Backed by research
"Whose voice is that?" sounds simple. These studies, all cited in the books, show why it works.
The big idea
Psychologists who study inner speech find it grows out of real conversations from childhood. The voices of parents, teachers and friends are taken in and become the way we talk to ourselves. That's why a borrowed voice can sound exactly like your own.
Alderson-Day and Fernyhough, Psychological Bulletin, 2015 ↗Brain scans showed that putting a feeling into words turned down the brain's alarm centre, the amygdala.
Lieberman et al., Psychological Science, 2007 ↗ StopPeople who used their own name in their self-talk felt less anxious and performed better under pressure.
Kross et al., Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2014 ↗ ListenStudents who wrote down their worries just before an exam scored higher than students who didn't.
Ramirez and Beilock, Science, 2011 ↗ ListenSimply relabelling nerves as excitement improved performance in public speaking, maths and singing.
Brooks, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2014 ↗rise in young people feeling they must be perfect to meet other people's expectations, 1989 to 2016.
Curran and Hill, Psychological Bulletin, 2019 ↗of all lifelong mental health conditions begin by age 14, so the teenage years matter most.
Kessler et al., Archives of General Psychiatry, 2005young people aged 10 to 19 live with a mental health condition worldwide.
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