Do you talk too much? (Take the quiz to find out)
Writer Dan Lyons was a compulsive overtalker who had to change his ways to save his marriage.
In the new book STFU: The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in an Endlessly Noisy World, he writes about the many excellent reasons to listen more than you speak.
Dan Lyons Photo: Supplied
The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut boo kcover Photo: supplied
Alcoholics and overtalkers have a bit in common, Lyons says, with both types making up about 5 percent of the population and having a propensity for self-destruction.
Like alcohol, overtalking can be a good thing to a certain point - and an aid to popularity and good storytelling.
Unless you're what Lyons calls an "ego talker" – a person, usually male, who believes themselves superior to everyone else – overtalking often happens compulsively, he says.
When his own threatened his marriage, 'non-talk therapy' - spending time with his wife and not saying very much - proved helpful.
"There's research that suggests spending time together as a couple without saying much actually deepens your bond.
"The way to win back my wife was to spend time with her and show her I could be more controlled, less manic about my talking."
Although Lyons can still "backslide" and find himself talking too much sometimes, he believes people like him can develop the discipline to control the compulsion.
Lyons does this himself with a range of exercises, tricks, games – and some planning.
If you want to have better conversations, he recommends avoiding the social media platforms that are attempting to turn us all into overtalkers, or at least overtypers,
Tech billionaire and Twitter CEO Elon Musk is a source of amazement to Lyons in the desperate need for attention he displays on his own media platform.
"He's the richest guy in the world, he's a celebrity… yet he still needs more. He still needs to go online and have this army of weirdos who hang on his every word. I don't understand it."
Social media platforms like Twitter are designed to dupe people into hanging around and getting into arguments and ranting, Lyons says.
"The anger you experience online carries back into your 'real life', let's call it, and that has very bad health effects."
By contrast, those of us who have good conversations – deeper than small talk and not too one-sided – are healthier than those who don't, Lyons discovered.
"People who have high-quality conversations are happier and have stronger immune systems."
