Is it normal to talk to yourself out loud?

A person talks to himself out loud: disease diagnosis

A person talks to himself
It happens that a person talks to himself out loud. He can pronounce the text or even have an interlocutor. This behavior can hardly be called normal and you would be right, because it is a sign of a serious mental illness. There are a few main ones:

Split personality

It can be congenital, but for the most part it appears as a result of serious childhood psychological trauma. Severe stress may not manifest itself too much while the child is small, but in adulthood the disease will manifest itself in all its glory. Sometimes people realize that there is something wrong with them, or they may not recognize that they have two personalities. By the way, there are cases when there are even more than two personalities. Then a person feels not just depressed, real depression develops and even attempts are often made to make himself feel bad.

Schizophrenia

This disease is also not uncommon. People usually behave adequately, and the first manifestations begin with conversations with themselves. Schizophrenia is often diagnosed in creative people. They become deeply immersed in themselves and avoid external problems. The disease is treated by a psychiatrist, who must examine the person and make sure that he has schizophrenia.

Stress

When there is a strong shock in life or a person is lonely for a long time, he begins to talk to himself. It is immediately noticeable that he is not behaving as usual. It is not always possible to attribute the situation to stress; you should definitely consult a doctor. As a rule, after treatment all symptoms disappear.

Mental disorder

This disease can be determined not only by talking to yourself. As it develops, hallucinations appear and voices may be heard. Only a doctor can finally determine the presence of the disease after conducting examinations. By the way, this disease is somewhat reminiscent of schizophrenia in its symptoms, but with certain differences.

When should you worry?

However, in some cases, such conversations, along with other symptoms, can still serve as an indicator of mental disorders. This is quite easy to determine. Most of us, when talking to ourselves, conduct a kind of monologue, thinking about a serious issue, throwing out negative emotions, and searching for a solution to the problem. In case of deviation from the norm, a person does not just talk to himself, it is as if he is talking to an invisible interlocutor, answering his questions, arguing, swearing. At the same time, active gestures and facial expressions are often present.

This behavior may indicate the presence of serious diseases such as schizophrenia, split personality, etc. If, in addition to dialogues with an imaginary interlocutor, a person has hallucinations, inappropriate behavior, isolation, obsessions, emotional disorders, then a visit to the appropriate specialist should not be postponed.

Why do people talk to themselves: reasons

Why does a person talk to himself?
When a person talks to himself out loud, it seems at least strange. Sometimes people think that this is a deviation and their loved one is unwell. In fact, if he simply speaks out loud, then this is not considered a deviation. But if additional symptoms are added here, then it’s worth sounding the alarm. These may be hallucinations, the appearance of obsessive thoughts, loss of strength. Sometimes it may also seem that a person has moved away from reality and is, so to speak, “on his own wavelength.”

These symptoms are already a real reason to see a doctor.

There are several reasons why some people start talking to themselves out loud:

The desire to organize thoughts . It happens that your head is such a mess and you can’t put your thoughts together. In this format it is difficult to perceive them, and therefore some formulate thoughts and say them out loud. This allows you to discard everything that is unnecessary and leave what is meaningful. In this way, everything falls into place and the necessary solutions are found.
Ability to concentrate . When a person urgently needs to solve a problem and there is no time for unnecessary thoughts, then talking to himself allows him to organize himself. The brain switches to only one most important task. Plus, your visual center is involved, because when you say something, the image appears in your head.
Emotional release . When a person keeps emotions inside, they burst out and urgently need to be thrown out. Just one way is to talk out loud. This way all the negativity goes away and it becomes easier.
Loneliness . Every person has a need for communication. Lonely people cannot close them, and therefore they start talking to themselves. Often speech is directed at an invisible listener, household objects or animals.

Stopping internal dialogue by redirecting attention to nonverbal processes

The principle is to engage both hemispheres of the brain with simple actions, distracting it from internal chatter.

Sit in a comfortable position and relax. It is not necessary to close your eyes, but you can. Place your hands on your feet .

Focus your attention on the tip of your right index finger. With just this index finger, apply gentle pressure to the thigh where your hand rests. Continue to apply gentle pressure. Not much, slightly. But continuously.

At the same time, with your left hand motionless, perform the simplest actions: first the thumb presses on the leg, then the index finger, then the middle finger, then the ring finger, and finally the little finger, and then the ring finger again, the middle finger, the index finger, the thumb, and so on back and forth.

Those. At the same time, we press the index finger of the right hand to the leg, concentrate my attention on it, and, as described, make simple movements with the fingers on the left.

What happens? 100% of attention is focused on the index finger of the right hand, but the fingers on the left move one by one, as if by themselves. But pay attention to the index finger of your right hand! This means that both hemispheres begin to work at once, and in order for them to work like this, the internal dialogue must turn off.

With the help of the above exercise correctly performed, the goal of stopping the chatter in your head is successfully achieved. But stopping internal dialogue and internal silence are not the same thing. Inner silence is a deeper and more “quiet” state of consciousness, when there is no mental verbalization, which is called internal dialogue, as well as any non-verbal thoughts.

A man talks to himself: the opinion of a psychiatrist

What do psychiatrists think if a person talks to himself?
According to scientists, almost 70% of people talk to themselves out loud at least periodically.

Psychiatrists consider this behavior to be absolutely normal if it is not associated with any other symptoms. Everyone has conversations within themselves. If a person begins to speak out loud, he creates the appearance of a dialogue.

Scientists have conducted a number of experiments that have proven that conversations allow you to better cope with complex tasks. Each research participant was healthy and at the same time talking to himself.

There is even such a term in psychology as egocentric speech. It is directed towards oneself. It is not considered a mental disorder. By the way, people often use it for protection. When you talk to yourself, no bad thoughts come to your mind and you can concentrate on the most important things.

What happens to the brain when we talk to ourselves?

Neuroimaging can tell a lot about the functions and structure of inner speech. To see what happens to the brain during internal monologue, two different approaches are used:

a person says the same words out loud and to himself,
the participant explores the free wandering of thoughts.

Both approaches have both advantages and disadvantages. For example, when performing the first type of task, the researcher cannot control whether the subject pronounces the word accurately or thinks about something of his own. And the second type of tasks is not necessarily related to inner speech: when thinking, a person can use inner speech, imagine images, and experience emotions.

Using the first approach

Scientists have found that when a person deliberately says something to himself or out loud, the inferior frontal gyrus (Broca's area) is active. It also works for people with hearing loss when they use internal sign language.

Interestingly, during internal speech, the additional motor cortex is also activated, which is usually associated with the work of the muscles of the vocal apparatus, and in people with hearing loss, the areas responsible for hand movements. This means that in many ways, internal and external speech are provided by the same parts of the brain.

Second approach

helped link inner speech to the brain's passive mode network: it's activated when we let our thoughts wander "on their own."

It is believed that there are at least two large neural networks in the brain and they perform different functions:
1. Network associated with the task
(or frontoparietal) - includes the lateral prefrontal cortex, insular cortex and supplementary motor cortex.
It is active when we perform a task that requires our attention: reading, writing, planning, solving mathematical problems and other activities that are associated with receiving and assimilation of information.
2. Passive mode network
- Includes the medial prefrontal cortex, lateral parietal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, and entorhinal cortex.
It is activated when we do not process information from the external world, but, on the contrary, are immersed in the internal one: our thoughts wander, we indulge in imagination, “daydreaming” and do not focus on anything.

American and Austrian scientists have found that in such a dispersed and unfocused state, people have insights when they find answers to questions that previously tormented them. It can be assumed that some of these insights are generated in the form of verbal thoughts, and it is in this way that inner speech is associated with the state of passive brain function.

Little is known about the passive mode network yet, but we do know that it can be very important for constructing a sense of self, constructing mental maps of other people's minds, and developing a sense of time. That is, in addition to creative insights, it can also be responsible for existential abstractions.

It turns out that the appearance of verbal thoughts “out of nowhere” is associated with the passive mode network, but their deliberate retention —

with the frontoparietal network. That is, if we use inner speech to be alone with ourselves, then some areas of the brain are active, and in a situation where inner speech helps solve problems, others are active.

When we use internal speech to repeat something to ourselves or replay an important conversation in our heads, it is similar in organization to external speech. At the same time, such speech activates areas of the brain associated with directed attention, control, planning of behavior and readiness for real physical action - it helps to gather and act. And when inner speech appears as if on its own, it is connected to an extensive network of the brain’s passive mode that is very important for our mental health.

Is it harmful to talk to yourself and why shouldn’t a person talk to himself?

Is it harmful to talk to yourself?
Although it is generally accepted in society that when a person talks to himself out loud, these are the first signs of schizophrenia, everything is not so bad. In fact, having conversations with yourself can even be useful.

Could it be harmful? Well, when you do it periodically, it's okay. But if this happens all the time, and you also start to hear something, then this is where the worst scenario begins. Perhaps you have experienced a lot of stress recently? Or maybe you have had some signs for a long time? In this case, we recommend going to the doctor.

When is talking to yourself useful? There are several reasons for this:

Memory stimulation. When you talk on the phone, your sensory memory storage begins to work. This structure is responsible for short-term memory. When you say something out loud, you imagine the meaning of the word, and therefore remember it better.
Maintaining concentration. When you speak words out loud, images of objects appear in your memory. This helps you stay focused and not be distracted from your goals. If, for example, you need to find something on the shelves of a supermarket, then this method is the best.
Clearing your mind. When thoughts come from all sides, talking to yourself helps restore everything to its place.

When should you sound the alarm?

Often talking to oneself and to oneself out loud is the norm, but some indicate mental illness. And here it is important to take into account not only the type of character, but also the presence or absence of one or another psychological deviation. Therefore, scientists have divided all types of self-talk into 3 groups:

If you pronounce certain problems and disputes, questions and even speech out loud and at the same time do not notice the people around you, doing everything uncontrollably. Here the person turns to himself, and many phrases are mostly rhetorical.
Conversations and conversations, when a person pronounces a certain dialogue, he can play several roles in it, in this case changing the timbre of his voice and the rhythm of speech. And more often than not, a person does this unintentionally; less often, he simply does not pay attention to whether he is having such conversations at home or in a public place, realizing that he is speaking his monologue out loud.
The patient is worried about hallucinations - he sees in front of him scenes that are real only to himself, when other people, animals and even mystical creatures take part in them. From the outside, this is still the same conversation that a person has with himself, often accompanied by intense gestures and facial expressions.

When a person talks to himself: treatment

If a person talks to himself out loud and additionally shows signs of mental abnormalities, then self-medication in such a development of events is simply unacceptable. Only a doctor can understand the causes of the disease and prescribe treatment. So first go to a specialist, and then draw conclusions.

Any mental disorder should be treated under the supervision of a doctor who will prescribe the necessary medications. Each disease has its own treatment regimen, and the drugs also have many side effects.

How to stop talking to yourself on your own: tips

If you yourself think that a person talks to himself out loud or you yourself are normal, then you definitely don’t have a problem. However, if you realize that you are wasting your time, then it is better to give up this habit. This is quite possible and not even very difficult as it may seem.

First of all, switch your attention from verbal communication to something else. Imagine different pictures, images and melodies. That is, you should perceive the information like a video camera, but not give a response. Christianity claims that in this way one can achieve inner silence.

If you know how to meditate, then this is great, because different varieties of this activity help overcome the dialogue within. Start by observing first. Just watch your thoughts and over time the dialogue will disappear.

Meditation

The technique of detached observation of the outside world also works well. This way you will watch everything as if from a screen. Each type of meditation allows you to solve problems, the main thing is to choose a method that is convenient for you.

Physical exercise also helps get rid of internal dialogue, because during training and breathing exercises, the mind will be too busy to dialogue with itself. As an option, try to materialize your thoughts. For example, if you thought you needed to go to the store, get up and go. Then you won’t have to internally negotiate with yourself and decide whether you need it or not.

Mantras also allow you to silence your internal dialogue. If you recite a mantra, you will not only get rid of dialogue, but also clear your mind. Come up with a text that will make you tune in to good thoughts. There is no need to look for too abstruse speeches. Recite it until your consciousness is full. Not only will you drown out the dialogue, but you will also develop the opinion that everything is fine.

Also try external influence. Your task is to turn off one of the senses. Just take a bath with pleasant oil and foam. In other words, relax.

The child talks to himself: reasons

A child talks to himself
If you notice that a person talks to himself out loud, especially a child, then there is nothing to worry about, because this is one of the stages of development. Usually all children from 4 to 8 years old talk to themselves. In psychology there is such a thing as “personal speech”. It allows you to develop thinking and self-discipline.

In total, such speech goes through 3 stages:

First, the child begins to comment on his actions. For example, that he built a pyramid, a house, etc.
At the second stage, the child already begins to think, for example, I built a castle, now I’ll make a princess
At the third stage, the child makes a whole plan. For example, that he will take a piece of paper, draw his mother and give her a portrait

Therefore, there is no reason to worry, because the child in this case is developing normally. Usually, after eight years, speech changes from external to internal, and then parents will no longer hear about the thoughts of their baby.

Children may start talking out loud when:

They just like to hear their voice. There's nothing wrong with that, let them enjoy it
The baby has little attention and therefore has to talk to himself to have fun
The child plays and establishes communication between the characters
The child cannot find a common language with peers and has no one to communicate with
The child’s inner speech is still poorly formed

Normal and even beneficial

What to do if you're talking to yourself? In most cases, psychiatrists call this condition normal and there is nothing to do about it. Thus, a number of studies have shown that this will increase and improve the process of self-organization - people verbally program themselves to achieve a certain result. Simply put, talking to yourself is normal because it is how you guide your actions and thoughts when making life-changing decisions.

To understand this, let's give an example. If you have lost your phone in your office or apartment, commenting out loud on your own actions will allow you to restore the chain of past events and thus find the loss. This way you concentrate on one thought, an idea, allowing you to carry it through from the very beginning to the end, achieving the desired result. Doctors say this method is very effective.

Often people talk to themselves, using the self-learning method - this helps them play out loud certain situations, decisions, perform or try on certain roles. But for small children, this, according to pediatricians, is considered the norm and even helps in their development and ability to concentrate.

A child talks to himself - what to do: advice from psychologists

Why do children talk to themselves?
If you notice that your little one is talking to himself out loud, there are a few tips parents should follow:

First of all, you shouldn’t forbid him to do this. In this way he expresses his feelings and tries to explore what surrounds him. The better a child’s thinking is developed, the more he will speak. This goes away with age, and therefore there is no point in sounding the alarm.
If a child speaks with toys before the age of 10, it means he is emotional . Through conversation in games, he develops oratory skills. If he is constantly angry, nervous and has poor sleep, then this is a reason to contact a psychiatrist.
If a child has already reached adolescence, he does not communicate with anyone and has no friends, then think about whether he may have some problems. Try to talk to him carefully.
If you cannot find contact with your child and he clearly has a lack of communication with peers, then it is worth visiting a consultation with a psychotherapist.