What We Are Reading - Chatter
In case you haven’t figured it out yet - we are nerds - giant giant nerds. The nerdiest of all the nerds. And, like nerds do, we love books - real life paper books, audio books, podcasts, Harvard Business Review articles. We love them all.
So welcome to what will be an ongoing series - What We Are Reading.
On today’s episode of What We are Reading, we are going to share some of our favorite excerpts from the book Chatter: The Voices in Our Head, Why it Matters, & How to Harness It, by Dr. Ethan Kross.
This is not going to be a summary of this book; rather, it will be a compilation of some of our favorite excerpts - we are going for something between Cliff’s Notes and Instagram quote tiles. We will say up front that you should read this book - in its entirety. It is full of fantastic stories, science, and insight. But here is a little sneak peek to whet your appetite. Enjoy!
Chatter: The Voices in Our Head, Why it Matters, & How to Harness It
WHAT IS CHATTER?
“Chatter consists of the cyclical negative thoughts and emotions that turn our singular capacity for introspection into a curse rather than a blessing.” - Introduction
“Chatter in the form of repetitive anxious thoughts is a marvelous saboteur when it comes to focused tasks. Countless studies reveal its debilitating effects.” - Pg. 29
CHATTER & THE BODY
“One of the most chilling discoveries I’ve had in my career is that chatter doesn’t simply hurt people in an emotional sense; it has physical implications for our body as well, from the way we experience physical pain all the way down to the way our genes operate in our cells.” - Pg. 37
“…we wanted to know….whether the way the brain processes an experience of emotional pain was similar to how it processes physical pain…..Incredibly, there was a high degree of overlap in brain regions that play a role in our sensory experience of physical pain. In other words, our results suggested that emotional pain had a physical component as well.” - Pg. 38
“Yes, we can create a chronic physiological stress reaction just by thinking. And when our inner voice fuels that stress, it can be devastating to our health. Countless studies have linked the long-term activation of our stress-response systems with illnesses that span the gamut from cardiovascular disease to sleep disorders to various forms of cancer.” - Pg. 40
ZOOMING IN & OUT
“We can think of the mind as a lens and our inner voices as a button that zooms it either in or out. In the simplest sense, chatter is what happens when we zoom in close on something, inflaming our emotions to the exclusion of all the alternative ways of thinking about the issue…….we lose perspective.” - Pg. 48
“In theory, you could use your mind to frame your problems from a zoomed-out perspective………The point was to engage, but to do so from a distanced perspective, which isn’t the same thing as an emotionally avoidant one.” - Pg. 49
DISTANCED SELF TALK
“As our experiments and others later demonstrated, shifting from the first-person “I” to the second-person “you or third person “he” or “she” provides a mechanism for gaining emotional distance. Distanced self-talk, then, is a psychological hack embedded into the fabric of human language.” - Pg. 73
“The results indicated that participants displayed much less emotional activity in the brain when they used distanced language to reflect on their feelings after viewing the disturbing pictures.” - Pg. 76
THE UNIVERSAL “YOU”
“There is potent psychological comfort that comes from normalizing experiences, from knowing that what you’re experiencing isn’t unique to you, but rather something that everyone experiences - that, unpleasant as it is, it’s just the stuff of life.” - Pg. 82
“….people use the universal “you” to makes sense of negative experiences, to think about difficult events as not unique to the self but instead characteristic of life in general….” - Pg. 85
THE CO-RUMINATION TRAP
“In study after study, Rime found that talking to others about our negative experiences doesn’t help us recover in any meaningful way.” - Pg. 91
“Co-rumination is the crucial juncture where support subtly becomes egging on. People who care about us prompt us to talk more about our negative experiences, which leads us to become more upset, which then leads them to ask still more questions. A vicious cycle ensues, one that is all too easy to get sucked into, especially because it is driven by good intentions.” - Pg. 95
OUTSIDE IN
“In 1970, Stephen and Rachel Kaplan, both psychologists at the University of Michigan, had begun to advance an intriguing idea: that nature could act like a battery of sorts, recharging the limited attentional reserves that the human brain possesses.” - Pg. 112
“When we involuntarily pay attention to something, it’s because the object of our attention has an inherently intriguing quality that effortlessly draws us to it. …..Your attention has been gently reeled in by a process the Kaplan’s called “soft fascination.” - Pg. 112
“Voluntary attention is easily exhausted and needs continual recharging, while involuntary attention doesn’t burn as much of our brain’s limited resources. The Kaplans believed that nature draws our involuntary attention because it is rife with soft fascinations: subtly stimulating properties that our mind is pulled to unconsciously.” - Pg. 113
“Collectively, these findings demonstrate that nature provides humans with a tool for caring for our inner voice from the outside in, and the longer we’re exposed to nature, the more our health improves.” - Pg. 116
PLACEBOS
“Placebos are part of an ancient human tradition of endowing objects or symbols with “magic.” - Pg. 133
“Study after study demonstrates that simply believing that a placebo - a charmed object, healing human presence, or special environment - is going to make us feel better actually does…..The message from this and many other studies is clear: Our minds are sometimes as powerful as modern medicine.” - Pg 135
“…what is going on is that I have a belief. This belief shapes my expectations, which in turn makes me feel better.” - Pg. 140
RITUALS
“Regardless of whether the rituals we engage in are personalized or collective, research indicates that when many people experience chatter, they naturally turn to this seemingly magical form of behavior (rituals) and it offers relief for the inner voice.” - Pg. 145
“Rituals are infused with meaning. They are charged with significance because they have a crucial underlying purpose……..they help us transcend our own concerns connecting us with forces larger than ourselves.” - Pg. 147
“Many rituals also provide us with a sense of order, because we perform behaviors we can control.” - Pg. 147
The voice in our head and the human ability for introspection that it provides is, “one of the central evolutionary advances that distinguishes human beings from other species.” (Introduction: Pg. xviii), and like most things, it can be both a blessing and a curse. Fortunately, our minds also hold the tools for guiding our inner voice when it becomes a little too chatter-y.
Dr. Kross ends his book with a section called “The Tools", where he summarizes the actionable practices that you can use to unlock the magic of your mind. Within your mind you have both the ability to chatter yourself to the edge, and also the ability to bring yourself back to safety.
The mind truly is magic.
XO,
Anna Baeten @ Failure Lab
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