Chatter

I bought this book as soon as it came out because it looked so damn interesting, and it WAS. I love the exploration of the inner voice, and I think it can be helpful for people struggling with anxiety and those who do not. We all have an inner voice regardless of what we struggle with, so there is a wide application and variety of groups who I believe would benefit from reading this.

A good read and really helpful if you deal with internal chatter of your mind. I would say even use it to the fullest. This may be a re-read for me or if I could find a good podcast coverage of it.

This was a great balance of science and practical tips

CW: mention of suicide.

In general, I found some parts of this book interesting but overall, much of the advice in it for calming one's inner chatter is not applicable to me. Especially the suggestion of development of little rituals to manage internal chatter: I do mental and external rituals to attempt to quell internal chatter so well that it's called obsessive-compulsive disorder. If you have OCD like me, these parts of the book may trigger your compulsions.

A thing that really bothered me is that he cites the marshmallow study uncritically, i.e., without mentioning that there are alternate explanations than self-control for why a kid would immediately eat the single marshmallow and not wait patiently for two marshmallows. Like growing up in poverty, where not immediately seizing an opportunity for a nice thing means you will not have an opportunity again, even if an adult promises otherwise, because poverty means your grownups often make promises that they cannot keep. The children who immediately ate the marshmallow had no reason to believe that the researcher was being truthful when they promised two marshmallows. This book is recent enough that the author should have been aware of this immense problem with the study.

It also bothered me that he uses terminology like “committed suicide” and describes the deceased person's method in more detail than is necessary, when describing someone who had died by suicide. For a book meant to help people develop tools to manage upsetting internal chatter, this is a very serious problem for any reader who struggles with suicidal ideation or who has lost a loved one as a result of suicide. I hope in future printings this is revised.

It gave me a bad taste in my mouth to read the author's praise of the It Gets Better project without mentioning that it spurred criticism from within the LGBTQ community that is still valid today, as well as other projects like the Make It Better project. I know that It Gets Better is the most well-known because of Dan Savage's fame, but I would expect an author in 2020 to do better research. It feels profoundly hollow to read the author lauding It Gets Better in a time when politicians are actively passing laws in many states to make it illegal for trans kids to be called their chosen name and pronoun in school, and to define validating your trans child as child abuse. To Savage's credit, when he developed It Gets Better, the political climate was quite different, and though progress is never linear, it absolutely looked like things were getting better and would continue to do so, without anyone succeeding in dramatically undoing that progress for very long.

I feel bad giving this book two stars, but I have to remind myself that two stars means “it was okay” and that it's an honest representation of how I experienced the book.

2.5 stars. I feel like I am the perfect audience for this book but I didn't glean as much from it as I wish I had. I did, however, like the tip Kross had about mental distancing and relating your stressors from a second or third person perspective, which might help me out when I next go into an anxiety spiral.

A major problem with this book is that it assumes a very specific, neurotypical perspective. While I don't necessarily think Kross needed to have gone into every different type of neurodivergence out there since that isn't the objective of his book, a simple statement to acknowledge that this isn't “one size fits all” advice would've been very much appreciated. Not everyone has inner voices nor do they think in words. I would consider myself neurotypical, but I don't think in words to myself all the time - my anxiety spiral tends to serve me images and scenes, often upsetting ones.

Similarly, a lot of concepts in the book is painted with very broad strokes. I understand that this is, on some level, necessary for the book's marketability and simply because it's aimed to cater to the most “common” mental behaviours, but it sometimes feels a bit alienating, even for myself.

Kross provides about 7 tips for reducing chatter and I don't think all of them would help for everyone out there, so I wish there was more, and also more hands-on advice. I felt like I only really had one good tip from this whole book. I'm thankful for that, but also wished there was more.

Rating: 3.7 leaves out of 5
Cover: 3/5
Content: 3/5
Writing: 5/5
Genre: NonoFic/Self help
Type: Audiobook
Worth?: Meh

So I gave it a 3.7 rounded down to a 3. I really don't care for self help books. Like how do I know you aren't spouting complete bull? From my prospective I don't think it was great but I don't think it was bad. There are some things that were... very questionable or just wrong for me. I know the hard topics were rough for some, but I get his point in using them. I just think he could have done it way better. I don't think I got those in the audio. All in all, did I learn anything from this? No... not really. Maybe because a friend of mine was a psych major and I had to hear his ramblings. Would... you even call that self help and not just a very beige text book?

“In recent years, a robust body of new research has demonstrated that when we experience distress, engaging in introspection often does significantly more harm than good. It undermines our performance at work, interferes with our ability to make good decisions, and negatively influences our relationships.” (Introduction, p. xviii)

“Chatter consists of the cyclical negative thoughts and emotions that turn our singular capacity for introspection into a curse rather than a blessing.” (Introduction, p. xix)

“Although the inner voice functions well much of the time, it often leads to chatter precisely when we need it most—when our stress is up, the stakes are high, and we encounter difficult emotions that call for the utmost poise. Sometimes this chatter takes the form of a rambling soliloquy; sometimes it's a dialogue we have with ourselves. Sometimes it's a compulsive rehashing of past events (rumination); sometimes it's an angst-ridden imagining of future events (worry). Sometimes it's a free-associative pinballing between negative feelings and ideas. Sometimes it's a fixation on one specific unpleasant feeling or notion. However it manifests itself, when the inner voice runs amok and chatter takes the mental microphone, our mind not only torments but paralyzes us. It can also lead us to do things that sabotage us.” (Introduction, p. xxii)

“The key to beating chatter isn't to stop talking to yourself. The challenge is to figure out how to do so more effectively.”

Happily, from the introduction to the book, I am seeing that there are simple instruments for reducing chatter and harnessing our inner voice, and that much of the book will be spent sharing these with us.

Amazing book, just what I've been looking for! Provides great advice, with studies and life stories to back it up.

A practical book for helping to gain more control over the conversation you have with yourself.