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“I’ve been having full-on conversations with myself for years,” says Danielle Durange, 52, of Fort Mills, South Carolina. As she’s gotten older, she’s noticed herself doing it even more.

Durange jokes that lately her husband has even been asking, “Who are you talking to?” or “Can you please stop talking out loud?” But for Durange, talking to herself is a long-standing habit

with immense benefits. “Talking out loud is like brushing my teeth – something I just do, often without realizing it,” says Durange. She notices she does it, especially when she’s stressed

or trying to focus. “It actually helps me think more clearly or work through the noise in my head. I guess I’m wired that way – out loud is just how I process things.” WE ALL TALK TO

OURSELVES If you’ve found yourself reciting your grocery list out loud in the produce aisle or uttering a quick proclamation before walking into a work presentation, you’re not alone. We all

talk to ourselves, whether it’s within our heads or out loud. “It turns out that's a superpower that we all possess,” says Ethan Koss, a psychology professor at the University of

Michigan and author of _Shift: Managing Your Emotions—So They Don’t Manage You._ He refers to the ability to talk to ourselves as a tool, like a Swiss army knife, that has uses for many

different scenarios in life. These thoughts, known as our inner voice, enable us to use language to reflect on our lives, make plans and even find motivation. When you stop and think about

it, telling yourself “I need to take the bread out of the oven in 15 minutes” may sound kind of funny but research suggests that talking to ourselves has some benefits. A TOOL TO KEEP YOU

FOCUSED “Saying something out loud, whether it’s positive or negative, can make the thought that you’re articulating seem more official, or public, than if you merely think it,” says Gary

Small, MD, chair of Psychiatry, Hackensack University Medical Center. He adds that some people use self-talk to sort through a challenge or arrive at a solution. “For them, working through a

problem aloud helps them think more clearly and connect the dots,” says Small.  Varda Meyers Epstein, 63 also does it as a means of staying motivated. “I talk to myself all the time. “It

does seem to help keep me on task. It’s kind of like I’m narrating what I’m doing as I do it,” she says. As a writer, Epstein also finds herself reading things to herself out loud on the job

to keep her from forgetting what she wants to type. “Saying the words out loud helps cement them in my mind before I can lose them,” she says.  “We call it private speech or self-talk,”

adds Adam Winsler, professor of applied developmental psychology at George Mason University. He notes that we learn to do this in childhood, where it’s associated with better performance on

tasks and cognitively challenging activities, and it’s something we tend to do less of with age.  But as adults, many of us have times when we revert to speaking out loud rather than just

thinking things through in our heads. “And when that happens is when you are challenged, cognitively, typically, or it could be emotionally, or you could be tired — it's just an extra

tool that people use to help them focus and think and problem solve,” he explains. So per Winsler, talking to yourself is normal to do in situations when you’re working through a problem or

trying to think something through. A WAY TO REGULATE YOUR EMOTIONS