“Help, I’m Losing My Voice at the End of the Day!

This past week, I’ve heard this statement from three different career women:  a fitness coach, a lawyer, and a project manager:  “My throat is sore; I think I’m losing my voice.” None of them had a cold or allergies. Has this ever happen to you? If so, there are three crucial strategies to avoid wearing out your voice and to put less strain on your vocal folds (cords).

The first strategy is to loosen your body muscles particularly in the area of your neck, shoulders, jaw; and generally stretch all your limbs to free your body tension. This seems to be a very easy solution. It would allow your voice to freely exit your mouth without your sound fighting through a series of road blocks to survive. However, you continue to blast away at those vocal tissues by drinking more caffeine, yelling from your throat, smoking, coughing, and even cruelly whispering until your last sound dies.  You have non-stop energy to keep the assaults going.

Did you know that your vocal folds intuitively are on your side ready to fight off any attack they encounter so they can save your voice? The more you continue to speak, the weaker your sound becomes until it loses the fight. The more you shout over others or any equipment noise the worse you feel dragged out and sore in your throat. Your vocal folds become infected.  If you stopped speaking and gave your voice a rest, the vocal folds would rebound soon enough so you could speak eloquently or definitively once more. So, that’s your second strategy, don’t whisper – stop talking – rest is the antidote.

Finally, your best approach is to initiate your personal daily work routine as a speaker by adopting an intercostal diaphragmatic breathing procedure to alleviate strain, stress, and soreness. Pause more often, drink some water, and calmly project your sound using the propulsion of your breath as the core to everlasting voice power.  As soon as you feel your throat feeling dry or harsh, that’s your cue to let others speak and you listen.

Which part of your collaborative team of muscles, mind, and motive needs to be re-balanced, so you can avoid losing your voice again at the end of your working day?
Please leave a comment below.
Cheers! - Here’s to keeping voice fit.
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P.S. If your voice is under a great deal of daily strain and you want someone to help you alleviate this; plus, show you how to apply diaphragmatic breathing to boost and manage your voice; then contact me today, Brenda C. Smith, your personal voice power coach. Find more strategies throughout my new book, “Breathe…Just Steps to Breathtaking Speeches” which you can purchase online http://bit.ly/1lqNWXl  for yourself or as gifts to your team and staff.

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