Ethan Kross

If you’re like me, and a zillion other people, and find yourself being consumed by your thoughts—rumination, worry, etc. you’ll probably find something beneficial in this book. The author has taught on this subject for years at University of Michigan, as well as proposed and overseen numerous neurological studies regarding what he calls chatter—your inner voice, or “conversations we have with ourselves.”

It’s an informative, fairly short book, chock-full of references to different studies supporting the tools he presents to defend yourself against and gaining control over spiraling thoughts. There are several different approaches, and they’re outlined nicely in the last section of the book, “The Tools.” In fact, if you’re short on time, you could skip to this last portion of the book to get to the good stuff right away. You’ll miss out on the examples, anecdotes, and references to different studies supporting these techniques, but you’ll still get a solid explanation of different things to try when your chatter is consuming you.

He doesn’t present anything as one size fits all. Instead, he rolls out quite a few tools that have been shown to help people, and he encourages readers to try them and find what combination works best. His writing style is interesting and accessible, and I was engaged throughout.
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