How to Control Your Inner Voice & Increase Your Resilience | Dr. Ethan Kross

Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine, and I'm wearing these red lens wind-down Roka glasses because we are recording this late at night, which is unusual for us and bright light, in particular short wavelength bright light in the blue and green part of the spectrum, quashes melatonin and makes it hard to sleep, and I want to sleep tonight. These red lens glasses filter out the green and blue short wavelengths that would otherwise disrupt my sleep. My guest today is Dr. Ethan Kross. Dr. Ethan Kross is a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, and the director of the Emotion and Self-Control Laboratory. He is also the author of the best-selling book, Chatter: The Voice in Our Head and How to Harness It. Today's discussion is a really special one because we discuss something that each and all of us have, which is a voice in our head that is our voice, and that voice can range from encouraging to discouraging. It can be repetitive in ways that can be very intrusive, and it has a profound effect on our emotional state, our confidence, our levels of anxiety, and indeed what we are capable of achieving in life. Dr. Ethan Kross's laboratory has done groundbreaking research to understand what is the origin of this voice in our heads, and can and should we control it? And indeed the answer is yes. Today's discussion gets into many things that people struggle with and many things that you can do to improve your life, such as how to regulate the chatter in your head, how to overcome ruminations and intrusive thoughts, and we also discuss what to do with your actual voice. For instance, data pointing to the fact that venting your negative emotions to others is actually bad. It tends to amplify bad emotions. We talk about that research. We also talk about other forms of outward speech and inward speech, that inner voice that you can partake in in order to improve your emotional state and shift your emotional state. So today's discussion really centers around common questions and common scenarios and common challenges that everybody grapples with, and of course, we all have a voice in our head. Today you're going to learn to listen to it, to regulate it, and indeed to steer it in the direction of mental health, physical health, and performance. I'm also excited to tell you that Dr. Ethan Kross soon has another book coming out entitled, Shift: Managing Your Emotions So They Don't Manage You, and I tremendously enjoyed Chatter, his first book, and I very much look forward to reading Shift when it comes out. We provide links to the work in Dr. Ethan Kross's laboratory as well as links to his previous and forthcoming book in the show note captions. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero-cost-to-consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN is a virtual private network that keeps your data secure and private. It does that by routing your internet activity through their servers and encrypting it so that no one can see or sell your data. Now, I'm personally familiar with the effects of not securing my data well enough. Several years ago, I had one of my bank accounts hacked, and it was a terrible amount of work to try and have that reversed and the account secured. So after that happened, I talked to my friends in the tech community, and they told me that even though you may think your internet connection is secure, oftentimes it is not, especially if you're using wifi networks such as those on planes and hotels, at coffee shops, and other public areas. In fact, even when you're on the internet at home, your data may not be as secure as you think. The great thing about ExpressVPN is that I don't even notice that it's running since the connection it provides is so fast. I have it on my computer and on my phone, and I just keep it on whenever I'm connected to the internet. If you want to start protecting your internet activity using ExpressVPN, you can go to expressvpn.com/huberman and you can get an extra three months free. Again, that's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N .com/huberman to get an extra three months free. Today's episode is also brought to us by Eight Sleep. 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The Pod 4 Ultra has improved cooling and heating capacity, higher fidelity sleep tracking technology, and even has snoring detection that will automatically lift your head a few degrees to improve your airflow and stop your snoring. If you'd like to try an Eight Sleep mattress cover, go to eightsleep.com/huberman to access their Black Friday offer right now. With this Black Friday discount, you can save up to $600 off on their Pod 4 Ultra. This is Eight Sleep's biggest sale of the year. Eight Sleep currently ships to the USA, Canada, the UK, select countries in the EU, and Australia. Again, that's eightsleep.com/huberman. And now for my discussion with Dr. Ethan Kross. Dr. Ethan Kross, welcome.