improving mood by talking to yourself

Can talking to yourself help your state of mind? I'm willing to try, and I'm starting small. Every morning I noticed that I would wake up stressed, thinking "Today I SHOULD do this or that, or everything. Supposedly, and I believe it, this is bad for your mental health. All those imperatives in your brain. It turns yourself into a slave driver. And the only person you're driving is yourself. Ok, so I tried to step back and eliminate the "shoulds." But they were always lurking in my brain- at first a subtle reminder, then an order. "Oh, go to hell" is what I wanted to tell my brain. Finally one day recently, it just came to me-- Hey, let's just substitute COULD for SHOULD. Amazingly, this works really well, at least with me. I Could iron today. I Could fire the kiln today. I Could swim today. I Could caulk all around the house. Etc. Etc. and whatever applies to you. I Could put this in my blog, and I did.