You're rinsing a coffee mug, and you hear yourself say, aloud, "Wait, where did I put my keys?” A coworker walks by, and you feel a flash of embarrassment, like you just got caught doing something a little unhinged. Here's the good news: you didn't. According to a 2025 study published in Scientific Reports, researchers tracked 208 adults for two weeks, collecting some 13,000 daily survey responses about more than 20,000 individual moments. In 61 percent of the situations researchers asked about, people reported talking to themselves, silently or out loud. Only 1 percent said they never did this. So if you whisper your grocery list to yourself or give yourself a pep talk in the mirror, you are in the overwhelming majority, not the outlier.
This habit goes back to childhood
