Here’s what could be the easiest stress-busting tip ever: Give yourself a good talking to – in the third person.

Simply talking silently to yourself in the third person in stressful times – “Mary, why are you worried about finishing your story by the deadline?” – may help you control emotions more effectively than the first-person pep talk people normally give themselves.

The third-person self-talk may constitute a relatively effortless form of self-control according to psychology researchers at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan, who conducted the study. The study was published in Scientific Reports, a Nature journal.

For example, let’s say a man named John is upset about recently being dumped. By reflecting on his feelings in the third person – “Why is John upset?” – John is less emotionally reactive than when he addresses himself in the first person: “Why am I upset?”

“Essentially, we think referring to yourself in the third person leads people to think about themselves more similar to how they think about others, and you can see evidence for this in the brain,” said Jason Moser, MSU associate professor of psychology. “That helps people gain a tiny bit of psychological distance from their experiences, which can often be useful for regulating emotions.”

The researchers conducted two studies. At MSU, participants viewed neutral and disturbing images and reacted to them in both the first and the third person while their brain activity was monitored by an electroencephalograph.

While reacting to a disturbing image, such as a man holding a gun to their heads, participants’ emotional brain activity decreased quickly – within 1 second – when they referred to themselves in the third person.

They found that using the third person took no more effort for participants than did using traditional first-person self-talk. This makes it an ideal technique for regulating one’s emotions on the spur of the moment. Other forms of emotion regulation require considerable thought and effort, MSU’s Moser said.

In the experiment at U-M, participants reflected on painful past experiences using first- and third-person language while their brain activity was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Participants displayed less activity in a brain region commonly implicated in reflecting on painful emotional experiences when they used third-person self-talk, suggesting better emotional regulation.

Brain data from the complementary experiments suggest that third-person self-talk constitutes a relatively effortless form of emotion regulation, said U-M psychology professor Ethan Kross,

“If this ends up being true – we won’t know until more research is done – there are lots of important implications these findings have for our basic understanding of how self-control works, and for how to help people control their emotions in daily life,” he said.

In the meantime, if using your first name in an internal monologue makes it easier to control thoughts, feelings and behavior and stay calm under stress, sign me up.

(“Your story’s done, Mary, with time to spare! I knew you could do it.”)

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