Book Review: Chatter by Ethan Kross

How would it feel to change your “inner voice from critic to coach”? We all have that internal monologue on the go; something that voice can be helpful, but far too often it’s not. You may find yourself re-hashing things that have happened in the past or mithering about what may happen in the future. Yet when you look around, it appears everyone else is living in the moment; in control of their emotions and living a confident life. Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s not the case. And, Chatter* by Ethan Kross, will not only tell you why but help you understand how to harness this voice inside all of our heads. Over to this month’s book review. 

 

 

Ethan Kross PhD is one of the world’s leading experts on controlling the conscious mind. As a Psychologist and neuroscientist, he has been studying this for over two decades, and has used his findings, intertwined with case studies and cutting-edge science, to answer the following:

 

“These silent conversations are so powerful they can sink our mood, trip us up and even impact our health. How can we take back control? “

 

The book is quite an eye-opener to the reality of this internal chatter. On average, it’s reported that we “talk” to ourselves at an equivalent rate of four thousand words a minute (if it was out loud!) So it’s no surprise how much this can affect us, and can leave us feeling so tired at the end of each day. What is revealed in the book is that the internal chatter we have is purposeful. 

It enables us to multitask, helps build our capacity for working memory, works hand in hand with our emotional development and also runs mental simulations to help us learn and make decisions. This blog itself has been created through the mental chatter and feedback that was generated whilst I read the book.

 

However powerful the human brain can be, what we want to understand is how we can turn off the negative aspects of this chatter. It is particularly pronounced when it moves into a rumination state (revising past events) or over-focusing on the future, through worry. When I finished the book, my internal voice loudly exclaimed “Why aren’t we taught this earlier”? especially as it includes a range of tools to manage this internal voice, for only ourselves, but to develop positive relationships with others, and to help shape your environment to help manage your internal voice. 

 

The book is full of an interesting overview of why chatter can cause harm or good, I wanted to share with you five tips from Ethan Kross to help harness it.

 

In true Clara Cliff Notes style, there are five things you need to know: 

 

 

1. Take a birds-eye view of your internal chatter.

It is suggested one way of reducing the way internal thoughts intrude, is to create what is known as “temporal distance”. Considering how you will feel about this moment, or thought, significantly in the future, can give you perspective and change what feels like a major issue into a minor event. For example, that deadline that you are losing sleep over? Imagine how you will feel about this in 5 years. 

 

2. Surround yourself with what feels good

Whilst taking a step back can help with negative feelings and chatter, Kross’ research has found immersing yourself in the feelings and thoughts generated by a positive experience can help you amplify and enhance the positive. 

 

3. Consider the impact of the boring thoughts

We have all been there, working our way through something that feels repetitive and purposeless. It’s a means to an end, but you find yourself distracted and maybe even stopping this necessary thing. Like “temporal distancing”, you can also work on changing your perspective by considering the “big picture”. How does this frustrating task lead to what you want in the future? This is reinforced through research; for example, when students were asked to consider the big picture of their stressful and mundane work in High School, their GPA score was raised! 

 

4. Take the person out of the emotion

Whilst it may feel strange, talking about yourself in the third person can help you distance yourself emotionally from the negative and potentially destructive chatter. For example, rather than “I feel overwhelmed” it would become “Clara feels overwhelmed”. Having this separation, we are told, helps improve performance during problem-solving as it promotes more rational thinking. Imagine the power if it’s combined with the temporal distancing of point one!

 

 

5. Harness the power of nature

This may be unexpected, but I am sure it’s one we have all recognised. It’s been mentioned before, the power of active rest, but Chatter enables us to understand the science behind its power. External space impacts internal chatter. It’s been found that getting ourselves into a green space – a garden, a forest or a park, captures our involuntary attention. Rather than focusing inwards on our chatter, we are paying attention to our surroundings and, as a consequence, quietening our minds. It’s that powerful, even “second-hand” nature (such as pictures or recordings of natural sounds) has been found to impact us; studies have uncovered an improvement in a range of physical health and well-being measurements. 

 It was hard focusing on just these five; the volume of notes I made risked my info dumping the whole book for you. It won’t surprise you to read that I think this is a book everyone needs to read; like our previous titles “Rip It Up” and “ The Idiot Brain”, it gives insights into the WHY we do what we do, but Chatter extends the expertise to explain the HOW we can be calmer, and yes, harness that internal voice in our head.

 

You can read more of the book club titles here and join us every month in Creating Careers to Enjoy to discuss our chosen read-along. 

*This link is my bookshop; if you shop through it I may get a small commission.