The reason rituals are so effective at helping us manage our inner voices is that theyre a chatter-reducing cocktail that influences us through several avenues. For one, they direct our attention away from whats bothering us; the demands they place on working memory to carry out the tasks of the ritual leave little room for anxiety and negative manifestations of the inner voice. This might explain why pregame rituals abound in sports, providing a distraction at the most anxiety-filled moment.Many rituals also provide us with a sense of order, because we perform behaviors we can control. For example, we cant control what will happen to our children throughout their lives, and we can protect them only to a limited degree, which is a source of chatter for many parents. But when they are born, we can baptize them or perform any other of a variety of birth rituals that provide us with an illusion of control.

Chatter by Ethan Kross