IF YOU DO ONE THING THIS WEEK . . . USE YOUR INNER VOICE FOR SELF-CONTROL
It’s 11pm and the munchies are niggling. There’s a packet of chocolate biscuits calling from the cupboard. How do you avoid the impulse to wolf some down?
Researchers at the University of Toronto Scarborough claim that our inner voice could help us avoid impulsive behaviour.
"We give ourselves messages all the time with the intent of controlling ourselves," says Alexa Tullett, lead author on the study in Acta Psychologica. "We wanted to find out whether talking to ourselves in this 'inner voice' helps."
So they asked participants to carry out a computer task that invited impulsive clicking. If people blocked their inner voice by repeating a word to themselves, they were more likely to cave and click. But if they were free to internally talk to themselves, they were less likely to respond impulsively.
“This study shows that talking to ourselves in this ‘inner voice’ actually helps us exercise self-control ,” says Tullet.
Just make sure your inner voice isn’t chanting a mantra of “eat the chocolate biscuits” at 11pm.
