INSIGHTS
Ideas to move your mind
Psychological

How Calling Yourself by Name Changes How Your Brain Handles Stress

Have you ever noticed how much better you are at giving advice to a friend than to yourself? What if you could tap into that clarity for your own problems? The technique is called self-distancing—viewing your situation as though it belongs to someone else. It’s like stepping out of your head and seeing things from the outside.

The full breakdown — the context, the shift, and a question to sit with — opens in the Insights app.
The thinker
Stress and Coping Researcher

Mark Seery is an associate professor of psychology at the University at Buffalo, specializing in stress, coping, and resilience. His research explores how self-distancing strategies, such as third-person self-talk, can effectively reduce anxiety and improve performance under pressure.

Based on Self-Distancing Can Reduce Anxiety and Stress, summarised and reframed by Insights.

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