Solv­ing 4 Major Prob­lems That Affect Your Voice

                                                     By Joni Wil­son: Voice Expert/Best-selling Author/Voice Coach

Joni’s Stu­dents At Work

Here Are 4 Major Voice Prob­lems Speak­ers and Singers Face Daily and HowTo Effec­tively Man­age Them.

1.) Head Colds and Sinus Infec­tions: (“That darn kid on the plane just kept sneez­ing all over me, what can I do?”)

Water mag­ni­fies sound, and that’s a good thing. So when my clients have a major pre­sen­ta­tion and a head cold at the same time, I tell them to enjoy the res­o­nant sound and stop wor­ry­ing. The voice is pro­duced in the vocal cords down in the lar­ynx, (Adam’s-apple) neck area. Nasal con­ges­tion is pro­duced in the nose and sinus area. These two are not even close to each other. The major con­cern here is to be aware of the med­ica­tions you are tak­ing. If it dries up your mucous (as decon­ges­tants do), it will also dry up your vocal cords because they are mucous mem­branes and need that mucous to keep them lubri­cated. Steam­ing the mucous mem­branes of the nose and throat with a few drops of added euca­lyp­tus oil (any health food store has it,) will work won­ders to add needed mois­ture. If you don’t have a steamer, sim­ply boil a pan of water on the stove, drop in a few drops of the oil, place a towel over your head and breathe in the heal­ing steam all the way down to the bot­tom of your lungs. If you are in a hotel room, take a hot steamy shower and with your mouth wide open, breath that steam in and out of your lungs. DO NOT TAKE ANY DROPS OR MEDICATION CONTAINING MENTHOL. They will shrink and dry out your vocal cords. Old-fashioned lemon drops are the per­fect pastilles for adding lubrication.

2.) Heart­burn and Stom­ach Acid (“It must have been that chicken sur­prise I ate.”)

Stom­ach acid can move from the stom­ach up to the lar­ynx and irri­tate and burn your vocal cords, affect­ing your voice big time. Acid reflux is com­mon in those who have stom­ach prob­lems and has been blamed by many a singer for the lack of a voice. First, do not eat before a per­for­mance or presentation—that is a no-brainer. Sec­ond, never swal­low any­thing with caf­feine, alco­hol or cit­ric acid in it eight hours before you speak or sing. That means cof­fee, most soft drinks, orange juice and caf­feinated teas. Warm herbal teas are good and sooth­ing to the tummy and the voice. Sec­ond, stom­ach acid can also be a stress related prob­lem. Stage fright, per­for­mance anx­i­ety, toxic rela­tion­ships, and a lack of self-confidence before a per­for­mance can also churn up those but­ter­flies in the tummy. That fight or flight adren­a­lin rush, if allowed to run wild, will also turn on the stomach-acid spigot. (For great tips on han­dling Stage fright read; “How to Tame the Stage Fright Monster.”)

3.) Chronic Throat Clear­ing (“If I could just clear this gunk out.…”)

This is a very com­mon prob­lem for speak­ers, singers, teach­ers, lawyers, and peo­ple who over-use their voices in their jobs. We have all sat in an audi­ence lis­ten­ing to a speaker/teacher who con­stantly clears his/her throat. This not only irri­tates the audi­ence but it is extremely irri­tat­ing to the vocal cords. (This is some­times a chronic ner­vous habit car­ried over from puberty.) Remem­ber, the mucous that coats the vocal cords is there to pro­tect them and when you con­tin­u­ally scrape out the mucous to clear the throat, the body’s defense sys­tem calls up the “Mucous Army”. The more mucous you scrap out, the more mucous the vocal cords pro­duce to pro­tect them­selves from all that clear­ing going on When the Mucous Army begins to resem­ble the National Guard, it’s time to stop all that destruc­tive clear­ing and try another tactic.

Joni Wil­son Voice Expert

 Also drop­ping the jaw in a relaxed “yawn” posi­tion will help relieve pres­sure in the vocal cord area. While in that yawn posi­tion say; “Haaaaah­h­hhh” slid­ing down your pitch from high­est to low­est. This is called a “yawn sigh” and it’s a great ten­sion reliever as well as a tool to help your vocal cords re– affirm their relaxed posi­tion so they can get back to their “real” job of cre­at­ing sound.

4.) The PMS Blues (“PMS also affects my voice? You are kid­ding me.”)

Obvi­ously this one only affects the ladies, but it’s a real prob­lem for women who depend on a strong voice for busi­ness. It is not an imag­ined prob­lem, guys! It’s so real that it is even writ­ten in the opera diva’s con­tract that she will not per­form while PMS-ing. It is taste­fully called “Grace Days”. This monthly vocal prob­lem is caused by a woman’s hor­mone lev­els get­ting out of bal­ance dur­ing those PMS days and not only effect­ing her emo­tions but also chang­ing the nat­ural size and tex­ture of her vocal cords. This causes a deep­en­ing in the voice and a loss of high notes. For the female speaker/singer the symp­toms are: vocal fatigue, hoarse­ness and some muf­fling of the voice. What to do, what to do? Sim­ply under­stand­ing that this annoy­ance is merely a part of being female, helps a woman han­dle it. Like the Opera Diva, if you can, sched­ule your major pre­sen­ta­tions around your per­sonal “Grace Days”, do it!