflection, is a fundamental human feature, not always negative.
It serves crucial functions like memory, problem-solving, planning, and storytelling.

INSIGHT

Chatter Defined

"Chatter" is the negative manifestation of inner voice, causing anxiety and hindering clear thinking.
It involves getting stuck in negative thought loops, impacting thoughts, relationships, and health.

ADVICE

Distant Self-Talk

Harness the inner voice's power by using "distant self-talk" during anxious moments.
Coach yourself through problems using your name and second-person pronouns, like advising a friend.

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In this episode of The Human Upgrade you’ll find out how to harness the power of your inner voice to ease anxiety, improve physical and mental health, and deepen your relationship with others.

“The mind is flexible, if we know how to bend it,” says psychologist and award-winning professor Ethan Kross, Ph.D., founder of the Emotion & Self Control Laboratory at the University of Michigan.

He’s one of the world’s leading experts in controlling the conscious mind. He studies the ways in which your inner voice impacts your health, performance, decisions and relationships. He explores how people manage their emotions in order to better understand self-control. In particular, the conversations you have with yourself directly impact every part of your health and life.

He explain that your inner voice functions to do things like this:

Keep information active in your mind
Coach you through problems
Simulate and plan ahead
Tell you stories

That inner voice can be a powerful tool, giving you creativity, connection and definition. However, when the voice turns to negative and disorienting self-talk (chatter), it can create chaos and overwhelm by zooming into our problems, making you lose perspective.

Ethan’s pioneering research mixes behavioral and brain research to get at the “why” behind human nature. He uses insights from his research to give people science-based tools they can use to change their behavior, be used in relationships, support a career move, improve physical performance, decrease stress, increase productivity and be used to reach life goals. You’ll use new tools like mental time travel, tough love and introspection.

In this conversation about his book, “CHATTER: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It,” you’ll learn:

How social media plays a part in our chatter
How to zoom out with a flexible mind, changing thoughts and distancing ourselves
How to use tough love
How to teach your kids about chatter from a young age
How to help your friends with their own chatter (and what makes it worse)

With Ethan’s experience studying the conscious mind for 20 years, you can learn how to turn negativity into an awesome tool that helps you master your own self-talk.

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