Author: rqz5132

This is my FINAL journal about self talk! It is also written during the FINALs’ week. Then I will write you some tips (self talk positively) to help you fight against all final exams confidently. This blog’s idea is also coming from a journal “Positive self talk can help you win the race–or the day” from Psychology Today.

First, speaking about inner voice, what are you thinking about right now while you are reviewing for your exams? There are two possible answers: “Yes, I can do it.” or “No, I can’t make it.” Which do you think is a positive inner voice? Yes, the first one. And guess what, which inner voice you have will help you win (crash) the races (exams)? Yes, the positive one. Why?

Inner voice, we also can say it “psychological suggestion” which is a magic. It always consists lots of inspirational and motivational words and phrases such as “Yes”, “Good”, “Can”. And in psychology, psychologists assume that people are more willing to respond to positive thinking. Before your first final exam, taking a deep breathe and speak to yourself “Good luck, you will make it!” Why is the first final exam important? Because you will be psychologically nervous whenever your first happens. This is psychology which no one can explain clearly.

Then the most excited part, I will gift my loved audiences some really motivational suggestions that will solid your final grades. First of all, listening to yourself. At any quiet moment, listening to your own voices and following your heart. Studying materials as much as you like and don’t be so panic. Panic is the worst status during the FINALs’ week. Next is being honest and polite to self talk. Ignoring any bias making you think that self talk isn’t helpful. Because of psychological suggestion, these bias won’t let you self talk normally (sometimes it led you to negative self talk). Lastly, picking up powerful and your favorite words and phrases which make you confident. I once browsed Ted Talk website and watched a Talk about how body languages shape who you are. In that Talk, Amy talked about any actions you’ve taken will result in something. Like body languages, inner voices will also mean something. Before doing anything, talking to yourself with some positive words. You will deserve a good result!

Good luck on all your Final Exams!

*I really recommend all audiences to watch this video. I was encouraged by both body languages and inner voices! It’s really helpful.

Psychologist Ethan Kross from the University of Michigan performed a series of experiments to determine the effect of a person’s self talk on their behavior. One of the discoveries he made is that when you talk to yourself, you use the third person instead of your name and also help:

Increase your chances of successfully completing activities
Minimize ruminating on an event after it’s over
Decrease anxiety and depression
Gain perspective
Increase Focus
Better plan on the future
Enhance self-control

In the real world, you have to make self talk looking smooth and regular. Therefore you have to improve self talk and I will give you a few good suggestions:

Try to stop and notice which words and phrases you are using in your internal dialogues
Never think of negative self talk
Choose a couple power phrases that inspire you

The next thing I want to deeply demonstrate these suggestions.

The first suggestion: try to stop and notice which words and phrases you are using in your internal dialogues. The wording seems abstract. It simply explains as a big note card to remind you about what you are thinking about in your mind. For example, you will have an important interview the next day and you thought about it all day long and frustrated about the interview whether you can perform well and accept an offer. You know what is your frustration and just lack of doing something to prevent frustrating. Why not try write a big note card and stick on the wall of your room a week before. The note card keep reminding you about the interview and you will try to prepare for the interview a little bit everyday. When the interview approaches, you will not be that frustrated.

Second suggestion: never think of negative self talk. This means that you should never have negative internal dialogues because the negative internal dialogues make you weak and obstruct your highway. For example, “What a bad day” in the morning makes your whole day worse. You internally and psychologically felt your day was ruined. You should always keep in positive mind.

The last suggestion: choose a couple power phrases that inspire you. This one is my favorite. Talking to yourself with a powerful and inspirational word is very strong. For example, before I did my Ted Talk last Friday, I talk to myself: “Ran, you can crash the talk and make the talk inspirational.” It seems silly but helps me overcome my fearness to audiences and one-button recording machine. Try it before an important event, a big surprise is waiting for you.

When you are nervous, do you have internal thinking (in your mind)?
What are you thinking about?
Sometimes it’s a conversation with your future boyfriend, sometimes it’s a sincere wording from your mother about caring yourself when you travel outside?
Hope all these internal thinkings are warm and beautiful.

However, internal thinking like a playful kid, sometimes turns positive or negative.
“You don’t put your makeup today, how will you present in an important meeting?” A female clerk in a company complains with upset appearance.
“Oh my god, I got an A for the most difficult physics class.” An average student thinks when he get an A on his physics final exam with happy appearance.
Yes, what I’m going to talk about is the relationship between your internal thinkings and your appearances.

In psychology, there is a significant relationship between internal thinking (which also called inner thinking) and appearances (which also are face expressions). What you are thinking shows on your face. If you are angry, you will look very angry and atrocity. If you just come back from Happy Valley, you will look very happy and delightful. If you just finished your exam an hour ago, you will look tired but relaxed. If you didn’t have full 8 hours sleep at night, you will look drowsy the next morning.

These all are proofed. Scientists say that we can also analyze a family’s condition by looking at a member’s appearances and expressions. Family relationship is really close in Chinese tradition. In China, there is a (special) traditional New Year in which the whole family will reunion and eat dinner together. This New Year party always exceeds 5 sub-families and 30 people. Everyone in the party will have different face expressions and feelings to the reunion dinner. Some dinners are peace and smooth, others are arguings. In summary, the happy scene and arguing scene are both the internal thinking in which what you are thinking will show in your life.

Think positively and outstanding. If you feel sad, just throw a happy party and invite all your best friends. You’ll be fine. This is the power of internal thinking and psychology.

This week I want to have this Ted Talk review.

First, let’s talk about his title: “Removing negative self talk”. This is the point I emphasized since my first blog.

At beginning of the speech, he plays a quiet piece of music with a really special instrument called “Hang”. Then he starts with his speech by raising questions “When sitting here, are you thinking about your bills you have to pay or your homework assignments you have to turn in?” Yes, he categorizes these thoughts are negative. He clarifies the reasons that when you think about these things you are always too stressed. These thoughts bring you negative emotions.

When you walk down a street with your headphones, your favorite music is playing. If this happens at home, will you sing it aloud? Sure, why not. However, on the street, there is a sound saying if you sing it aloud and other people will regard you as a neuropathy patient. Then your thoughts are improper. These thoughts that affects you not singing aloud on the street are negative thoughts. How can you correct your mind? You should first consider three questions:

First of all, is it the truth?
Secondly, is whatever I’m sharing with someone, or what you are hearing from someone that’s giving you feedback about your life, true?
Lastly, are the first and second questions necessary?

These questions seem abstract. Let me explain it a little bit. Let’s take an example: you are thinking about your homework assignments you have to turn in (for here, we say it’s not urgent). We consider the first question: “Is it the truth?” Do you really have a homework assignment due the end of the week or early next week? Yes. Then we consider the second question: “Is whatever I’m sharing with someone, or what you are hearing from someone that’s giving you feedback about your life, true?” Yes and true, you heard from your teacher about your assignments and your news is official and your teacher will give you grades for your assignment. And finally, we consider the last question: “Are the first and second question necessary?” If you are thinking about your homework assignment when you are listening to his speech, then this action is not necessary.

Listening to the speech now is weighted more than thinking about your assignments. In economics, we described that you think about assignment giving up listening to the speech at a moment as opportunity cost, which is not worth to do so.

Removing your negative thoughts. Be positive in your mind, then you will become more successful, confident, and lucky. Don’t let negativity messing up your mind.

After reading all passages introducing self talk, let’s play this “self talk” game. It could be interesting but also crazy when you are surrounded with friends.

My idea is new so I need to carry out this study to test if this idea is real. After researching, we learn that self talk has two categories: positive and negative.

Positive self talk GAME:
1. If you are living in a dorm room with at least one roommate, please read following
2. The first thing when you get up in the morning, speak loudly “Today will be great!” (Try to get up at 7am)
3. Then you can brush teeth, wash face, and eat a nice breakfast
4. Before you go out for classes, do not be hurry
5. Find a large mirror and stand in front of it: pointing to yourself and say aloud of your name with “Make a great day!” (Like President Trump said ‘make a great America’)
6. Say “hello” to all professors everyday (specifically facing to all professors)
7. When you go to dinning hall for lunch and dinner, say “hello” and “thanks” to cashiers and servers (who serves you food)
8. Before you eat, talk to yourself “food is limited resources, you can’t make wastes”
9. When you go back to your dorm, don’t step in room first instead going to the bathroom and find a mirror and speak up “You did great today, [Your name]!”
10. On your bed, you should think what you have not done well and summarize the day, then speak up “You can do better tomorrow, [Your name]!”
Do all things everyday for a month and see the changes to yourself, physically and mentally.

Negative self talk GAME: (This game may make others really annoyed)
1. This is an all negative game, please play it cautiously
2. Don’t sleep until 12 and get up until 9, speak up “What a terrible day!” when you get up in the morning everyday
3. Brushing teeth, washing face, and eating a breakfast if you feel the day is not too terrible
4. Rush to class
5. Never talk to professors and leave the class before the classes end
6. Never say “hello” and “thanks” to dinning hall’s employees
7. Never talk to friends about your feelings and shout out to your roommates if you disagree with them
8. Go back to your room, take off your shoes, facing a mirror saying “What a bad day!”
9. Sleep without summarizing the performance
Try behave and perform like this for 15 days, see changes to yourself, physically and mentally.

Smart readers get my point, I encourage everyone can perform the positive self talk game everyday! I hope everyone will be positive and happy.

From the self affirmations of Stuart Smalley on Saturday Night Live, saying positive and nice things in front of a mirror helps a lot for decades. It helps us to concentrate. The practice in the video, the words and body movements help us to make more success and help us to achieve our goal.

David Sarwer is a psychologist at the Center for Weight and Eating Disorders at the University of Pennsylvania. He explains that, in fact, a mirror is one of the first and best tools he uses with some patients. He stands them in front of a mirror and guided them to use gentle and neutral language as they shape their bodies. “Instead of saying, ‘My abdomen is disgusting and grotesque,’ ” Sarwer explains, he’ll guide a patient to shout, ” ‘My abdomen is round, my abdomen is big; it’s bigger than I’d like it to be.’ ” The goal is to remove “negative” from the patient’s self-talk.

We all have an internal representation of our own bodies. Like reaching out a hand and picking up a coffee cup, we all need to think before take into actions and sometimes we say it aloud to remind us what we are suppose to do. Studies show that your internal sense is really powerful.

Research on what neurologists call motor imagery says that the neurological networks included both imagine movement and physical movement. Imagining a movement over and over can have the same effect on our brains as practicing it physically, and moreover we may do better on this physical movements.

In addition to a confident booster, your internal mind and physical movements will be largely reshaped. Psychologist Ethan Kross of the University of Michigan studied the pronouns people use when they talk to themselves silently, inside their minds. “What we find is that a subtle linguistic shift — shifting from ‘I’ to your own name — can have really powerful self-regulatory effects.” Sometimes you will have this experience. While walking down the street, your mind can’t stop thinking. Sometimes you talk to yourself with your own name instead of an “I”. Fun fact is, I did talk to myself with my own name. If I did well on a math quiz, I would say “You made it, Ran”. Although it is a subtle change, it greatly affects my mind and physical movements. For that rest of the day, I feel more confident and happy. And my friends who ate lunch with me, surprisingly, shared the same luck.

Self talk is Self affirmation. Talk to yourself more and think more will increase your possibility to succeed.

While I’m researching, Elite Daily’s article People who talk to themselves aren’t crazy, They are actually Geniuses explains how self talk helps people think orderly by introducing a study by Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.

In the study, psychologists gave 20 people the name of objects (such as apples, bananas…), which they were told to find in a grocery store. During the first set of trials, the participants were expecting to be silence. In the second set, they repeated the object’s name out loud as they looked for it in the store. According to the results, test subjects found the object with greater ease when they spoke to themselves loudly while searching. Saying things out loud sparks memory. It solidifies the memory and makes it tangible.

From my experience, I always list out all things I need to buy before I go to the grocery store and while I’m looking for the merchandises, I always say them aloud like “where is bathing suit? Where is milk?” to strengthen my memory. Sometimes shopping guide feels strange and asks me “anything you need?” Although it looks really strange to talk to myself frequently in a grocery store along, it really makes my every shopping efficient. My mom don’t self talk and list out all things, she usually spent 2 hours shopping while looking for things silently. And I, spent only 40 minutes to finish the game.

Sometimes you have a very tricky wording problem, say chemistry. Wording problems always confuse me, however, reading the question out loud helps me greatly. This is I’m going to talk about next, reading out loud by yourself helps you organize your thoughts. Hearing your own voices actually can calm your brain and make you more focused and smart. Reading out loud can clarify the question and wordings will be easier to understand. This is always working for me and I did a lot better on chemistry wording problems in high school. Next time, when you have a complex wording problem. Just try read out loud the problem.

Craziest people are sometimes the most intelligent and efficient. We spend time listening to our hearts, do and say what we really want to do and say.

Have you ever being weird looks that talking to yourself while walking on the road alone? Sometimes you said “I can crash this exam” loudly on the way to the testing center, and others students watches you until you stop talking.

Well, if you now talk to yourself, no fear of others because you are not really going crazy during a period of self-talk. Good news! According to recent study, talking to yourself indicates a higher level of intelligence. This study happens in the UK schools. There were 28 participants, each was given instructions that being told to either read out loud or quietly to themselves. Then the researchers measured how these participants performed during the study. Researchers found that the participants who read the instructions loud were more concentrated and preformed more efficient.

Psychologists found the benefits of talking to yourself may come from “simply listening to yourself”. The auditory commands seem to be a better controller of behaviors then written one.

Unsurprisingly, I’m a self-talk person and I also benefit from self-talk. While I’m on my way to my dorm from library at night, I talk to myself about how today I perform. I also plan my tomorrow loudly. Weird looks but it helps. I did it everyday and my day and my tomorrow are well organized. Moreover, you really try to talk to yourself before an exam or a competition. By encouraging yourself “Just Do It!” is very helpful that improves your confidence.

So, when you go out into the world and find yourself having a conversation with yourself. Just keep thinking and talking, you may be the smartest one. Don’t stop the conversation; the conversation with yourself may be the one that make you happy in the future or help you get an A on the exam or win the first prize during a speech competition.

Everyone else don’t understand your conversation, sometimes is because you are smarter than others. You are not on the same level.

Just Try Talk To Yourself! You will be Profited.

How many times you feel depressed after an exam that you haven’t been performed well? And do you have also noticed your inner dialogue in your head when you feeling depressed? Psychologists found that this “talking to yourself” is a form of inner dialogue and may be a way to self motivation.

 

The research found that there are always two types of inner dialogues in head: positive and negative. This definition is abstract, and for instance, there is a speech tomorrow in class which speakers are voluntary to give a speech. I will have these two types of inner dialogue: the positive inner dialogue will say “I’m going to give a speech about the human rights throughout the history, and it’s important to contribute my points to my audiences”; the negative inner dialogue will say “I’m not going to give a speech, and it’s so foolish and embarrassed if I say a wrong thing”. These inner dialogues have powerful influence over your course of actions.

 

Then talking about the benefits of self-talk. Reading a passage The Benefits of Self-Talk by Kriston Wong from New York Times, there also are two types of self-talk: instructional and motivational self-talk. Motivational self-talk is the way that I suggest everyone to practice. Practicing motivational self-talk, for instance, is talking “I can do it” to yourself before an important competition and interview. It seems foolish, but it works especially by talking out loudly.

 

“One study published in Procedia — Social and Behavioral Sciences researched the effects of both motivational and instructional self-talk on subjects playing basketball. It found that players passed the basketball faster when they motivated themselves through the task out loud.”

 

The extending research also found that not only talking out loudly to yourself is effective, but also talking to yourself in a second or third person helps. Some college students are always afraid of standing in front of a class to present a presentation or a speech. For example, my friend John will present his speech next day in class, and he will be the first presenter. The best way I suggest to him is going to a bathroom and facing the mirror and talking loudly “John, you can achieve this” to himself. Then he has greater chances to have a successful speech.

 

Don’t feel too shy to talk to yourself. After practicing, researchers prove that self-talk is an effective way for self motivation.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/04/elle-kaplan-science-backed-ways-to-use-self-talk-for-motivation.html

https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/self-talk#selftalk

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/smarter-living/benefits-of-talking-to-yourself-self-talk.html