Throat care

[Galaxia2002]

Hi. In a couple of month I am going to teach in a bigger classroom  with more people and I will need to talk louder, but I note that when I do that my throat get hurt. Only 20 minutes and I'm done.  please,  Any suggestions?

[Pob]

Hi. In a couple of month I am going to teach in a bigger classroom  with more people and I will need to talk louder, but I note that when I do that my throat get hurt. Only 20 minutes and I'm done.  please,  Any suggestions?

Hi Galaxia2002,

There are quite a lot of articles and advice on the net on this topic. A teacher myself I've been fortunate not to have suffered from vocal problems but know many teachers who have. Personally I never shout and will walk around the room to specific pupils if I need to speak directly to them. Keeping hydrated helps too.

I always start lessons with a brief input with all pupils sitting at the front so I can just talk to them in a normal voice. They then go back to their places to work on set tasks and I'll bring them back at the end for a plenary. Rarely will I be talking loudly to all in the room. If I need their attention I clap.

Diaphragmatic breathing, being relaxed and putting the onus on pupils to speak instead of oneself also help.

Some of these links may help:

_http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewtopic.php?t=3019
_http://www.dukehealth.org/services/voice_care_center/care_guides/voice_hygiene/tips_for_teachers
_http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/ohs/minimising_harmful_vocal_habits.pdf

[Galaxia2002]

thank you Pob!

[nicolemyner]

great links thanks!!

[Gandalf]

Hi nicolemyner,

Welcome to our forum. 

We appreciate very much when a new member writes a little intro in the Newbies section.

You do not have to write personal info but how did you find this forum, what books of Laura have you read.....

Doing so, it allowes the others members of this forum to know where you are coming from.

[Aragorn]

Hi Galaxia, sorry to hear about your problem. Unfortunately, as been said, voice disorders are very common among teachers - so you're definitely not alone with this problem! I completely agree with Pob, having a good strategy of not "talking all the time" in the classroom is essential. In the beginning of my career as a a teacher I, as many others, made the mistake of lecturing too much. I've since learned that engaging the pupils more and keeping them motivated is the way to go. In this way you don't have to steer and command all the time, straining your voice. Of course, when you are giving a presentation or lecture in a large auditorium you are more on your own, thus mastering your voice becomes more crucial. 

I teach voice daily for teacher students at the university, so I thought I'd share some of the things I've learned and noticed. 

I would say that from the ca 100 students I teach in a year, ca 90 have some sort of problem with their voice. I often wonder, where do these problems come from? I would say that some of the underlying causes are: wrong models of speech, posture and breathing (be it teachers, parents or other front figures in childhood, and also children trying to imitate rock/pop stars), emotional trauma (narcissistic woundings, abuse etc) and related to the former, disconnection between the mind and body (lack of engaging the body). Very rarely, the problem is physiological (injuries in the vocal chords etc). 

I once had a student who always started crying whenever she had to make any sort of sound. So every lesson we just made a few "funny sounds" with me not looking at her (this was crucial for her). Gradually, she overcame her fear, and at the end of the year she was singing a whole song!

Even though the root of the problem, in my experience, is almost always psychological leading to physiological "malfunction", training and vocalizing can be of great help. It's sort of "working from the other end of the stick-once you learn the correct technique, you get more confident etc. Here's a short list of the technical problems I usually work with my students (I'll try to post some exercises for you later):

- Breathing (correct deep diaphragmatic breathing, flexibility in the lower ribs). Sometimes they breathe in reverse, and correcting this can take a lot of time and effort. Doing Eíriú Eolas would be a great help here, as well as other exercises (I'll get back with those)

- Posture and tensions. Especially releasing tensions in the neck, jaw and pelvis are helpful. Different routines of body work, Alexander technique, Feldenkreis are very helpful for these

- Proper closure of vocal chords. This is more common with female students. But the devil is in the details: you have to learn to adduct the vocal chords without engaging the outer throat muscles and swallowing muscles. You need personal guidance with this, since there's a big risk of doing it wrong. 

- Engaging the right support muscles, especially the transversus abdominis. You are training these for example if you do The Warriors Breath 

- Getting rid of the false image of how you sound. This is more of a problem for singers, but can apply to speech too. Sometimes people are accustomed to hear their own voice (with their "inner ear") in a certain way. In this way they manipulate the voice causing tensions. Its tricky to correct, but once you're freed not to listen to yourself, the voice is more projected and thus more audible

These are just a few of the more common problems that I can think of right now. Without hearing or seeing you, it's hard to tell what your main problems are, maybe you could describe your sensations in more detail?

I'll get back with some exercises...

[Aragorn]

Since this is my favorite subject, I'd like to add a few further comments.

I remember once talking to a phoniatrician, asking what's the most common cause of vocal strain. He said that in over 90 percent of his patients the problem is not in the vocal chords themselves, but that the problem is almost always that they are so incredibly tense in the outer throat muscles. This can be due to several causes, but to put it simply, the usual problem is incorrect upper/reversed breathing and the lack of support muscles. But it's kind o tricky, you can't just train your support (exhaling) muscles if you don't FIRST learn to inhale properly, "all the way down" - the diaphragm descending as low as possible. I use to say to my students that you have to, instead of seeking the power for you voice from he throat, imagine it coming from the waist area, the pelvic floor and transversus abdominis muscles.

Without knowing the details, I would suggest to first work on your inhaling (e.g. doing EE, and getting those lower ribs and belly to expand), and then train the above mentioned support muscles (e.g. With Warriors Breath). Mastering inhaling can be tricky, since we tend to tighten the solar plexus area while nervous or afraid, like during giving a lecture.

[Aragorn]

Here's one exercise that I've found to be very helpful in releasing tensions in the solar plexus area (and thus aiding proper diaphragmatic breathing). It's a great way to release the tension before having to do something that makes you nervous, like having a presentation etc. As always, the EE-program is excellent for releasing tensions, but I use this as a additional quick maneuver (with students, too) that you can do when you notice that your stomach area is tensing and your breathing is becoming shallow.

I've learned this from my teacher in body work, and he says that it originates from Japan, and that the ancient Samurai warriors supposedly did this before going to battle. Unfortunately, I don't have any source for this claim, so it's better to take this claim with a grain of salt. But it's a good exercise, nevertheless.

This belongs to the series of exercises called Haragei. In my understanding, in Japanese, hara means belly and gei means art, thus this could be called "bellyart"

Haragei 1

This exercise is originally done while sitting on your knees, on the floor. But since this is not comfortable for many people, my teacher suggests doing it sitting on a chair.


1. Sit on the anterior part of a chair, with a straight spine and with your legs slightly apart, the soles of your feet resting steadily against the floor

2. Join your hands, with your fingers crossed, and stretch your arms upwards above your head (see my drawing)

3. Inhale deeply through your mouth with a loose and hanging jaw, like you would yawn. The yawning aspect is important, it relaxes and deepens the inhalation. You can imagine that you're swallowing a big sword, the tip reaching all the way down to your navel. The inhalation expands your belly - make sure that you don't raise your shoulders!
 
4. Exhale powerfully while simultaneously rotating your upper body to the right/left. You don't have to rotate that far, maybe 20-30 degrees. Make the point of rotation as low as possible in the waist area (not at the shoulders), and imagine that your spine is the axis of the rotational movement. While you push out the air, you'll notice how your belly moves inward. To make this exercise work properly, you must exaggerate this inward movement by intentionally pulling in your stomach as much as possible (towards the spine) while exhaling.

5. When you're done exhaling (lungs almost completely emptied), start inhaling with a yawn like in 3., simultaneously rotating your upper body back to the starting position (face forward). Make sure that you relax your belly at this point, feeling how the inhalation expands it. Reminder: relax your jaw!

6. Start from step 3., rotating in the other direction.

7. Repeat 5-10 times

[Galaxia2002]

Thank you Aragorn for this info!.

Proper closure of vocal chords. This is more common with female students. But the devil is in the details: you have to learn to adduct the vocal chords without engaging the outer throat muscles and swallowing muscles. You need personal guidance with this, since there's a big risk of doing it wrong.

I think this is part of my problem. I feel that the sound comes from the upper part of my throat, in fact I can feel that the sound resonates there.   A question. Is the phoniatrician the suitable professional for teach me this??

I must confess something, I had and sometimes have problems for expressing myself orally. When I was teenager my voice took a lot for change from a child voice to a masculine one, so I was victim of jokes and I decide to avoid  speak. That make feel very bad. Fortunately my voice changed but I didn't notice it. I thought I was the same as before.  I didn't have confidence in my own voice and took me time to recognize that my voice had changed. The inner work and the EE  helped me a lot. I have gain confidence again.  Recently I did a redirect exercise in this, and explore the problem that goes back to narcissistic problems with my parents.  I have changed a lot  in this regard when I look at myself in perspective but the part of the problem that persist is that I can't reach "higher volume"without feel I am doing an effort.

[Aragorn]

Thank you Aragorn for this info!.

Proper closure of vocal cords. This is more common with female students. But the devil is in the details: you have to learn to adduct the vocal cords without engaging the outer throat muscles and swallowing muscles. You need personal guidance with this, since there's a big risk of doing it wrong.

I think this is part of my problem. I feel that the sound comes from the upper part of my throat, in fact I can feel that the sound resonates there.   A question. Is the phoniatrician the suitable professional for teach me this??

I must confess something, I had and sometimes have problems for expressing myself orally. When I was teenager my voice took a lot for change from a child voice to a masculine one, so I was victim of jokes and I decide to avoid  speak. That make feel very bad. Fortunately my voice changed but I didn't notice it. I thought I was the same as before.  I didn't have confidence in my own voice and took me time to recognize that my voice had changed. The inner work and the EE  helped me a lot. I have gain confidence again.  Recently I did a redirect exercise in this, and explore the problem that goes back to narcissistic problems with my parents.  I have changed a lot  in this regard when I look at myself in perspective but the part of the problem that persist is that I can't reach "higher volume"without feel I am doing an effort.

There are several routes you can choose trying to correct the problem. If you're lucky, you may find a phoniatrician who also can give you some speech therapy (who have proper training in speech therapy). Speech therapists can most certainly teach you proper closure of the vocal cords, and other things too. And they are trained to spot and treat voice disorders. However, what I've noticed with speech therapists and alike, is that they tend to totally ignore the body-mind connection. Most of who I've met only focus on the "nuts and bolts", ignoring things like breathing, emotions, trauma, tensions etc. But, of course, those things are not their specialty anyway.

However from your latest post, and I could be wrong, I get the feeling that you could benefit more from some type of body work, e.g. rolfing, and breathing exercises. There's also something called 'voice massage', but I'm not sure it's available where you live. Tensions in the throat can be considered as 'armouring' (chronic muscle tensions) that has accumulated from past traumatic experiences. For example, as a little child you might get used to force yourself not to express fear or anger vocally. This could be e.g. because you're afraid of the consequences, or that it's of no use (a little baby crying in a crib - and no one will come).

But, as I said earlier, training 'from the other end' tends to work too. Meaning, that good and 'targeted' vocal exercises can function as therapy, improving not only your voice but your whole state of mind too. I've experienced this myself many times (bad, voice ruining exercises sadly have the opposite effect).

As for the problem of not reaching higher volume in your speech. In my experience this usually can be one, or a combination, of: too much tension in the larynx (larynx too elevated or depressed), too much tension in the outer throat muscles, improper cord closure OR too much closure/adduction, and most importantly - from which all the mentioned problems probably originate (due to past trauma) - distorted breathing patterns, bad posture, and no connection to the core muscles. In other words, the fear and blocking of vocal expression causes muscle athropy and tensions - things don't work properly anymore.

I notice I'm jumping between many subjects here, sorry. I'll try to bring things more in focus in form of more exercises. Would it be possible for you to record your voice, reading a few sentences? That would give a much better starting point to evaluate the problem.

ADDED: I forgot to ask you, how would you describe your own voice? Does it sound breathy (do you use a lot of air with every word), tense/strained, squeaky/high pitch, "macho"/deep? Of course, as I said, a recording would be helpful...

[Galaxia2002]

 It sounds to me breathy and some tense. I tend to suspire while I talk and sometimes I feel an itching sensation, suddenly my throat get dry so  I need to swallow, interrupting my speak. For the record, is there a problem if I read in spanish? My pronunciation in english is not good so that would add more tension.

Thank you Aragorn.

[Scarlet]

Thank you for these tips, everyone!  I'm a teacher too and currently experiencing the same problem.  I've been drinking lots of water, keeping my voice low while talking, sucking on cough drops and I just started drinking organic Throat Coat tea (_http://www.amazon.com/Traditional-Medicinals-Organic-16-Count-Wrapped/dp/B0009F3POO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341966631&sr=8-1&keywords=throat+coat).  The tea was recommended by two friends, an actress and another teacher.  It seems to have helped, so I figured I'd add that one to this thread too

If I need their attention I clap.

Great one, Pob!  Flickering the lights can also work.

[Aragorn]

It sounds to me breathy and some tense. I tend to suspire while I talk and sometimes I feel an itching sensation, suddenly my throat get dry so  I need to swallow, interrupting my speak. For the record, is there a problem if I read in spanish? My pronunciation in english is not good so that would add more tension.

Thank you Aragorn.

Dryness in the throat and mouth is usually a sign of a stress reaction. As stress increases, saliva production diminishes.

Reading in Spanish is totally okay, try varying vocal intensity/volume also.

Having said all this, I must say that even if it's possible, to some degree, to improve your vocal habits and technique by the help of this thread and forum, it would be also wise to go and see a speech therapist/phoniatrician if possible.

BTW, don't trust singing teachers on this subject, they usually don't have any idea how things "really" work. I hope that I'm an exception