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The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

nytimes.com

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Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#11

Post by Shank »

I can relate in the multi-step process part. I tend to speak out loud to stop my thoughts from bouncing from point to point. The result is usually a more cohesive set of steps to achieve success on something.

It makes me wonder if this is part of why journaling has mental health benefits. Maybe the act of journaling introduces this same objectivity and thus improves thinking about a subject? E.g., the benefits described in Journaling about stressful events: Effects of cognitive processing and emotional expression [0]?

[0 (Fulltext PDF)]: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Philip_Ullrich/publicat...

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#13

Post by jaredsohn »

vorg wrote: post #10

Another benefit of talking to oneself is to find out who's listening in on your computer/phone microphone, or bugs in the apartment. By saying different things to oneself in different locations, one can hone in which locations are being surveilled. I discovered when I lived in Melbourne Australia and again in China that there's plenty of people around with nothing better to do with their time.

How did you find out you were being surveilled?

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#14

Post by movedx »

vorg wrote: post #10

Another benefit of talking to oneself is to find out who's listening in on your computer/phone microphone, or bugs in the apartment. By saying different things to oneself in different locations, one can hone in which locations are being surveilled. I discovered when I lived in Melbourne Australia and again in China that there's plenty of people around with nothing better to do with their time.

And what did you discover in Australia and China? Who was listening in, how, and why?

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#15

Post by movedx »

I like to talk out loud/to my self in a way in which I'm having a conversation with future me who's solved the problem I'm currently going over. I talk to key points around the problem and the solution and have a conservation about how it worked and what it did... essentially I try and establish a theory about what the future might look like around that problem set should I implement solution X.

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#16

Post by rosstex »

Even when I'm not actually speaking out loud, I find that my thoughts often act very similarly: I'm usually having a conversation with myself. And I'll try to crack myself up, or reference movie quotes, or break into a song or dramatic monologue.

(Anyone who's upvoting this, does that mean I'm not alone or I'm insane?)

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#17

Post by Eyght »

If I say something out loud I usually realize much quicker if it makes sense or not. The act of vocalizing a thought triggers a second check whether or not I'm making a fool of myself, and quite often it turns out that I am!

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#18

Post by wjdp »

__jal wrote: post #7
gregmac wrote: post #5

This made me think of rubber duck problem solving [1][2], though it didn't mention it specifically. Talking through a problem out loud forces you to structure your thoughts in a logical way, and sometimes doing that you'll realize an obvious connection or step you missed. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging [2] http://hwrnmnbsol.livejournal.com/148664.html

For me, it isn't even vocalizing - I discovered that forcing things into words helps me troubleshoot after noticing that I solved my own problems after giving up and composing an email to someone to ask for help. The act of describing the problem in written form allowed me to see what I was missing. Since noticing that, I started doing it fairly, and not just with programming. At some point, I realized I was keeping…

When writing SO questions I tend to only press the submit button 5–10% of the time before realising my error (typically something mundane). The act of putting the problem into words, along with writing up a good background of the problem (as you should for a good question) often forces an objective viewpoint/reevaluation of the problem.

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#20

Post by redcap »

Japanese train drivers have a system that's called Pointing and Calling

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pointing-and-calling-ja...

Visual and audio feedback is great for your brain.

For me, I often need to make a 200mL bottle for my child, and each scoop of powder makes only 20mL - meaning that I need to put 10 scoops in. Especially when I have a crying baby it's easy to lose track when you count in your head. But no worries if I vocalize my count.

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