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21 " The study revealed that helping without the recipient being aware of it, a phenomenon called “invisible support,” was the formula for supporting others while not making them feel bad about lacking the resources to cope on their own. As a result of receiving indirect assistance, the participants felt less depressed. In practice, this could be any form of surreptitious practical support, like taking care of housework without being asked or creating more quiet space for the person to work. Or it can involve skillfully providing people with perspective-broadening advice without their realizing that it is explicitly directed to them. "
― Ethan Kross , Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It
22 " Other experiments have shown that distanced self-talk allows people to make better first impressions, improves performance on stressful problem-solving tasks, and facilitates wise reasoning, just as fly-on-the-wall distancing strategies do. It also promotes rational thinking. "
23 " When our chatter is buzzing, it drains us of the neural resources we need to focus, get distance, and regain control of our inner voice. Yet distanced self-talk sidesteps this conundrum. It is high on results and low on effort. "
24 " Indeed, research indicates that people who diversify their sources of support—turning to different relationships for different needs—benefit the most. The most important point here is to think critically after a chatter-provoking event occurs and reflect on who helped you—or didn’t. This is how you build your chatter board of advisers, and in the internet age we can find unprecedented new resources online. "
25 " Offering advice without considering the person’s needs can undermine a person’s sense of self-efficacy—the crucial belief that we are capable of managing challenges. In other words, when we are aware that others are helping us but we haven’t invited their assistance, we interpret this to mean that we must be helpless or ineffective in some way—a feeling that our inner voice may latch on to. "
26 " We can also go outside for a walk, attend a concert, or simply tidy up our living space, and each of these seemingly small actions can have surprising effects on our chatter. "
27 " To put it another way that only slightly exaggerates, green spaces seem to function like a great therapist, anti-aging elixir, and immune-system booster all in one. "
28 " our inner voice can be both a liability and an asset. The words streaming through our heads can unravel us, but they can also drive us toward meaningful accomplishments…if we know how to control them. "
29 " What participants were thinking about turned out to be a better predictor of their happiness than what they were actually doing. "
30 " once you believe something, your neural machinery brings it to fruition by increasing or decreasing the activation levels of other parts of the brain or body related to the processes you are forming beliefs about. "
31 " The bottom line is that we all have a voice in our head in some shape or form. The flow of words is so inextricable from our inner lives that it persists even in the face of vocal impairments. Some people who stutter, for example, report talking more fluently in their minds than they do out loud. "
32 " When our internal conversation loses perspective and gives rise to intensely negative emotions, the brain regions involved in self-referential processing (thinking about ourselves) and generating emotional responses become activated. "
33 " If you go to the movies to escape the adversities of real life, your problems are still there waiting for you when you leave the theater. Out of sight, in other words, isn’t actually out of mind, because the negative feelings remain, eagerly waiting to be activated again. "
34 " Their thinking was clearer and more complex, and, sure enough, they seemed to view events with the insight of a third-party observer. They were able to emerge from the experience with a constructive story. The experiment provided evidence that stepping back to make sense of our experiences could be useful for changing the tone of our inner voice. "
35 " Indeed, not having a strong social-support network is a risk factor for death as large as smoking more than fifteen cigarettes a day, and a greater risk factor than consuming excessive amounts of alcohol, not exercising, being obese, or living in a highly polluted city. "
36 " Distance, then, helps us deal better not only with the big emotions we experience from upsetting situations but also with the smaller yet crucial daily emotional challenges of frustration and boredom that come with the important tedium of work and education. "
37 " One way to think about this is to imagine that your DNA is like a piano buried deep in your cells. The keys on the piano are your genes, which can be played in a variety of ways. Some keys will never be pressed. Others will be struck frequently and in steady combinations. Part of what distinguishes me from you and you from everyone else in the world is how these keys are pressed. That’s gene expression. It’s the genetic recital within your cells that plays a role in forming how your body and mind work. "
38 " Our inner voice, it turns out, likes to tickle our genetic ivories. The way we talk to ourselves can influence which keys get played. "
39 " imagine that your DNA is like a piano buried deep in your cells. The keys on the piano are your genes, which can be played in a variety of ways. Some keys will never be pressed. Others will be struck frequently and in steady combinations. Part of what distinguishes me from you and you from everyone else in the world is how these keys are pressed. That’s gene expression. It’s the genetic recital within your cells that plays a role in forming how your body and mind work.Our inner voice, it turns out, likes to tickle our genetic ivories. The way we talk to ourselves can influence which keys get played. The UCLA professor of medicine Steve Cole has spent his career studying how nature and nurture collide in our cells. Over the course of numerous studies he and his colleagues discovered that experiencing chatter-fueled chronic threat influences how our genes are expressed. When our internal conversations activate our threat system frequently over time, they send messages to our cells that trigger the expression of inflammation genes, which are meant to protect us in the short term but cause harm in the long term. At the same time, the cells carrying out normal daily functions, like warding off viral pathogens, are suppressed, opening the way for illnesses and infections. Cole calls this effect of chatter “death at the molecular level. "
― Ethan Kross
40 " Rituals are infused with meaning. They are charged with significance because they have a crucial underlying purpose, whether it’s putting a small rock on a cemetery headstone to honor the dead, engaging in a rain dance to nourish crops, or taking Communion. Rituals take on a greater meaning in part because they help us transcend our own concerns, connecting us with forces larger than ourselves. They simultaneously serve to broaden our perspective and enhance our sense of connection with other people and forces. "