Hello my friends,

Here in New England, it is fall. The heat kicked on for the first time this week and I am reminded of the routine my voice goes through every turn of the season: allergies and soreness of throat. This time around, we’ve got a few other things undermining our vocal health, including Zoom meetings, WFH, high stress, and depending where you live, air quality.

A lot of us take our voices for granted and forget that our throats and mouth do quite a lot for us. We breathe, eat, drink, cough, talk, and sing with these body parts. Depending on your environment, how you interact with the mouth and throat can and will affect your voice.

Here’s a couple of things to think about if you’re suffering from soreness from talking or singing:

• Allergies. Such a drag, and likely to get worse as air quality changes. My action plan has included an air filter, a humidifier, allergy bedding covers, and lymph node self-massage.

• Medications. Are you taking allergy medication? It can help, but it also dries you out. Check the side effects of any medications you’re taking and drink more water to help keep yourself flexible and hydrated. Balancing this out will likely have a positive effect on others parts of your body, too.

• Acid reflux. As the weather turns cold, we like to eat more and drink hot and caffeinated beverages as our daylight hours dwindle. Well, I do. Plus, it’s a really stressful time. If this sounds familiar, take note of when you’re eating. For many, acid reflux happens because of overeating, eating before bed, and the acidity in our caffeinated or alcoholic beverages. Consider cutting off your meals 2 hours before bed, and giving yourself a cutoff hour for caffeine. Acid reflux is a doozy on the vocal cords, so it’s worth taking a minute to see if a conscious shift in your routine can help you out.

• The heat is on!!! The air is becoming dry. Our heating systems make it more dry and are responsible for many a sore throat. Consider hooking up a humidifier and drink more water to lubricate your mucus membranes!

• The Lombard Effect(ish). Even if we’re only speaking to a perceived audience, we naturally raise the volume of our voices when we speak publicly. How loud is yours getting? Do you have many Zoom meetings throughout the day? Your voice may be experiencing a heavy vocal load, which means that in addition to the regular talking you do, you’ve now added on this extra work for it. If you’re also trying to sing on top of that, well, ouch. In this case, I’d try buying a simple microphone and headphones where you can clearly hear yourself to see if you can change your behavior. Voice lessons with an experienced teacher can help set you up with a good vocal hygiene regimen to help with this, or depending on your needs, a trip to see a speech language pathologist (SLP) can help you speak more efficiently (yes, it’s a thing, and it has the potential to greatly improve your life).

• Your webcam. Where is your webcam? Right now I’m on my bed writing this and my laptop is on my lap while my head is tilted down toward the screen. I can feel my neck muscles working overtime to hold my big head up. Guess what? I use these same muscles to talk and sing. Covid-19 has changed the way we live. Are you engaging in longer hours of screen time at angles that are putting more stress on your neck than you realize? Probably. Can you make some changes to your setup at home by watching a few ergonomic videos on Youtube? If you’re really interested in digging into this, I recommend finding an Alexander Technique practitioner to help you modify your behavior.

• Anxiety. It seems like every state in our nation is experiencing some kind of disaster on top of a global pandemic. If you have children, double or triple that. When we are stressed, our body reacts accordingly. Many people feel stress as a tightening in their chest and throat. When you cry, your larynx and throat are very involved. Consider this for yourself. There’s a lot of simple jaw and lymph node massage you can do on yourself throughout the day to help ease some of the tension you have. Deep breathing has been essential for my well-being, and it’s good a good vocal practice, as well.

• Are you using your voice enough? Work from home has changed a lot of our behavior. Are you talking as much because of it? Your voice might not be getting the exercise it once did through your daily interactions. In that case, a simple vocal warm up might help you keep these muscles working. This is something that happens to seniors who become socially isolated as they age. Many of us might be in a similar situation without realizing it.

I’m not a medical professional, but as a singing professional, I can tell you that I regularly go down this mental checklist to do a check in with my body. When my teaching went 100% online, even with a mic, I found my speaking volume go way up. I paid the price with vocal fatigue and now I have to be really conscious of that. Weirdly enough, I also had to stop eating peanut butter because it was giving me acid reflux!

We are all unique beings, so you might find you have a combination of some of these problems or something else entirely. You probably noticed that I mentioned seeing a speech language pathologist (SLP) a few times in this post. If you’re really concerned about your voice health or you’ve noticed some disturbing changes in it, seeing a SLP might be the best plan of action. Often times your voice teacher will be able to help you make that determination, too.

Wishing you well, with hopes that more water intake and one of the solutions above helps you!