Waking Up Your Speaking Voice

From the moment you open your mouth, your voice is one of the primary ways people gather information about you and begin to create judgments.

If you are someone who wakes up in the morning feeling like you croak instead of speak, you may not be putting your best foot forward when it comes to how people perceive you.

By taking a little time to prepare your voice, you give people the chance to take you in as your best, most confident self.

When people hear you speak with a voice that warmed up and expressive, they are more able to fully receive your communication and feel emotionally moved and influenced by you.

Getting Rid Of Morning Voice

CHECK YOUR VOCAL HYGIENE

• Get plenty of sleep. The National Sleep Foundation recommends seven to nine hours of sleep per night for adults to function at their best.

• Hydrate the day before. The vocal cords aren’t exactly your body’s first priority when it comes to hydration. How fast your vocal cords rehydrate is directly related to how dehydrated you are in the first place.  Water will travel to your cords faster if you are already hydrated, so I like to think of the water I drink today being for the voice I use tomorrow!

• Use a hygrometer. Check the humidity of your living and sleeping environment, and consider using a humidifier at night if it’s too dry. 

• Mist with a nebulizer. Nebulizers can be used with saline to directly hydrate the vocal cords.  Some people prefer steaming, which feels good, but the water particles from steam are too large to get all the way to the vocal cords. A nebulizer creates smaller particles which allow the moisture to directly reach the vocal cords.

• Warm up your entire body. A short stretch and brisk walk can help get the blood flowing in the body, which will also help it flow to your vocal cords.

FIND YOUR IDEAL SPEAKING PITCH

Many people speak too low in their range and fall into using vocal fry. This can be tiring to the voice. Watch the video below and I’ll lead you through the following process of finding your ideal speaking pitch.

• Say “uh huh” like you are agreeing with someone, and you’ve got to really mean it, or it doesn’t work as well.

• Use the second pitch you get on the “huh” part, which is usually higher than where you start the first one.

• Play around with speaking around that second pitch you found.

• Is it higher than where you normally speak? It might feel or sound strange to you at first, but it’s most likely that you just aren’t used to it. When I’m using my ideal pitch, I like to think of it as using my “happy voice”.

WARM UP YOUR SPEAKING VOICE

For the same reasons you warm up your body before you exercise, it’s wise to warm up our voices before vocalizing.  This is true whether you plan to speak or sing.

Warming up:

• increases blood flow to the vocal cords

• stretches and relaxes the muscles we use for singing

• gets the voice into vocal balance

• helps prevent injury

Let’s try it…

Mini Warm Up For Your Speaking Voice

In this simple 3 minute warmup, you can take your voice from frog to princess (or prince), so that you have more confidence and build stronger trust with your audience, allowing them to fully receive you and your message.