3. Three must-do's to take care of your voice

I reveal three things you simply have to do to make sure you have your voice towards the end of your life - or just the end of the week!

Transcript

I'm Sally Prosser and you're listening to That Voice Podcast. No matter who you are or what you do, your voice matters. And unless you've sworn a lifetime vow of silence, this is the podcast for you.

In today's episode, I'd love to take you through my three must-do’s to take care of your voice. And I don't care if you're not a professional opera singer or an actor or a journalist, even if you hardly speak at all through the day, you're going to want to take care of your voice because you're going to need it later on in life or even later on in the week. I think we can all relate to how annoying it is and painful to get that scratchy rundown throat and not to have your voice there when you need it. So this is really about self-care. If we don't take care of our voice, we haven't got anything. Now the three must-do's I'm going to take you through are three things that also our body can't live without.

Number one, air. Number two, water. And number three, rest.

So chances are if you're not drinking enough water and you're not having enough sleep, then you're not taking care of your voice. But look, don't worry, I'm not going to be here giving you a lecture because I'm definitely in this boat as well and getting all the balance right is a daily battle I think for most of us.

So let's go through point number one which is air. Our voice needs air, oxygen fuels our voice. If we were in the orchestra, we'd be part of the woodwind family - all the instruments powered by air. They might think this is pretty obvious and we do it without thinking, but it's not the case. A lot of people rather than speak as the air is flowing out, simply hold their breath while they're speaking and this is one reason why you get this restricted kind of sound in the voice.

Episode five is going to focus all on breathing technique and it'll go into a lot more detail about what you can do to get the right breathing method. Just know for today. You need to give your voice air to take care of it because if no is coming through, then it can be very harsh and scratchy on the vocal cords. Not to mention it's not very nice for your sound. Air and breathing. I also go through in great detail in my Speak to be Heard online program. So in module one, which is how to love your nerves and glow with confidence, I talk about how breathing is a key element in the getting rid of nerves business and then in module two, which is how to release your true voice and genuinely connect, I talk about how oxygen plays a key role in connecting with people when you're speaking because simply if the air is not flowing out and through the vocal cords as you're speaking, then you're going to sound restricted and people can hear that restriction. And it's not good for your voice, which why it's one of my three must-do's to take care of your voice.

Number two, water. We've all heard, heard the stats. Our bodies are made up of something like 70% water is it? And our vocal cords are very delicate. If you want to see something, gross Google "vocal cords while singing." And you'll see what I mean. It looks like something else. But these delicate vocal cords, if they get too dry, not only could it cause a bit of a sore throat, but you can actually do permanent damage. So especially if you're going to be doing a lot of speaking, it's really important to keep the hydration up and not just a big gulp of water before you go on, but actually drinking water throughout the day. And things to watch out for, of course, are coffee and alcohol because these can dehydrate your voice. Now, once again, I'm not promoting not drinking coffee or alcohol. Anybody who knows me knows that I pretty much live on these two substances. So all I'm saying is just be conscious of it and especially if you've got to speak, maybe avoid coffee or alcohol or make sure you just have a drink of water afterwards. Now the other thing to consider with water is it's best for your voice to drink it at room temperature or warm tea. So it's not, if you've got a sore throat, don't down big gulps of icy cold water because that can irritate your throat more than hydrate it.

Okay? So we're giving our voice air, we're giving our voice water. Now finally we need to give it rest.

So even if we're speaking with great technique and even if we've taken quite good care of our voice, if we're overusing it, it's going to get tired. It's like the rest of our body. I mean you can be really, really fit. But if you run a marathon every single day you're going to get tired, your body's going to need a break and your voice is the same. So make sure you listen to it. If you feel like it's getting a bit run down, throw on some Netflix and be quiet for a while, your partner or your family might thank you for it and it will do you good as well. So it's really important to rest, and I talk about this in the next episode where I chat to the fitness guru Anna McManamey and it's similar to exercise in the same way that your body needs a rest.

Your voice also needs a rest, so there you have it. A nice short, sharp episode to take you through my three must-dos to take care of your voice. The first thing, make sure you give it enough oxygen. Speak on the out-breath. Put your hand in front of your mouth while you're speaking now and just see if you can feel that air flowing through. Number two, keep hydrated. Give your voice water, small sips of water all throughout the day. And especially if you live in a hot place. I live in Brisbane, Queensland in Australia, and you know it's a high humidity, very, very hot through summer and hydration is even more important. And finally, rest listen to your body. Listen to your voice. If you feel like you need a bit of a break, just take it. Stop talking. One of the worst things you can do if you're feeling your voice going is just to keep pushing it. Resting will help it recuperate and prevent doing any long term damage.

Now that's how to take care of your voice. If you want to know how to warm up your voice, I actually have a free one minute warm up and that's on my website at sallyprosser.com.au/courses and you'll see my one minute voice warm up is there for free. So jump on that. You'll also see my Speak to be Heard program, which goes into detail about how to love your nerves and glow with confidence, how to release your true voice and genuinely connect and how to own the stage and charm your audience. So check that out.

Hopefully you'll be back here for my chat with Anna McManamey. We had a really great discussion and we go into detail about how a healthy voice relates to a healthy body. Anna also opens up about her struggles with anorexia and she's really, really generous in sharing her thoughts and her learnings from that experience. She also explains how group fitness instructors manage to talk while doing all the fancy jumping up and down things on the stage. So if you know anybody who's in the fitness industry, either as an instructor or otherwise, then they might want to tune into this episode because it will be very relevant for them.

Thanks for listening to That Voice Podcast. More information hit to the podcast page, www.thatvoicepodcast.com