Is it normal to talk to yourself? That’s the million-dollar question that I often her from my therapy clients. My answer is “yes!” Here’s why it’s normal (and even very healthy) to talk to yourself. There’s a big difference between talking to yourself and responding to internal voices or hearing voices, which is concerning and I’ll lay out below the difference.
We are always talking to ourselves, whether out loud or internally
We are blessed with the gift of language, which is a powerful tool our brain uses to process stimuli from our environment, and make sense of ourselves and our world. We have a running dialogue in our heads all time, and we just call this ‘thoughts.’ A though is simply a bunch of words that run in the background pretty much all the time while we’re awake. We are always telling ourselves a story about what’s happening, what is means, and what we want to do in the future.
All these internal thoughts form our internal dialogue, and it’s an incredibly important piece of mental health. If we can self-reflect (or have a therapist reflect back to you)on our internal dialogue, we can learn a lot about how we think about ourselves and how we perceive the world.
For example, do you talk to yourself in a nice way or a harsh way? Does the internal dialogue sound calm or scared? Angry? Defensive? Shameful? Do you perceive the world as a safe place or a scary place? Does it seem like you talk to yourself like a friend would or (usually more likely) like an irritated, judgmental teacher?
Examining all these thoughts are an important part of therapy, and changing that dialogue over time can lift depression, calm anxiety, fix relationships and lead to a life that’s just more peaceful and fulfilled.
What about when I talk to myself out loud?
This kind of self-talk is similar to the ongoing internal dialogue but it’s a bit more pronounced. Obviously, you’re talking out loud now and that requires even more processing than just thinking in words. When we articulate our thoughts and feelings into words, they become more clarified, more integrated, and seem more ‘real’ to us. It’s really healthy to talk in this way, whether to yourself or another person. It’s beneficial to force your brain to condense all the thoughts and feelings that are floating around internally into words and sentences. It’s basically explaining yourself to yourself.
If you have small kids, or watch parents with small kids, you will see this happening between the parent and child. Before we can talk, we need help to organize our world, our thoughts, and our feelings. So we need a parent (or other adult) to explain ourselves to ourselves. And it’s soothing to kids. For example, here’s some things I used to say to my daughter when she was really little.
Wow, you just bonked your head. I bet that really hurt. We can say ‘ow!’ when he bump our head.
You wanted that toy but can’t reach it. That makes your feel mad so you cry.
You love looking at that doggy! You’re smiling and it means you’re happy.
As we get older, we can internalize this language and don’t need our parents to do it for us any more.
The takeaway here is talking to yourself helps you organize and clarify your own experience, and that’s inherently calming for us.
Why Should I Talk to Myself Out Loud?
It may sound a little strange, but I encourage my clients to talk to themselves out loud; I even teach them how to do it in the most effective way. Talking to yourself out loud does a few things for you:
- -Organizes your thoughts
- -Clarifies your feelings
- -Helps your feel validated (validated by yourself)
- -Allows you to coach yourself towards a better response
- -Helps you plan your next step effectively
- -Helps you practice how to relate your experience to others
I do tell my clients to talk to themselves in a safe space where they are alone and not worried about being overheard; this helps the dialogue just flow without too much self-editing. Great places are at home, in your car, on a walk (with some earbuds in), or while doing chores around the house.
Here’s some examples of a great dialogue that I helped my client learn how to do in response to anxiety (I’m paraphrasing here):
Okay, I’ve got my performance review coming up today. I feel really nervous it, which makes sense because a performance review if nerve-wracking. It’s out of my control, and that’s always hard for me. I feel a little shaky and I notice I’m playing out some worst-case scenarios in my head. Ugh, I hate this feeling! Okay, my therapist taught me how to do some deep breathing and some self-coaching so I’m going to try that now even though I feel a little silly talking to myself on my commute. Here goes: it’s normal to be nervous, it’s okay. I have prepared for this meeting. I’m going to give it my best shot and see what happens. I’m going to be open to feedback. I’ve come a long way this year. If the worst happens and I get fired, I can find another job. I’ve never been fired before. Okay, that feels a little better. I’m proud of myself for working on my anxiety.
You can see that my client here is basically acting as their own coach or therapist. They are talking to themselves in a helpful way. anyone would feel better after hearing all of this. That’s how positive self-talk works, and the best way to learn how to do this and make it automatic for yourself is to practice out loud (even if it feels silly).
When does talking to yourself become unhealthy?
When people get worried about talking to yourself, they are usually thinking about psychosis or schizophrenia. These are mental health diagnoses that sometimes have the symptom of hearing voice or talking to people that aren’t really there (i.e. hallucinating).
Responding to internal stimuli is really different than verbalizing your internal dialogue. When you hear voices, these are internal thoughts that are distinctly not your own. People with Schizophrenia sometimes hear a voice (audible only to them) or ‘hear’ an internal voice that is not experienced as coming from them. So it’s not ‘my thought is x’, it’s more like ‘I hear x’.
If this is happening for you, it can be serious and seek out help. However, it is relatively rare and very treatable.