Improve Your Voice – Don’t Ruin It!

Do you like your singing voice or speaking voice? What should we do to keep our voices healthy for everything that we do? It is good to stress that straining our voices regularly can deteriorate the vocal cords, resulting in imperishable hoarseness. Additionally, when our body gets stressed, our voices can suffer as well.

As per Henry Longfellow, our voice is the organ of the soul. Therefore, we must do everything in our power to improve and take care of it. Also, our lifestyle preferences usually influence the quality of our voice. Your lifestyle choices can reflect on the tone of your voice.

Whether you would like to enhance your speaking voice or singing voice for a musical performance, there are a few solutions you can try. For a little help, here are helpful ways and habits to improve your voice and not ruin it. Read on!

Voice Exercise

If you want to improve your speaking and singing voice, then exercise breathing into your diaphragm. This is especially essential and vital for singers and actors. By practicing breathing into your diaphragm, your voice will undoubtedly have more power. Also, it will minimize and lessen stress on your vocal cords.

To practice this voice exercise, be sure to breathe into your abdomen. As you breathe in, you should feel the expansion of your abdomen. Then, breath out slowly with a wheezing sound. As you do this, keep your neck and shoulders relaxed.

Another useful form of voice exercise is to release your jaw. Doing this will alleviate the tension and strain out of your jaw, allowing you to open your mouth fully open when you sing or speak, resulting in a much clearer voice. To do this exercise, just simply massage your jaw muscles.

Furthermore, it’s also a good idea to stretch your tongue for much better pronunciation. To extend your tongue, press it against the roof of the mouth (palate) and let it out of your mouth. Or you can press your tongue against one cheek, vice versa.

Healthy Diet

For those people who depend on their voices such as singers and vocalists can take care of their voice by eating good food. Essentially, staying away from foods that can damage your vocal health.

The best foods to eat are those that proselytize good health. If you want to improve your voice, then avoid or limit fried and fatty foods. Almonds (rich in protein) can make a flourishing snack. When it comes to meat, chicken and fish are best.

All in all, your diet must have lots of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. These foods are affluent in vitamins E, C, and A. They aid in keeping the mucus membranes in good shape.

Sufficient Sleep

Getting enough sleep is vital to protect yourself from voice injury. If you don’t get sufficient sleep, it can impact your voice in multiple ways such as hoarseness, cysts, polyps, and nodules.

If you have difficulties falling asleep, don’t fret. There are many ways that you can take to resolve such sleeping impediment. Here are some of the ways:

• Listen to relaxing music or have some light reading.
• Refrain from using any gadgets or anything that stimulates too much light.
• Avoid drinking coffee six hours before going to bed.
• Don’t do any hardcore exercises six hours before bed.
• Refrain from eating heavy meals before going to bed.
• Avoid drinking alcoholic beverages before bedtime.

Aim to sleep at least 8 hours every day and if possible take naps of at most thirty minutes in the afternoon. Keep in mind that your voice is as essential as your body. Therefore, ensure that you get sufficient sleep so that your voice stays healthy and rested.

Drink Lots Of Water

There are a lot of reasons why we need to stay hydrated. However, for those people who rely significantly on their voice such as musicians and singers, hydration is a ladder to success. Vocal cords are fragile because they are made of delicate tissue.

So, if you let yourself dehydrated, then your voice might be in pain. Whether you are humming, singing, or speaking, the sound is made or generated by the tremor of your vocal folds. Mucus shields or safeguards these vocal cords. And staying hydrated makes sure that your voice will work properly.

But keep in mind that by merely drinking water before you perform is not an excellent idea. To make sure that your vocal folds are hydrated, you need to drink water all throughout the day. It will keep your mouth and throat lubricated, making articulation and speaking much more comfortable.

Takeaway

Taking care of our voice is crucial, especially if you rely on them so much — for example, an announcer, a musical performer, or a singer. There are a few things that you can try to improve your voice. You can take vocal lessons at any agency such as Bohemian Vocal lessons, or you can seek the four solutions above.