It’s not uncommon for people to get “stuck” in their heads, ruminating on failures, mistakes, or obstacles that feel insurmountable. We have all had those moments where our internal voices go around and around a subject without solving anything. We end up like a hamster on a wheel, spinning endlessly but making no progress.
In his 2021 book Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It, psychologist Ethan Kross says that narrowing our attention on a challenge or emotion isn’t the problem in and of itself. Instead, “when we find ourselves stuck on our problems and lose the ability to flexibly zoom out—to gain perspective—that’s when our inner voice turns into rumination.”
Kross suggests that when we get stuck in these cycles, our brains activate our “stress-response hardware,” which releases adrenaline and cortisol, only exacerbating what we might call a “doom spiral.”
Getting stuck in a doom spiral isn’t good for anyone, especially leaders. One important tool to help us break out of this endless loop of internal chatter is to practice distancing—the intentional act of mentally stepping outside of a problem, challenge, or emotional response to get a bird’ s-eye view of it.
What Zooming Out Looks Like
Zooming out can take different forms. One way to distance yourself is to step back as if watching a movie—to stand apart from the memory or challenge as if observing it from a distance.
Kross describes an experiment in which participants were asked to discuss an upsetting memory. Those invited to tell it from a first-person perspective came away feeling more negative feelings and even more stuck in emotional weeds, while the group instructed to take a “fly-on-the-wall” perspective said they gained clarity and understood better what others felt in the situation.
Another distancing technique is temporal distancing, the act of mentally projecting forward in time to imagine the impact of a situation, decision, or experience several years into the future. For people struggling through a challenging personal experience, temporal distancing can provide reassurance that the challenge won’t last forever and help play out potential scenarios that different decisions might lead to.
Observing your challenges as if they belong to a friend—and even talking to yourself in the third person—can also help gain distance. Kross describes an experiment where people were given two hypotheticals for treating cancer: do nothing and have a 10% chance of dying or risk a novel treatment that has a 5% chance of killing you. Overall, the second choice is better because it reduces the risk of death. Interestingly, 40% of participants chose the first option for themselves, but when asked to decide for a friend, only 31% chose the first option.
3 Ways Managing Your Inner Chatter Can Help at Work.
Distancing isn’t a panacea for managing all stress at work, but it offers some significant benefits.
1. It Silences the Lizard Brain
When we get stuck in emotional rumination, we engage our amygdala—our “lizard brain.” This part of the brain detects threats and provokes our fight, flight, or freeze instinct. Looking at a situation up close and using personal pronouns such as “I” and “me” keeps us inside that emotional hamster wheel.
In contrast, when we step back and use distancing techniques, we engage our frontal cortex—our “thinking brain.” This is the part of our brain that solves problems and handles creative and productive work. Engaging your frontal cortex through distancing can help you make a more reasoned assessment, improving your decision-making abilities.
2. It Helps Regulate Emotions
Many situations at work can cause leaders to get stuck in a doom spiral or frustrated rumination. Dealing with difficult co-workers or team members, making a mistake, or fighting through frustration when you disagree with a decision can all trigger strong emotional responses.
Good leaders are able to regulate emotions under challenging circumstances. Distancing techniques can help by quieting the amygdala and engaging the frontal cortex. In addition, taking a step back to a more objective position can help leaders see how others might interpret situations or why they might respond in unproductive ways.
3. It Can Help You See the Big Picture
In challenging situations, it can be easy to focus only on the present discomfort or immediate future. If you say the wrong thing in a meeting or make a visible mistake, it might feel like the entire world can see your error. You might worry about losing your job or even damaging your career—when in reality, it’s more likely that any consequences from your mistake will be recoverable.
Distancing techniques help you see the big picture. Stepping back from the emotional response can help you jump forward in time to see the longer-term impact of your current situation. Will it matter in a week? A month? Five years? More? Understanding a mistake or obstacle as one bump on a very long road can help you recover from the emotional response to a negative situation.
It’s important to remember that simply having an inner voice and engaging in an internal conversation isn’t harmful or unhealthy—it is, in fact, a normal human phenomenon. According to Kross, one study found that “we internally talk to ourselves at a rate equivalent to speaking four thousand words per minute out loud.” It’s when we get stuck in a doom spiral that our inner chatter can derail our effectiveness.
Try zooming out the next time you find yourself stuck on that internal hamster wheel. Chances are good that you’ll improve your leadership skills and feel less stress and anxiety.
Self-check:
- Do I frequently get “stuck” in internal chatter?
- What situations are most likely to trigger this kind of emotional rumination for me?
- What is one way I could use distancing to better harness my inner voice?
