A Habit that Seems Crazy.

When we see a person talking to himself, it seems strange to us, we even think that this person might have a mental disorder, because talking to himself has always been associated with being crazy. But if you think about it, even we, who do not have any mental disorder, have sometimes talked to ourselves when we believe that no one is watching us.

The act of talking to oneself, or private speech is a type of talking called by psychologists as "self-directed speech", now if it happens in a very young child it is called "egocentric speech". In young children seeing them play and talk alone is normal, we always observe it in our young children. It is a normal process that with the passage of time is reduced and then disappears to give way to inner speech or verbal thought. But some of us adults still retain self-directed speech expressed in whispers, visibly moving our mouths.

Adults who talk to themselves are not crazy, we are just processing information by making our thoughts in an audible form to help us organize ideas, thus self-directed speech enhances comprehension. This private speaking occurs more frequently when we have many activities to perform, allowing greater understanding and performance in the activities, in other words, it helps to organize thoughts for action. When I am talking to myself I express in a low voice what I am going to do before I do it, in this way, I am planning my actions.

On many occasions I find myself talking to myself, very often I do it when I am in the kitchen and I want to know what I have before preparing a dish, I repeat out loud what I have and what I am missing of the ingredients, I also do it if I am organizing my room and when I go for a walk. And it is one of my favorite ways to repeat out loud when I want to learn something, I remember it more easily if I repeat it out loud several times.

We remember better if we repeat several times or explain something out loud to ourselves, in fact it was my best way to learn when I was studying in school and then in college. I would explain out loud what I wanted to learn and that way my brain retains the information better, how many times have we done the same thing, even when we don't have a place to write down a new phone number we repeat it to memorize the number.

In my house I am not the only person who talks to myself, my son does it too. On many occasions I observe my son when he moves his mouth and is absorbed with himself talking to himself, he has a habit that seems crazy... haha

I know my son does it when he is doing a complex activity, the more difficulty he has in doing the activity the more he expresses it verbally, looking for the solution to the problem sitting at his desk. He uses it as a strategy to organize his ideas and put them into practice.

In conclusion, talking to yourself is more normal than many people think and it is even healthy because it allows you to release accumulated stress before a job or activity that is presented with difficulty. But we have to make something clear if what you verbalize is not consistent with the activities we do, also if being in public you start to talk without any sense or when loudly transmit negative messages and you are unable to control that way of talking alone, then that habit of talking alone could be associated with another problem and should consult a professional.

Are we here at home the only ones who sometimes use self-directed speech to organize ideas? Tell me about yourself, do you also sometimes talk to yourself... I look forward to hearing from you.

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