Dear Reader:
How many of us have gotten caught talking to ourselves and been given the ” look” from a friend or stranger… followed by the dreaded question ” Are you talking to yourself?”
Most of my generation grew up with the wives tale that people who talked to themselves were sorta looney. Not so… says modern psychologists… in fact… just the opposite!
One article I read… measured concentration and performance of talking through and reading aloud information … discovering it dramatically improved memory retention .
I think most of us can admit to talking ourselves through mundane problems – solving situations like where we last left those car keys… by talking aloud our memory visualizes the rooms we entered carrying the keys until suddenly we know where they are… on the bed where you were when you got a phone call and placed them right beside you.
I have learned from experience that if I want to remember an amazing line of thought from a book I am reading… I find myself reading the line over and over aloud… that sends it directly to my memory bank.
Haven’t we all heard toddlers walk by a fireplace and say ” No No …hot hot” aloud? We adults are thinking the same thing but now that conversation takes the form of inner self talk… memory talk.
And think about athletes… haven’t we all witnessed professional tennis players talking to themselves … thus boosting their self-confidence by self-encouragement.
Research has shown that the mind doesn’t differentiate between talking to yourself out loud or in your head. You should engage in whichever form of self-talk is most comfortable for you.
I remember mother would some times tell us ( as children if we did something intentionally wrong) that we needed to ” give ourselves a good talking to” because we were raised to know better than that.” She was right. We were!
So until tomorrow… inner talk helps us organize our thoughts, plan actions or steps, and consolidate memory… talking out loud improves one’s control over a task! So all you readers… talk away to yourselves…you’re just getting smarter ! Stare down those strange looks at the grocery store!
Today is my favorite day… Winnie the Pooh
***Libby said to thank everyone for their prayers yesterday… she will have to wait on test results but just so relieved to be able to X out Feb 1 on her calendar… and thankful to the ” rabbits” too!
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Just a short update… several of you have mentioned that recently the blog post is no longer showing up daily on your email… it can be googled and it is there everyday but no longer automatically being posted to your personal email account.
Trying to get to the bottom of this quirk… so if anyone has any helpful advice for those readers who are experiencing these email annoyances… please share your expertise since we have many talented blog writers, themselves, who also read Chapelofhopestories. Thank you!
