The Science of Talking: Boost Your Mood, Sharpen Your Mind, and Protect Against Dementia | Maryellen MacDonald
10% Happier with Dan Harris
10% Media, LLC
4.6 • 12.9K Ratings
🗓️ 13 April 2026
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The way you talk to other people (and yourself) can reduce dysregulation and distraction--and lead to better decisions.
Maryellen MacDonald is the Donald P. Hayes Professor (emerit) of Psychology and Language Sciences at the University of Wisconsin−Madison. She is a cognitive scientist with a focus on psycholinguistics, the study of how we comprehend, produce, and learn languages. Her latest book is More Than Words: How Talking Sharpens the Mind and Shapes Our World.
In this episode we talk about:
- The hidden benefits of talking, including self-talk and writing
- How talking helps focus attention and clarify your thinking
- Why talking can help regulate emotions and improve decision-making
- Why talking is actually harder than listening
- Why we shouldn't rush to finish other people's sentences
- How deliberate talking can help protect against dementia
- Why understanding something doesn't necessarily mean you've learned it
- How talking about new information helps your brain remember it
- Why explaining things to other people deepens your own learning
- Why kids need chances to talk and not just watch screens
- Why you shouldn't judge people by how they talk
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. |
| 0:18.1 | Hello, everybody. How we doing? |
| 0:20.7 | Today I'm talking to a cognitive scientist about how to harness something we all do every day. Talking. We're going to cover how to use talking in order to prevent distraction, depression, dysregulation, dementia, and much more. Just to be clear from the jump here, |
| 0:38.7 | and I already made a nod to this, but I want to make it super clear. My guest is defining talking |
| 0:43.7 | in a broad way, not just having conversations with other people, but also having conversations |
| 0:48.0 | with yourself. In other words, self-talk, and also writing to yourself, which is another |
| 0:52.9 | kind of self-talk. So again, she's defining, |
| 0:55.8 | talking broadly. The she in question is Mary Allen McDonald. She is the Donald P. Hayes |
| 1:01.3 | Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Language Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. |
| 1:06.5 | She's a cognitive scientist with a focus on psycholinguistics, which is the study of how we comprehend, produce, and learn languages. She's also written a book, which is called More Than Words. In this conversation, we talk about the hidden benefits of talking, including, as I mentioned earlier, both self-talk and writing, how talking helps focus attention and clarify your thinking, why talking can help regulate your emotions and improve your decision making. |
| 1:30.4 | Why talking is actually harder than listening. |
| 1:33.0 | Why we shouldn't rush to finish other people's sentences. |
| 1:36.1 | How deliberate talking can protect against dementia. |
| 1:39.5 | Why understanding something doesn't necessarily mean you've learned it. |
| 1:43.5 | How talking about new information |
| 1:44.9 | helps your brain remember it, while explaining things to other people deepens your own learning |
| 1:49.5 | and much more. |
| 1:51.3 | Two things to say before we dive in. |
| 1:53.1 | First, don't forget to check out my newish meditation app 10% with Dan Harris. |
| 1:57.6 | We've got a growing body of guided meditations from teachers like Joseph Goldstein, |
| 2:01.4 | Seven A. Salasi and Jeff Warren. We also do these live video sessions every week where we meditate |
| 2:06.3 | together and take your questions. And it's the place to get this podcast ad free. Second thing to |
... |
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