Dr. Ethan Kross

Well, you know, one of the reasons why the Pennybaker effect is believed to be so useful is because it imposes a structure on the stream going through our head, which is oftentimes not organized. And when you find that inner verbal stream going in the negative direction, so negative self-talk, so the chatter, right?

Well, you know, one of the reasons why the Pennybaker effect is believed to be so useful is because it imposes a structure on the stream going through our head, which is oftentimes not organized. And when you find that inner verbal stream going in the negative direction, so negative self-talk, so the chatter, right?

You're an idiot, such an idiot, or you're looping over a problem without making any progress. Putting those words in, actually taking that inner she-man and making a story out of it is essentially what the Penny Baker writing cues you to do. Because we are taught when we write, we write in sentences. There's a structure to our writing that we impose on our thinking.

You're an idiot, such an idiot, or you're looping over a problem without making any progress. Putting those words in, actually taking that inner she-man and making a story out of it is essentially what the Penny Baker writing cues you to do. Because we are taught when we write, we write in sentences. There's a structure to our writing that we impose on our thinking.

You're an idiot, such an idiot, or you're looping over a problem without making any progress. Putting those words in, actually taking that inner she-man and making a story out of it is essentially what the Penny Baker writing cues you to do. Because we are taught when we write, we write in sentences. There's a structure to our writing that we impose on our thinking.

Up here in our minds, it's a free-for-all. It can go in all sorts of directions. And that chaos is in part what can make chatter so aversive.

Up here in our minds, it's a free-for-all. It can go in all sorts of directions. And that chaos is in part what can make chatter so aversive.

Up here in our minds, it's a free-for-all. It can go in all sorts of directions. And that chaos is in part what can make chatter so aversive.

Well, that's, I think, where the writing provides a tool to structure your thinking. Talking has a similar modality. So when we talk to people, there is a structure to the way we converse where we're not, if I were to just talk to you the way I pinball in my mind, you wouldn't be able to understand me and you would think I'm out of my bleeping mind, right? Because I would be unable to

Well, that's, I think, where the writing provides a tool to structure your thinking. Talking has a similar modality. So when we talk to people, there is a structure to the way we converse where we're not, if I were to just talk to you the way I pinball in my mind, you wouldn't be able to understand me and you would think I'm out of my bleeping mind, right? Because I would be unable to

Well, that's, I think, where the writing provides a tool to structure your thinking. Talking has a similar modality. So when we talk to people, there is a structure to the way we converse where we're not, if I were to just talk to you the way I pinball in my mind, you wouldn't be able to understand me and you would think I'm out of my bleeping mind, right? Because I would be unable to

have a meaningful conversation with you. So there's some research which shows that if you get people to think of, to recall a chatter-provoking experience, so think about something negative that's happened to you, and then you randomly assign them to just think about it and work it through in their mind versus write about it, so i.e.

have a meaningful conversation with you. So there's some research which shows that if you get people to think of, to recall a chatter-provoking experience, so think about something negative that's happened to you, and then you randomly assign them to just think about it and work it through in their mind versus write about it, so i.e.

have a meaningful conversation with you. So there's some research which shows that if you get people to think of, to recall a chatter-provoking experience, so think about something negative that's happened to you, and then you randomly assign them to just think about it and work it through in their mind versus write about it, so i.e.

a Penny Baker writing-like condition, or talk about it to someone else. The talking and the writing both do better in terms of how they feel when they're done as compared to the just thinking because there's no guardrails to the way we think. That we are taught, I should add, because we're going to give people guardrails later in this episode.

a Penny Baker writing-like condition, or talk about it to someone else. The talking and the writing both do better in terms of how they feel when they're done as compared to the just thinking because there's no guardrails to the way we think. That we are taught, I should add, because we're going to give people guardrails later in this episode.

a Penny Baker writing-like condition, or talk about it to someone else. The talking and the writing both do better in terms of how they feel when they're done as compared to the just thinking because there's no guardrails to the way we think. That we are taught, I should add, because we're going to give people guardrails later in this episode.

It's a useful practice and it's an underutilized practice. So we did two pretty large studies during COVID to look at how people... How are people regulating their emotions on a daily basis to deal with the anxiety surrounding COVID? And we gave them... a series of tools that they could check off if they used the tools that day. And we learned a couple of really interesting things.

It's a useful practice and it's an underutilized practice. So we did two pretty large studies during COVID to look at how people... How are people regulating their emotions on a daily basis to deal with the anxiety surrounding COVID? And we gave them... a series of tools that they could check off if they used the tools that day. And we learned a couple of really interesting things.

It's a useful practice and it's an underutilized practice. So we did two pretty large studies during COVID to look at how people... How are people regulating their emotions on a daily basis to deal with the anxiety surrounding COVID? And we gave them... a series of tools that they could check off if they used the tools that day. And we learned a couple of really interesting things.