5. Breathing? Yeh, you're probably doing it wrong

Oxygen fuels our voice - are you one of the people speaking on almost empty? In this episode I give you a quick lesson on how to inspire yourself - literally.

Transcript

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

Breathing, you're probably doing it wrong. Now I know this is what I called this podcast episode, but don't take it too seriously. I mean we really do not need another thing that we're doing wrong do we in our lives? But I would love you to think about your breathing and maybe changing the technique a little bit could definitely transform your voice and even improve your whole life, the way you feel about yourself, your confidence, dealing with nerves, dealing with any sort of situation really. And I've done a lot of work with breathing and I continue to because it's such an important area. Go and check out this guy called Stig Severinsen. He swam underneath a sheet of ice for about a minute and a half in nothing but his Speedos. So if that can be done with the power of the human lungs, then there is so much more potential that you might be able to tap into. And it's really important for voice because oxygen fuels our voice and most people go around speaking on almost empty, shallow breathing. Now to see if you're a shallow breather. Let's do a little experiment. I want you to put your hand on your tummy and take a big breath in.

Now tell me what direction did your hand go in? Did it go in? Did it go up? Did it go out?

If it went out, fantastic. Great start. If it went up, then you might be a shallow breather. It indicates that you're breathing into the top part of your lungs. Another giveaway for this is if your shoulders rise, so if while you're breathing, the shoulders go up. We don't want that. We don't want the shoulders to rise during breathing. What we want to do is you want to get the air deeper into our lungs and to know how much space we've got to work with. Trace down the length of your ribs, trace down the length of your ribs and find the lowest rib that you have. You'll be right around your tummy. That's how low down the lungs go.

A lot of us ignore this part and I blame society a bit for this because breathing into your tummy does make you look a bit fat and we're so used to, you know, especially if you're a woman, sucking it in and holding it up. And that's why I also like to call shallow breathing, boob lift breathing because as you breathe, your boobs go up a little bit so you can see why this kind of breathing is popular, but it's no good for us for a few reasons. We want to get the air down low. One, we're going to get a lot more of it in. We've got a lot more space for oxygen and more oxygen can mean more energy, a stronger sound. The other reason that we want to get it down low is if we're breathing in our shoulders all day and lifting up our clavicles and our shoulder muscles, we're putting pressure on it.

So if at the end of the day you feel like your shoulders are a bit sore, it could be because you're doing shallow breathing. Never thought of that. Did you? I was like totally fascinated when I heard that. Now the other reason we want the air to be low and deep is so we can engage the diaphragm. Now the diaphragm, you might've heard of it, they talk about speaking from the diaphragm or singing from the diaphragm, but half the time they don't actually explain what it is. So all you need to know is it's a sheet of muscle and tendon, which runs underneath your ribs and all the way around to your lower back. And if you put a couple of fingers just below your sternum or below your bra strap area and cough like this, you should feel it punch out. And that's the area that we want to be in. Another good way to feel the diaphragm is to put your hands on your waist. And then as you breathe in, push against your hands. So it's an out and in motion rather than an up and down. You'll feel the diaphragm there as well. So how do we get our air low and deep? Well, it takes practice and a bit of brain retraining.

A lot of people say to me, Oh God, Sal breathing. It's just the way I naturally do it. Well, sorry to break it to you. Breathing isn't actually natural. It's habitual. It's a habit that we formed over many, many years. And if you've seen a baby, especially a baby crying, you'll see that their whole entire body expands out and in they're using their natural instrument. It's why such huge noises can come from such small people. But then as we get older, we're taught to, you know, sit up straight and suck it in and not say too much and be tense and be stressed. And so all these things happen to us, which prevent our breathing from being that nice, full natural flow that it was when we were babies.

So a great way to get the air low and deep is to put your hands in the area. So the hands on the tummy or the hands on the waist like we did before. And also to visualize. So if you're sitting down, I want you to imagine that your lungs are in your buttocks and every time you're breathing in, you're inflating your butt. Now if you're standing up, you might like to imagine that your lungs are in your groin or in your thighs, or maybe even in the floor, something really, really low. Imagining them really as far away from your head as possible. If you're lying down, imagine your lungs are on the roof. So every time you breathe in, your lungs are soaring up to the ceiling.

So let's take a couple of deep breaths in. Now we're just going to go in for two breaths and out for four breaths. Okay, so let's go in two out, two, three, four in, two out, two, three, four. So why have I got twice as much on the exhale as the inhale? Well another interesting thing about breathing, when you breathe in, take the oxygen in, everything is under pressure, right? All the organs are being squashed in by the air. But when you exhale, that's where the release is. That's the, ah, that's the body really enjoying the breath out. And so that's why breathing out longer than breathing in is a fantastic way to really calm yourself and control your nerves if you're nervous. So as the air comes in, the tummy goes out and as the air goes out, the tummy goes in.

Imagine you're being heimlich manoeuvred if you can't get it. So if you're being, if you're choking on something and someone comes up behind you and goes, huh, that's the movement that you want when the air comes out and you can try one of my exercises called the panting puppy, where as the pant goes out, the diaphragm goes in like this. Now you're probably thinking, what the hell is she doing there? So this is something that is obviously better explained on video. And if you sign up for my Speak to be Heard online program, I talk a lot about breathing. So module one is how to love your nerves and glow with confidence. And I explain how you can use different breathing methods to really calm your nerves and make you feel more confident. Then in module two where it's how to release your true voice and genuinely connect I talk about the role of breath in creating a really resonant rich voice that people want to listen to.

Because we're attracted to people who have nice regulated breathing. Another interesting thing about breathing, especially breathing in is the other terms for it. So it's also called inhalation, but another word for it is inspiration. We inspire to breathe in and we expire to breathe out. And I think that's a really beautiful way to think about breathing. It means that every time we're breathing in, we are inspiring ourselves. You know, if you're out of ideas, just step outside and take a big breath. So if we're breathing and we want to inspire ourselves and then we want to give back that inspiration with the words that we're using. And that's why it's really important to speak on the out-breath. And I mentioned speaking on the out-breath back in episode three was it? Yes. Episode three where I talked about the three must do to take care of your voice. And one of those was to make sure the air flowed out as you were speaking. So this is just a short episode to get you thinking about breathing, but if I had to leave you with three takeaways from today, I'd say breathe low and deep, out and in rather than up and down and double the exhale on the inhale. So it's a ratio of one in and two out.

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