have you ever been yelling or talking so much that you actually
damaged your voice or maybe even lost it
you see the biggest problem is not that someone's actually damaged or hurt their voice the biggest
problem is that since most people don't know any better they actually start
using their voice in the one way that they absolutely should not and that is whispering
it's actually the worst thing you can do when you're vocally tired or you've lost
or hurt your voice as a holistic voice coach i deal with this sort of thing all the time
in fact more than 30 years ago i lost my voice completely for months i truly thought my career
as a singer and an actor were over however when i started working with holistic principles
i healed my voice so fast that even my ent was surprised so whether you have nodules or just a
sore throat or a croggy voice from speaking too much or too loudly you are in the right
place if you want to know the three best ways to get your voice back fast then stay tuned
q a tuesday all your voice questions answered
hi i'm elisa james holistic voice coach and founder of the voice of confidence public
speaker training program today's video is all about getting your voice back fast after you've
hurt it or strained it so let's get to it step one is relative rest versus complete vocal rest
now this was a concept i knew nothing about until i lost my voice way back in my twenties
i had massive nodules on my vocal folds and i had to learn how to use my voice in a safer way when
speaking and singing however i had to heal my voice properly first before i changed my habits
and my voice needed complete rest during my vocal therapy sessions i learned about relative rest and
complete rest to heal my voice faster i had to allow the nodules to shrink all by themselves
so the very first thing that i had to instigate was a period of time with complete vocal rest
that means no sound at all for a length of time i mean no sound
no talking no clearing the throat no coughing no whispering yeah it was really tough especially
for a singer and a speaker who lived off her voice i actually lost all my income i gave away
all of my gigs it was really tough but you know what in the end it was worth it
because after six weeks of complete vocal rest the nodules were gone and my voice came back now some
of my colleagues took an easier route and they decided to have surgery to remove their nodules
yes they healed relatively fast but the scar tissue on their vocal folds still made them sound
raspy and vocally fatigued so to this day i am so grateful that i chose not to have the operation
look with every operation there's a risk right and just look at the surgeries that have gone
wrong the most famous case is the wonderful julie andrews she had the most glorious pure soprano
voice and sang like an angel until she took a very taxing theater role singing songs she was
not really trained to sing and then she developed nodules now since she had such a demanding role on
broadway at the time she chose surgical removal to get back on the stage faster unfortunately it
went horribly wrong and she lost that beautiful voice for good it was such a tragedy and i don't
want that to happen to you so let's now talk about relative rest once i healed my voice i had to be
super careful for the next few years to teach my voice how to make sound in a much healthier way
so i then started to implement relative rest now this is a very simple math equation you simply
calculate how many hours you actively speak every day then make sure that you take equal amounts of
time in hours in complete vocal rest during the same day no sound whatsoever and no sorry
sleeping doesn't count i mean waking hours let's go on to step two rehabilitation exercises now
even while my nodules were healing i was allowed to do some simple gentle voice exercises for a few
minutes each day to retrain the muscles the reason is this when you're using your voice the wrong way
like i was you end up using one set of muscles predominantly and the other set of muscles gets
weaker you see our voice actually needs many muscles to access all of the notes in our
speaking or singing range but if you as a speaker or a singer only use one area of your range
for most of us that's the lower register you can actually overuse muscles in that range
to help your voice heal faster you need to stretch the vocal folds gently to the upper range and try
to get the edges of those folds to reconnect the reason we sound raspy when we're vocally tired
is because the vocal folds aren't connecting anymore due to the swelling and the damage
so now we're going to do some simple exercises to encourage those vocal folds to
gently come together and re-establish that connection the very first exercise is the ng siren
in this exercise we open the throat into a wide happy yawn i call this the frog breaths you can
check it out on my channel then we will gently come down the scale starting from an a downwards
and then moving up slowly to a c let's do it together open throat here's your starting note
now if you're not a singer and you can't sing down
the scale like that all i want you to do is start on this note
and just slide gently down the scale now the trick is every single time you do this do it as softly
and as gently as you can using the tummy muscle to move the air forward let's try a higher note
really softly really gently one note
higher one note higher
now we're not going to push it because you don't want to
force the connection so you're going to come back again especially if your voice is tired
you must look after your best asset your voice slowly and carefully
and backwards
now the goal is to keep those vocal folds connected the entire way down the scale
the next way that you can do the siren is like this
with the bubble now these are both called semi-occluded vocal tract exercises which
i'll put in the description underneath in case you need more guidance on this
but these exercises really help you understand how the airflow moves through the system
and helps the vocal folds close properly so now let's do it on a bubble
again as softly and as gently as you can
now we're at a c and we're going to go just a little bit higher to see if we
can stretch the voice gently remember never force it and if your voice is damaged or
swollen you don't want to go too high wait until you can get those notes effortless
with a very low energy level and then start increasing the range
and when i had nodules and a lot of swelling i couldn't go past this c i literally had nothing
for the next octave it took me a long time to get all of that up register back but it did come back
now my body and my mind is working very hard during these exercises
but my voice not much at all because i'm opening my throat using my belly to support my note
and then really gently and softly making that sound last one coming down
make sure the sound stays connected all the way through
last one do those exercises for five minutes in the morning five minutes at lunch time
and five minutes in the evening along with your relative rest and your complete rest
this will help enormously step three the abcs of health and lifestyle adjustments
the last piece of the equation is to start taking supplements that increase your immune
system to help your vocal folds heal faster so here are some things that really worked for me
vitamin c elderberry and zinc this combination of supplements actually helps your body heal much
faster vitamin c bioflavonoids and elderberry are well known to help build up the immune system
in the body and zinc is also a very well-known healing element another important supplement
for speakers and singers is slippery elm bark this helps feed and heal the mucosal lining in the body
and the mucosal lining on the vocal folds can be swollen and strained so taking this particular
supplement in powder or capsule form daily will really help you feed the body from the inside
and strengthen all the mucosal linings in the body it's also great for digestion and heartburn too
works a treat now lastly let's look at lifestyle habits and which ones are not
serving you mentally emotionally and physically i realized when i had nodules that there were also
other things that i needed to change to improve my health and mental state while i was healing
the very first thing was mindset i needed to learn how to calm my emotions
and meditate to manage my stress levels the next thing i did was to eat more clean and healthy less
packaged foods less processed foods and this supports healing as well and lastly i looked
at how much i was talking and whether i could use less words in my daily activities that would
allow my voice and my mind to calm down so i could stay mindful of every task i was doing
so if you ever lose or damage your voice from singing or speaking or shouting too much
all of these things will help you heal faster you must take 100 responsibility for your own healing
that is key so please share this video with somebody if you think it might
help and remember to check out the other videos on my channel there's lots of good stuff there
if you are a heavy voice user like me a teacher a fitness instructor a coach or trainer of some sort
it's very possible that you could be damaging your voice if you're not using it correctly
i designed a comprehensive training program for exactly this reason it's for people like you that
use their voice every single day for your job and we can't afford to lose it it's called save
my voice foundational training and this training can really help save your career and your voice
it's a complete insurance policy for your voice so if you honor and value your best asset for life
and business your voice click on the link in the description below the video to see if this course
is right for you your voice is truly your best asset in life and life becomes really hard when
you have no voice it's frustrating and it hurts so do yourself a favor and go and check it out