IF YOU DO ONE THING THIS MONTH...
Promise you’ll give us a chance before you roll your eyes and turn the page – it’s worth it, we swear. A study by Michigan State University has found that speaking to yourself in the third person can help control your emotional responses to negative feelings. Monitoring blood flow in the brain, researchers observed less cognitive activity when a participant – let’s call her Cathy – talked about negative emotions in the third person (‘why does Cathy feel so upset?’) compared with traditional self-reflection (‘why do I feel so upset?’). Their findings suggest that referring to yourself in the third person allows you to assess problems from a more detached perspective, just like giving advice to a friend. We’re not saying it won’t feel mega weird to begin with – but science says it’s worth a try, which is good enough for, well, Cathy.