Talking to yourself in third person: what Ethan Kross found

You're going over the same thing for the third time tonight. Why did I say that? What if they're annoyed? The voice in your head is fast, sure of itself and not very kind.

Now try the same thought with your name in it. "Sam, you said something clumsy. What now?" It's the same moment, and it lands differently. Ethan Kross, a professor of psychology and management at the University of Michigan, has studied why. Across two of his studies, he told Shankar Vedantam on Hidden Brain, "people consistently felt less upset when they use what we call distance self-talk" (37:22).

Kross calls the stuck version of the inner voice "chatter", the title of his 2021 book. His research isn't about silencing that voice. It's about getting a little distance from it, with tools small enough to use in the middle of a bad evening. This article covers what chatter is, how to use your name and "you", what the lab studies show and where they stop, and two more ways to step back. You'll finish with three moves you can try tonight. The steps and their grouping are ours; each one is credited.

Why does the inner voice get stuck?

1. Know what you're dealing with

The inner voice is useful. It lets you rehearse a presentation, plan your day and stop yourself reaching for a snack at midnight, Kross explains in a Big Think lesson (1:34 to 2:16). Chatter is the other side: "When we turn our attention inward to make sense of our problems, we don't end up finding solutions" (0:25). You go round and round the same problem and get no closer.

Everyone does this. When Kross asks audiences whether they're better at giving advice than taking it, he says every hand goes up. "Welcome to the human condition," as he put it in his TED talk (7:59).

2. Drop the goal of silencing it

The first thing most people want is for the voice to stop. Kross says people often ask him how to just shut it up, and he doesn't think that's the best question, because the inner voice is a tool worth keeping (TED, 5:31 to 5:54). Hidden Brain's short video on his research ends on the same note: "You cannot choose to silence your inner voice" (8:39).

That matters because "just stop thinking about it" is the advice most of us try first, and it rarely holds. Pushing a thought away tends to bring it back. Our guide on how to stop overthinking explains why. Distance works with the voice instead of against it.

Coach yourself by name

3. Use your name and "you"

In his TED talk, Kross takes an example from Malala Yousafzai. On The Daily Show, describing the moment she learned she was in danger, she switched from "I" to talking to herself: "I asked myself, 'What would you do, Malala?'" Kross's reading: "She's coaching herself. She's giving herself advice like she would someone else, using her name and the word 'you'" (TED, 7:16 to 7:37).

Why it helps, in his words: "we human beings are much, much better at giving advice to other people than we are taking our own advice" (TED, 7:37). Researchers call that gap Solomon's paradox, after the king who advised everyone well but himself. "Using your own name and 'you' shifts your perspective," Kross says (8:19).

On The Mel Robbins Podcast, he keeps it practical: "distance self-talk involves using your name and you to typically silently coach yourself through a problem" (34:39). Silently is the default. You can do it out loud, he adds, but mind who's listening.

Here's what that looks like in practice. "Why did I mess up that call? Everyone must think I'm useless" becomes: "Sam, the call went badly. What do you want to do about it?" You can use "you" alone if your name feels odd.

The Brazilian psychologist Carolina Ovalle uses the same move on the podcast Podcólogas, with her own name. When a familiar thought comes round, she tells herself "Carolina, lá vai você de novo" ("Carolina, there you go again"), then asks "o que você vai fazer em relação a isso?" ("what are you going to do about it?") (24:28). The second question turns distance into a next step.

4. Know what the lab studies showed

The main paper is a 2014 set of seven studies from Kross's lab, with colleagues at Michigan and Berkeley (Kross et al., 2014). Most participants were students, and the tasks were short and stressful: making a good first impression, or preparing a speech with little warning. Before the task, people reflected on their feelings either in the first person ("Why do I feel this way?") or using their own name and "you" ("Why does Sam feel this way?").

Compared with the "I" group, people who used their name and "you":

• felt less distress around the task;
• were rated as performing better by observers who didn't know which group they were in;
• spent less time going over the speech afterwards.

Kross described the same pattern on Hidden Brain. In one study people reflected on past events they kept going back to, in another on future worries, and "we'd have them use their own name and the second person pronoun you. So Ethan, why did you feel this way?" (37:10).

Three limits are worth knowing. The tasks were short lab tasks, mostly with students. The effects were small. And the instruction tested was to reflect on feelings, not to plan a next step, so pairing it with "what now?" is our addition, borrowed from the research on replaying conversations.

5. Expect a little, not a lot

Kross is careful here. Distancing "turns down the temperature just a little bit," he told Hidden Brain (40:11). And: "we don't take a negative experience and turn it into a joyfully, blissfully positive event" (40:18). The situation stays bad; it becomes something you can think about more clearly.

That also sets it apart from cheerful self-talk that tells you everything is fine. Distanced self-talk sounds more like a sensible friend: honest about the problem, and interested in what happens next.

Other ways to step back

6. Watch the scene from across the room

Distance doesn't have to be verbal. Hidden Brain's video puts the second technique simply: "Watch it from across the room, like a fly on the wall" (6:57). Instead of replaying a conversation from behind your own eyes, picture it from the corner of the room. Kross told Vedantam that taking this third-person view tends to be linked with less intense feelings, for good and bad experiences alike (Hidden Brain, 39:02, paraphrased).

7. Ask how you'll feel about it later

The third tool is time. "Take your latest worry," Kross says, crediting his Berkeley colleague Ozlem Ayduk, and "think about how you're going to feel sometime down the road" (Hidden Brain, 41:22). Tomorrow, next week, a year from now. A bad moment looks smaller from further away, and it reminds you that it will pass.

Kross uses a version himself at night. On Huberman Lab, he describes asking himself, by name, how he'll feel about a 2 a.m. worry the next morning (1:07:20 to 1:08:29); our short read ask how you'll feel tomorrow morning tells that story.

8. Practice it in the day, so it's there at night

Can a habit like this carry over into ordinary life? One trial is a start. Researchers gave adults at two US universities about an hour of training in stepping back (the fly on the wall, using their name and "you", and simple plans for when to use them), relaxation training, or no training. Over the next ten days, people who tended to feel things strongly and had the distancing training went over things about as little as their calmer peers; that didn't happen in the other groups (Orvell et al., 2022). The authors call it "preliminary": the trial was small and many people dropped out by the later follow-ups. Read it as an early finding.

The practical lesson is to try it on small things first. Once a day, take a minor worry and talk yourself through it by name: "Sam, what's going on? What's the next step?" In your head is fine. Then it's familiar when a big one arrives at the wrong hour.

Back to the third time tonight

The voice going over it tonight won't go quiet on command, and it doesn't need to. Give it your name, a little distance and one question about what's next. As Kross says, it turns the temperature down a little, often enough to think straight. If the worry still won't let you sleep, our guides to overthinking at night and waking up at 3 a.m. cover the rest of the night.

This article is about everyday worry and overthinking. If worry doesn't ease, or it starts causing problems at work, at home or with friends and family, see a doctor. See one too if what you're trying isn't helping.

To build this around your own loop, try the 1h Protocol to Reduce Worry and Overthinking, a program of practical education. Its free first chapter finds your pattern from a few short questions, shows you the three parts of the loop and gives you one first step. The full program takes about an hour: you catch and park one worry of your own with one next step, set up a short daily slot away from bed, and write a line for when you're awake and it won't stop. Talking to yourself by name comes in where it helps most: for a replay of something that already happened, and for the morning after a bad night. You leave with a page of your changes, a card with three questions to ask when a worry starts, a fourteen-day log and your review days in your calendar. If you're signed in, short check-ins follow by email on days 1, 7, 14 and 30, each answered with one tap. Start free

Frequently asked questions

What is distanced self-talk?

Coaching yourself through a problem using your own name or "you" instead of "I": "Sam, what's the next step?" rather than "What do I do?" Ethan Kross describes it as a way to put yourself in the advice-giving mode you'd use for a friend (The Mel Robbins Podcast, 34:39 to 35:53).

Is it weird to talk to yourself in the third person?

No. Most people talk to themselves silently all day; this only changes the pronoun. Kross notes you can do it silently, and if you do it out loud, it's worth minding who's around. If your name feels odd, use "you".

How do I quiet my inner voice?

You can't switch it off, and trying to push thoughts away tends to bring them back. "You cannot choose to silence your inner voice," as Hidden Brain puts it (video, 8:39). What helps is distance: your name and "you", a fly-on-the-wall view, or asking how it will look in a year.

Does talking to yourself by name really work?

In lab studies, mostly with students, people who reflected using their own name or "you" felt less distress around a stressful speech than people who used "I" (Kross et al., 2014). The effects were small, and a first trial in daily life is an early finding (Orvell et al., 2022). Expect a little less heat, not calm on demand.

What do I say to myself at 3 a.m.?

Keep it short: "[Your name], it's parked. It can wait for tomorrow." Write the worry in a few words with one next step, and leave it for a set time in the day. You can also ask how it will look in the full light of day. If it keeps you awake, get up and go back to bed when you feel sleepy. See overthinking at night.

Sources

This article draws on Ethan Kross's interviews on Hidden Brain, The Mel Robbins Podcast and Huberman Lab, his TED talk and Big Think lesson, Hidden Brain's video on his research, Carolina Ovalle on Podcólogas, and the studies listed below.

• You 2.0: Befriending Your Inner Voice, with Ethan Kross (podcast episode, Hidden Brain, 2022)
• Ethan Kross, Do you talk to yourself? Here's how to harness your inner voice (TED talk, 2025)
• Ethan Kross on The Mel Robbins Podcast, episode 287 (podcast episode, 2025)
• Ethan Kross, What to do if your inner voice is cruel (video lesson, Big Think, 2022)
• Shankar Vedantam, How to stop overthinking (video, Hidden Brain, 2026)
• Dr Ethan Kross: How to control your inner voice and increase your resilience (podcast episode, Huberman Lab, 2024)
• Kross et al, Self-talk as a regulatory mechanism: how you do it matters (seven studies, 585 people, mostly students, 2014)
• Orvell et al, From the laboratory to daily life: self-distancing training (small randomized trial with three arms, US university adults, online 2022)
• Ethan Kross, Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It (book, 2021)
• Carina Pirró and Carolina Ovalle, Podcólogas #77 (podcast episode in Brazilian Portuguese, 2024)