How to look past the chatter and manage your inner voice

It can be tough to manage your inner voice.

That little critic in your head can help you wade through some of life’s biggest challenges — but it can also be a cruel tormentor living rent-free in your mind.

Professor Ethan Kross, a psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Michigan, has spent the last 20 years researching how we evolved to live with this internal dialogue.

He says it can be a force for good, provided we consider “what we can do to harness our voice rather than get controlled by it in the wrong ways”.

So how can you live with the inner critic in your head and not let its chatter take over?

Your internal guide

Professor Kross says the internal voice is a product of human evolution, one that first emerges for young…