There I was, sitting at my desk with a mathematics paper in front of me. I was 16-years-old. I was used to getting good marks at school, but I had gotten it into my head that maths was impossible, that I didn't know what I was doing, and that this test would be a disaster. I felt warm. The walls were pressing in on me. A clock was ticking on the wall ominously, and the questions were swimming on the page before me. Utter gibberish. It didn't matter that I'd studied or that I'd practiced, or even that I was usually a good student. My head was ringing, my hands were clammy, and I'd never found the sound of pens on paper as loud and jarring as I did then.

I failed the test. When I got it back, my teacher asked me what had happened. I told her I'd panicked. She told me to try not to panic in the next test. That's good advice, I suppose. But how do you tell your brain not to panic?

In another article, I wrote about how we are bombarded with tons of information every day and how this can be overwhelming. However, the problem isn't just that we are inundated with information from external sources such as emails or social media. Sometimes, we are overwhelmed by the thoughts in our own heads.

Award-winning psychologist and neuroscientist Ethan Kross authored a book called Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It. In Chatter, Kross examines the studies that he and others have conducted around the inner voice and how it functions.

Sometimes, we are overwhelmed by the thoughts in our own heads.

The voice inside your head is a crucial one, but when it turns negative, it can be detrimental, metamorphosing from a useful tool into a spiral of anxiety or "chatter". As Kross writes:

"Although the inner voice functions well much of the time, it often leads to chatter—the cyclical negative thoughts and emotions that turn our singular capacity for introspection into a curse rather than a blessing."

But how do you get rid of these nasty and persistent thoughts? Read on for five steps to conquering chatter and making room for the thoughts that matter most.

Although the inner voice functions well much of the time, it often leads to chatter.

Changing your perspective can make a world of difference when it comes to using your inner voice constructively and reflectively—and not ruminating. To achieve the distance you need when dealing with a difficult, emotional situation, try envisioning the upsetting experience as though you were watching it and not part of it. Kross calls this the "fly-on-the-wall" approach.

A fly-on-the-wall is a witness, not a participant. He is distanced, not immersed. Third-person, not first. Let's look at an example.

I received a piece of criticism on a chapter I'd written. The criticism felt brutal and I realised I'd have to rewrite the whole chapter. I ruminated on this for a long time, letting my anger simmer and stew, nursing it by telling other people about it, and then repeating how I felt in my thoughts: "I feel angry and humiliated. This all sucks. My reader sucks. My writing sucks."

But I needed to turn this narrative around. To do so, I had to rephrase this tough memory. Here's a different perspective:

Alex received a piece of criticism on a chapter she'd written. She felt like it was brutal criticism and realized that she'd have to rewrite the whole chapter. This affected her more than usual because she had been obsessing over this chapter in a time when she was in lockdown with nothing much else to do. She also hadn't seen her reviewer in person for more than 6 months. The criticism tapped into her own insecurities about writing and research, blinding her from the broader context of what was required of this particular chapter. Alex needed to improve on her theoretical work to make the chapter a good one. She needed to get past her own insecurities and use the criticisms to improve her chapter. She didn't 'suck,' but she could do better.

By positioning myself as though I were watching myself, I could see why I'd responded this way and what constructive action I could take in response to these thoughts and feelings. The distance of turning myself into a third-person meant that I could find a constructive way to deal with criticism. And I went on to rewrite the chapter multiple times and to take criticism less personally moving forward.

This may sound strange, but if you are in the middle of a big freakout—like I was in my mathematics test—it really can help to say your own name. Think about the typical scene in a movie. There's a guy who's about to go on a date. He's very nervous. But then he looks at himself in the mirror and says, "Jack, pull yourself together." And so he does.

It can really help to say your own name.

Talking to yourself as though you are another person has a similar effect to distancing. It takes you out of that immersive emotional state where all you can think of is how you'll screw up your first date, job interview, or big speech and transplant you into the role of a motivational coach.

Now, it's like you're talking to a friend who you know can do what they're so afraid of doing but just needs a bit of encouragement.

You often hear how important it is to talk about your feelings, but this may not always be the best thing to do. Contrary to popular belief and Freud's famous notion of "the talking cure," talking isn't necessarily a remedy for all your psychological issues.

The problem with talking about the big challenge you are facing or the traumatic event that has occurred is that your confidante often only offers you emotional support or empathy without a plan of what to do next. Receiving empathy can be comforting, but it can also exacerbate your feelings, driving you into a whirlwind of anger, sadness, or despair.

Talking about what you are feeling isn't enough. You need someone who can say to you, "I care, and that's horrible," but also, "Here's how to navigate this going forward". As Kross explains, you need a listener who can be both Captain Kirk and Spock - both heart and mind. You need that bitter pill of "I'm so sorry he broke your heart" along with "But everyone goes through break-ups, this isn't unusual, and you can't keep bunking off work forever." It's important to show someone how normal their experience is, and that, therefore, they can overcome their feelings of despair. By expanding their perspective and normalizing what they're going through, you can provide hope and a way out of the chatter maze.

While getting the people in your life to give you the kind of support you need can be difficult, it may be worth evaluating the kinds of conversations you have with those you care about and whether you are offering your own loved ones both cognitive and emotional support.

Support is crucial when it comes to normalizing some of our more difficult and chatter-inducing feelings.

You need both emotional and cognitive support.

For many of us, stress isn't just something that happens in the brain; it's a visceral, full-body experience. Maybe you get an upset stomach before boarding a plane, or just as you are about to give a speech, you feel your breathing pick up pace and your heart pounding in your throat. I sometimes feel my eye twitch when my classmate invites her parents to watch our dance class without warning me in advance.

This can feel very off-putting. You think that others might somehow sense that your body is misbehaving. Or perhaps you feel like your own body has turned against you in an act of self-sabotage. But these physiological responses are not designed to hinder you. They're meant to help. If you reframe the way you think about your body's response to stress to see it as something that's evolutionary programmed into you to improve your performance under pressure, then the body's response becomes less of a cause for stress in itself.

Yes, we have entered a science fiction. I am telling you to time travel. But what I mean by time travel is to use the power of memory and imagination to get a new perspective on the thoughts plaguing you.

In her famous book, The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron advises writers to write themselves two letters:

Writer or not, this can be an informative exercise and is a great way to reframe the challenges that you are facing. If you were 80 years old, what do you think you'd be most concerned with? What would you want your younger self to know? And if you could go back in time, do you remember what was most important to you at the age of 8?

Doesn't this make the new scratch on your car look less like the end of the world and more like, well, a scratch on a car?

Write yourself a letter from your 80-year-old self and your 8-year-old self.

I can't imagine ever having a mind that's sparkling clean, with all the cobwebs of sleep brushed away and all my niggling insecurity vanquished by mental bleach. But there is a way to keep those negative thoughts at bay and keep them small. Mostly, it's about shifting perspective. As Ethan Kross says:

"The key to beating chatter isn’t to stop talking to yourself. The challenge is to figure out how to do so more effectively."

Finding a more effective approach is all about changing the lens through which you view your thoughts and feelings. If you conceive of your mind as a camera, then the trick is to zoom out a bit when the going gets tough. Closeups distort the broader context of the shot, while a wide lens gives you a much clearer sense of everything that's going on.

The key to beating chatter isn’t to stop talking to yourself. The challenge is to figure out how to do so more effectively.

Implementing the fly-on-the-wall approach, using your own name, time traveling, normalizing your bodily responses, and seeking out the right kind of support from others can be immensely helpful for decluttering the mind, sweeping away the chatter, and focusing on what really matters.

If I could go back and talk to my 16-year-old self, I'd tell her that just because mathematics doesn't come easily doesn't mean that it's impossible, that you're stupid, or that you're a failure. I'd also tell her that, even if she does fail the test, life will go on. She won't be forever tainted by the shame of failing a maths test. Maybe she'll even write about it on a public site. And the world will keep spinning.