Turns out, talking to yourself isn’t so crazy after all.

That voice in your head can help you control your cravings, say researchers at the University of Toronto.

“We give ourselves messages all the time with the intent of controlling ourselves–whether that’s telling ourselves to keep running when we’re tired, to stop eating even though we want one more slice of cake, or to refrain from blowing up on someone in an argument,” Alexa Tullett, Ph.D., candidate and lead author on the study, said in a press release.

With that in mind, Tullett and her colleagues put her theory to the test. She discovered that when people who weren’t able to talk to themselves acted more impulsively and made more errors.

The likely reason: The study participants weren’t allowed to talk to themselves, which hindered their focus.

Talking to yourself can subconsciously cause you to think of other reasons why you should resist the impulse, say the study authors. Take, for example, the person who’s trying to resist a piece of cake. Telling themselves not to eat it can trigger their minds to think of the reasons why they shouldn’t eat it—like the fact that they’re on a diet.

Just remember this when you’re dining out with friends:

“Situations where we are constantly talking make it difficult or impossible to use the inner voice,” says Tullett. “[This] may have consequences for our self-control as a result. Being at a dinner party, for example, might result in us eating much more food (or drinking much more alcohol) than we would have if we were monitoring our actions.”

And this advice isn’t just for dieters: “Similarly, if you’re talking on the phone and your girlfriend is doing something annoying, you might not take the time to count to 10 and instead blow up at her,” she adds.

Next time you have to make a choice, let yourself do the talking.