Talking to yourself may seem a little shameful¹.

自言自语似乎显得有点丢人。

If you’ve ever been overheard *berating yourself for a foolish mistake or practicing a tricky² speech ahead of time, you’ll have felt the social *injunction against communing with yourself in words.

如果你曾经被人听到在斥责自己犯了一个愚蠢的错误，或是在预演一篇有挑战的演讲，你就会感受到社会对这种自言自语的行为侧目而视。

According to the well-known saying, talking to yourself is the first sign of madness.

用人们熟知的话来说，自言自语是变疯的第一迹象。

But there’s no need for embarrassment³.

但你不必感到尴尬。

Talking to ourselves, whether out loud or silently in our heads, is a valuable tool for thought.

自言自语——无论是大声说出还是在心中默念——都很有价值，是思考的一种工具。

Far from being a sign of insanity⁴, self-talk allows us to plan what we are going to do, manage our activities, regulate our emotions and even create a narrative⁵ of our experience.

自言自语非但不代表精神失常，而且恰恰相反，它有助于我们规划要做的事情和管控自己的各种活动和情绪，甚至还能创作一段关于自己经历的故事。

Take a trip to any preschool and watch a small child playing with her toys.

你可以去任何一家幼儿园，观察一个小孩子自己玩玩具的情景。

You are very likely to hear her talking to herself: offering herself directions and giving voice to her *frustrations.

你极有可能会听到她在自说自话：或是告诉自己要做什么，或是表达自己的沮丧之情。

Psychologists refer to this as private speech – language that is spoken out loud but directed at the self.

心理学家将这种行为称作私下话语：大声说出来但却是对着自己说的语言。

We do a lot of it when we are young–perhaps one reason for our shyness about continuing with it as adults.

我们小时候经常这样做——或许这就是为什么我们成年后会羞于继续这样做的一个原因。

As children, according to the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, we use private speech to regulate our actions in the same way that we use public speech to control the behavior of others.

根据俄罗斯心理学家利维.维果斯基的说法，作为孩子，我们用私下话语来规范自己的行为，就像我们用公众话语来规范他人的行为一样。

As we grow older, we don’t abandon this system–we *internalize it.

随着我们年龄的增长，我们并没有放弃这个体系——我们把它内化了。

Psychological experiments have shown that this so-called inner speech can improve our performance on tasks ranging from judging what other people are thinking to sorting images into categories.

心理学实验已经表明，这种所谓的内在言语可以提高我们处理一些事情的能力，比如从判断别人在想什么，到把图片分门别类。

The distancing effect of our words can give us a valuable perspective on our actions.

我们的言词所产生的疏离效果能给我们提供一个审视自己行为的难得视角。

One recent study suggested that self-talk is most effective when we address ourselves in the second person: as you rather than I.

最近一项研究表明，当我们用第二人称你而不是我来称呼自己时，自我对话会最有效。

We internalize the private speech we use as children–but we never entirely⁶ put away the out-loud version.

我们内化了在孩童时期使用的私下话语——但我们却从未完全放弃大声说出的方式。

If you want proof, turn on the sports channel.

如果你需要证据，那就打开体育频道，

You’re bound to see an athlete or two gearing themselves up with a tart⁷ phrase or scolding themselves after a bad shot.

你一定会看到有那么一两个运动员在对自己说着鼓劲儿话，或是在没投中球后狠狠地责备自己。

Conducting a dialogue with ourselves–asking questions of the self and providing answers–seems to be a particularly good way of solving problems and working through ideas.

与自己进行对话—自问自答—似乎是一种很好的解决问题和理清想法的方式。

The to-and-fro between different points of view means our thoughts can end up in expected places, just like a regular dialogue can, and might turn out to be one of the keys to human creativity.

在不同的观点之间来来回回好几遍可以让我们就像同别人对话一样让想法着落在正确的地方，并且这可能也是促进我们人类创造力的关键之一。

Both kinds of self-talk–the silent and the vocal–seem to bring a range of benefits to our thinking.

两种自言自语的方式——默念和出声——似乎都给我们的思考带来很多好处。

Those words to the self, spoken silently or aloud, are so much more than *idle chatter⁸.

自我对话——无论是心中默念还是大声说出——都比闲聊有意义得多。