Talking to yourself is normal. Talking to yourself by name might actually be a smart move. According to the 2014 study, ‘Self-talk as a regulatory mechanism: How you do it matters,’ published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, people who used their own name, rather than “I,” to coach themselves handled socially stressful moments, such as meeting someone new or giving a speech, better than people who continued to use “I.” If you've ever muttered your own name before a big presentation or a first date, this one's for you.
The paper also reported that this self-distancing effect happened in the lab with little effort: When participants reflected on aversive images or painful memories using their own name rather than “I,” the emotional response dropped with no corresponding increase in cognitive-control signals. In other words, the benefit seemed to come from changing how the self is represented, not from forcing people to think harder.
