Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 149 posts

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#21

Post by alistproducer2 »

I grew up an only child and so in absence of anyone else, I learned to talk to myself instead. I naturally have a busy mind and over the years I've found that getting a thought out of my head is the quickest way to get it out of the way.

I've had anxiety issues over the years. One day I was feeling a bit anxious and suddenly the idea came over me to just try to shut off my inner voice - completely. I focused on trying to silence it and suddenly, once it was quiet, my nerves completely melted away. It was amazing. For the next few days I tried to continue my "quiet mind" exercises. It got to the point where I began to wonder if something was wrong with me. The silence became deafening. Scared I might've broken something in my mind I gave up quiet mind but it was incredibly effective against my anxiety.

Now I try and be more balanced in how much I talk to myself and how much I let the voice in my head narrate the world.

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#22

Post by CarVac »

redcap wrote: post #20

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'…

Or if you put it on a kitchen scale...

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#23

Post by ClassyJacket »

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.

Are you talking about a friend leaving their phone in your room for a few minutes as a prank, or actual serious surveillance by an organisation?

With the latter, believing that can be a symptom of paranoid Schizophrenia. And as a person who's dealt with mental illness myself, it's way better acknowledging and dealing with it as soon as you can.

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#24

Post by MichaelGG »

alistproducer2 wrote: post #21

I grew up an only child and so in absence of anyone else, I learned to talk to myself instead. I naturally have a busy mind and over the years I've found that getting a thought out of my head is the quickest way to get it out of the way. I've had anxiety issues over the years. One day I was feeling a bit anxious and suddenly the idea came over me to just try to shut off my inner voice - completely. I focused on tryin…

How did you shut off your inner voice? I went on a multi-day, complete-silence (no talking, reading, etc.) retreat to meditate and found I wasn't much closer to shutting off the internal voice or flood of random thoughts.

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#25

Post by lopatin »

> "Language provides us with this tool to gain distance from our own experiences when we’re reflecting on our lives. And that’s really why it’s useful"

True for computer languages also. One of the ideas behind Lisp is that the language used to express ideas is a also tool for reasoning about those ideas.

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#26

Post by braveo »

CarVac wrote: post #22
redcap wrote: post #20

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'…

Or if you put it on a kitchen scale...

especially since companies are notorious for making the scoops bigger than expected so you go through product quicker.

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#27

Post by shusson »

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.

Hmm you should probably stop talking to yourself...

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#28

Post by jonnybgood »

MichaelGG wrote: post #24
alistproducer2 wrote: post #21

I grew up an only child and so in absence of anyone else, I learned to talk to myself instead. I naturally have a busy mind and over the years I've found that getting a thought out of my head is the quickest way to get it out of the way. I've had anxiety issues over the years. One day I was feeling a bit anxious and suddenly the idea came over me to just try to shut off my inner voice - completely. I focused on tryin…

How did you shut off your inner voice? I went on a multi-day, complete-silence (no talking, reading, etc.) retreat to meditate and found I wasn't much closer to shutting off the internal voice or flood of random thoughts.

My understanding is that you can dissociate from its content which "quiets" its affect on your being. The best advice I've read is to simply become a scientist of your thoughts. Observe your thoughts objectively like a scientist would.

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#30

Post by chucksmash »

wjdp wrote: post #18
__jal wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Very much this. The flow for me goes:

1) I don't understand that. Let me ask StackOverflow.

2) I'm having trouble phrasing my question properly. What do you call $X? Googling ensues

3) Oh nevermind, I get it now

Post reply on HN