Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It
Author: Ethan Kross
ISBN-10: ‎0525575235
ISBN-13: 978-0525575238
 
APA Style Citation
Kross, E. (2021). Chatter: The voice in our head, why it matters, and how to harness it. New York, NY: Crown.
 
Buy This Book
https://www.amazon.com/Chatter-Voice-Head-Matters-Harness/dp/0525575235
​

Book Description
Do you ever want that inner voice that plays in your head to stop? While introspective thoughts can be beneficial, the inner critic can quickly rear its ugly head when the thoughts turn to chatter, which consists of cyclical negative thoughts and emotions. Ethan Kross, author of Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It, studies how those internal conversations can be used to improve your life. He compares his job to being a mind mechanic. When internal thoughts turn negative, individuals need to recognize when they become problematic and have the proper tools to quiet the chatter.
 
Talking to oneself is a normal part of life, but it also has its downfalls. Language lets us identify our emotions and discover how to handle a situation. As humans, it allows us the powerful ability to mentally travel in time. It also allows us to control ourselves and our emotions. So how does talking to oneself go wrong? Anyone who has become skilled at a learned task can fall victim to chatter. Kross shares stories of athletes that have fallen victim to that inner critic. The internal conversation influences attention and causes what was once an involuntary action to become the focus of our attention, which can then lead to overanalysis. When we ruminate, we end up focusing our attention on that negative inner voice AND what we are doing. The author points out how challenging it is to read after getting into a fight. It doesn’t seem to work well for anyone! We also want to talk to others about our negative experiences. The more intense the emotion, the more we want to talk about it. Unless in involves shame, then we want to keep in confidential. But it is sharing those negative experiences that pushes sympathetic listeners away because we tend to miss the warning signs of how annoying we are. The chatter can lead to talking too much, which can then alienate those we confide in the most.  Social media provides a positive experience, but can also become problematic for several reasons. In real life we can manage emotions with the passage of time. However, when we are at the peak of frustration, our connectivity allows us to share those negative experiences in the moment before we have a moment to calm down. It is also human nature to compare ourselves to others. As we passively scroll through others’ filtered versions of themselves posted online, we can start to become envious and negative emotions take over. This emotional pain registers the same way in our brain as physical pain.
 
Perspective taking is key to quieting our inner voice. Kross uses the analogy of your mind being a lens and the inner voice being a button that can zoom either in or out. He explains how when we get stressed or the inner voice starts to ruminate, we lose the ability to zoom out. By adding some distance to our thoughts, we can then change those thoughts. The author shared Walter Mischel’s famous marshmallow research, where waiting for two marshmallows led to positive results rather than having a lack of impulse control and immediately eating the marshmallow. This research led to the understanding that people have tools to control themselves. Kross also mentioned Aaron Beck’s therapy technique known as “distancing” where individuals are taught to scrutinize their thoughts. While some people have negatively associated this with avoidance, the key is to actively explore the thought from a distance. The recommendation is to imaginatively visualize oneself from afar. Research has explored the impact of immersion versus distancing. Immersers who viewed an event from the first-person perspective got stuck in their emotions. While, distancers who viewed an event from a broad perspective, had more positive feelings and were better able to control their stress response. By teaching people to see the big picture, it reduced their chatter. Mental distancing also led to increased wisdom regardless of age. Even journaling for a 15-minute time period about a negative experience was helpful. While narrating the story, the author created distance. The point of view is also key to quieting chatter. Using the first-person singular pronouns signaled negative emotions. Instead using third person or saying your name can force you to step back and refocus more objectively. Examples of LeBron James or Malala talking in third person during interviews helped provide distance from the event. Even shifting to the generic or universal second-person “you” can help provide the necessary psychological distance.
 
Those around you can influence chatter as well. Sharing emotions can often hurt more than it helps. Research has found that talking to others about negative experiences doesn’t help us recover in any meaningful way. Co-rumination can quickly change from support to inciting the inner voice. Advice at the wrong time from others can propel inner talk and undermine self-efficacy. Instead, Kross recommends invisible support. Rather than making someone feel like they can’t cope on their own, providing invisible support could be doing housework to ease their stress or offering broadening advice that is not explicitly directed at the person experiencing the negative thoughts. This invisible support is especially helpful when the person with negative thoughts is under evaluation or preparing to be.  Affectionate touch or comforting objects can be beneficial as well.
 
It is not just the people that surround you, but also the physical environment that influences chatter. Kross references trees and grass as mental vitamins that help manage our stressors. Research has found attention improved after taking a walk with nature as opposed to an urban landscape. And it doesn’t matter the time of year! If access to nature is problematic, photos and videos work too. One study even found that nature sounds helped enhance attention. Uplifting emotional awe occurs when we come across something powerful that we can’t really explain. It has been linked to physical and psychological benefits. Another interesting finding involves how order in our physical environment can quiet the chatter even though there is no direct connection between creating an organized world and the cause of the inner chaotic thoughts. Just reading about the world described as an orderly place has been found to reduce anxiety.
 
The mind is a powerful thing. Placebos help with chatter. Even nondeceptive placebos have worked for allergy symptoms, lower back pain, ADHD, and depression. Superstitions and rituals also help quiet the chatter. Rituals can come from culture, but can also be personalized. To become a ritual there needs to be a rigid sequence of behaviors that are performed in the same order. They appear to work because they divert attention, provide a sense of order and control. Rituals also make us feel connected, provide us with awe, and activate the placebo effect. Many engage in rituals without even knowing.
 
Kross makes it clear that he is not advocating for an avoidance of negative states. They just can’t consume you. Not all introspection is bad, but individuals need to recognize when they become problematic and have the proper tools to quiet the chatter. He points out that chatter is a part of our culture. Parents provide children with chatter support and create the culture they are immersed in at home. He also recognizes the need to teach these tools to children, after a college student pointed out learning them in college seems a little too late. Kross has created a toolbox for middle school and high school curriculum, but leaves the reader with their own toolbox that can be used right away to quiet the chatter.
 
Other Related Resources
Author's Website
https://www.ethankross.com/chatter/

Center for Positive Organizations- Michigan Ross. Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why it Matters, and How to Harness It
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V33_f3yVn8

​ISR Insights Speaker Series: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jleW_eTWVHA

​Next Big Idea Club
https://nextbigideaclub.com/magazine/chatter-voice-head-matters-harness-bookbite/26713/

Psychological Concepts and Figures
Aristotle
Aaron Beck
Joseph Breuer
Sigmund Freud
William James
Daniel Kahneman
Franz Anton Mesmer
Walter Mischel
Lev Vygotsky
 
Active listening
Adrenaline
Animal magnetism
Anxiety
Associative connections
Attention
Attention restoration therapy
Catharsis
Contact
Cortisol
Dreams
EEG
Empathy
Evolution
Free association
Frequency illusion
Gene expression
Hippocampus
Hypothalamus
Hysteria
Identity
Inner speech
Introspection
Loss aversion
Magic number
MRI
Neurons
Neuroscience
OCD
Oxytocin
Parkinson’s disease
Placebo
Polygraph
Prefrontal brain
Reciprocity
Rumination
Self-control
Self-efficacy
Stress
Temporal distancing
Tend and befriend
Wisdom
Working memory

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law
Author: Mary Roach
ISBN: 9781324001935
 
APA Style Citation
Roach, M. (2021). Fuzz: When nature breaks the law. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Co.
 
Buy this book
https://www.amazon.com/Fuzz-When-Nature-Breaks-Law/dp/1324001933
​

​Book Description:
In Mary Roach's most recent publication, she again combines her humor and love of science to deliver a hilarious and unexpected book about animals breaking the law. The book pointedly asks humans to consider how humans and animals can better live together when we continue to invade their territory. 
 
Roach starts the book with a chapter titled Maul Cops.  She describes her attendance at a Canadian forensics conference in which the order of the day was to look at mutilated mannequins to determine what type of wild animal inflicted their wounds. They eventually take their knowledge to the field to determine and collect evidence and eventually try to track down the animal culprit. Bear attacks are becoming more common as their territory becomes smaller and smaller due to developments edging in on their territory. Most bear break-ins are misdemeanors in which they simply steal food from cabinets or the refrigerator. Roach and Colorado Wildlife Service officer Stuart Breck find a bear in a back alley of a restaurant in Aspen, Colorado, a phenomenon that is becoming more and more frequent. Restaurant workers often fail to secure the garbage receptacles, and bears come looking for food. When they find it, they will likely return again and again.  Things turn ugly when they are startled by a person while eating or feel trapped. 
 
Roach's research takes her to India, where there is a constant struggle with rhesus monkeys breaking into people's homes, sometimes to grab food and run. Other times the monkeys break into homes, seemingly wreak havoc, and leave like the one that knocked a rice cooker off a counter and left.  Additionally, many rhesus monkeys have become expert pickpockets. Because the population of monkeys is expanding but killing the animals is not an option, officials are looking into ways to implement large-scale birth control in the Indian monkey population. Elephant and leopard attacks are also becoming more common in India as people move into the animals' habitats.
 
Roach discusses arboreal manslaughter when trees die and fall on people. While some tree advocates oppose trimming old forest trees, Roach explains that this is necessary because a dying tree can topple down on top of unsuspecting hikers and murder them without warning. While no tree has yet been charged with premeditated murder, this precedent could change in the future.
 
Roach's final chapter deals with a wildlife nuisance far more common for most people, rodents. She meets with researchers trying to change the genetic make-up of rats to make it more difficult for them to breed. The challenge to this is that more than one male fertilizes many litters of mice, and it is tremendously difficult to keep track of the mice with the genetic modification. Because so many other animals depend on rats and mice for food, the program's goal is not to eradicate the rodent population but rather to limit reproduction. Other researchers are working on a more humane way to eliminate the rodent population from disturbing human homes. Katherine Horak is developing a bait that kills but contains no poison. It works by targeting the species genome by interfering with the animal's RNA. Roach contends that this would be a more humane way to eliminate rodents, and many companies have moved away from glue traps that often involve the rodent chewing off a limb to break free or dying a slow death. Roach argues that if humans are going to be the killers, we have an obligation to at least be humane murderers.
 
Even if you are not interested in wildlife or science, this book is endlessly entertaining. It provides the important message of conserving the wildlife population while served on a platter of witty banter and amusing anecdotes.
 
Other Resources:
Author's website
https://maryroach.net
 
NPR Interview with Mary Roach
https://www.npr.org/2021/09/19/1038681779/what-happens-when-nature-breaks-the-law-mary-roach-tells-you-in-new-book-fuzz
 
INFORUM: Conversation with Mary Roach
https://www.amazon.com/Fuzz-When-Nature-Breaks-Law/dp/1324001933
 
Psychological Figures and Concepts
Jane Goodall
 
Animal ethics
CRISPR
Genetic modification
Genome