I’ve written a lot about how I help my students develop a greater capacity for self-control (see Report On This Week’s Lessons On The Brain & Self-Control).

After students learn about research related to self-control, one of the things they do is think about “bad” things they’re tempted to do and then to visualize what they could say to themselves to distract themselves from the temptation. For example, in one recent poster a student drew and wrote about how she sometimes is tempted to be impatient and yell at her friend. When she feels like that, she drew and wrote than instead she’ll try to think about when they met at a refugee camp in Thailand.

This idea of “self-talk” and distraction was reinforced by a new study published yesterday. You can read about how the Inner Voice Plays Role In Self Control at Science Daily.