crazy ladyWhen I was younger and had fewer than 8 million things on my mind at any given moment, I used to give my mom a hard time because she talked to herself. Like, all the time. (So did my grandmother, now that I think about it.) Footloose and un-frazzled as I was, it used to drive me nuts when I heard her voice coming from another room and thought she was talking to me:

"What, Mom?" Silence. "WHAT DID YOU SAY?!" Silence. "MOOOOM!"

"Hmm? Oh, nothing, I was just talking to myself."

Aargh!

Of course, now that I'm a mom and karma tends to bite us all in the arse at some point, I find myself having similar solo conversations:

"Now, what did I come in this room for? Oh yeah, the laundry basket. Now where did that soap go ... ?"

Does this mean I'm as crazy as my mother?!

Not neccessarily! Check this out: According to a new study, talking to yourself can actually speed up your thought process.

For example, people looking for certain items found them faster when they talked about them out loud -- talking about the objects “activates visual properties in the brain."

Totally makes sense. Just like that episode of Sesame Street from the mid-70's with the cartoon about the little kid whose mom sends him to the store for "a loaf of bread, a quart of milk, and a stick of butter." And the whole time he's walking to the store he's singing to himself, "a loaf of bread, a quart of milk, and a stick of butter."

THEN when he gets to the store and the grocer asks him what he needs to buy, he thinks about his little song and pictures the items: "A loaf of bread ... a quart of milk ... and ... a stick of butter!"

Hey, that's all the evidence I need. SOLD.

Do you talk to yourself? Be honest!

 

Image via Anathea Utley/Flickr