Warm-up: Give Yourself a Pep Talk — and Gain an Advantage

According to a small study published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, psychologists Daniel Swinglet and Gary Lupyan discovered that there are many benefits to talking to ourselves, including improvement in our ability to remember, organize our thoughts and ultimately achieve our goals.

Twenty participants were given the name of an object and then told to locate various items in a grocery store. Participants were required to remain silent for the first trial. In the second trial, they were asked to repeat the name of the object as they searched for it.

Test subjects more easily found the item they sought as they repeated its name aloud to themselves. Saying things out loud creates a trigger in your mind that can help you to remember.