Thinking (or dreaming) this way was not productive. I had dreams about being in a crowded space – an airport or shopping center – filled with people and I wasn’t wearing a mask.

Early in the pandemic I experienced chatter, worrying about whether I had been exposed to Covid, even though I really hadn’t left the house. Chatter and the PandemicĬhatter happens to everyone. And like an earworm song that won’t get our of our head, the negative thoughts dominate to the point that they impact the way we think and interact with others (p. Chatter has an immediate negative impact on us as we fall into the loop of reviewing what we did wrong or what happened to us. So what exactly is chatter?Ĭhatter is comprised of “cyclical negative thoughts and emotions” that interfere with our ability to reflect calmly and productively. Whatever the case, most of us have these moments – when the stream of conversation in your mind has become what University of Michigan experimental psychologist and neuroscientist Ethan Kross calls “chatter.” In his recent national bestseller, Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It, Kross explains why chatter is inevitable but manageable (and even potentially useful) if we teach ourselves how to harness it. Maybe it was reacting to something someone else said to you. One of those times when your internal critic was carrying on a dialogue with your vulnerable self, scolding you for something you did, or said, or didn’t get done. Think back to a time that you were really in your head.

Ethan chatter