5 Tips on How to Improve Your Strained Speaking Voice

Are you wondering how to improve your strained voice? There are several methods to improve a strained voice. I’ve worked with many clients from all over the world and I know that different approaches work for different people. I am going to share 5 tips and hopefully you can find one tip that works for you. 

Tip #1 Listen to your body

If your voice feels strained or tired after you use it, your voice is telling you that something is not quite right. Your voice is telling you that you need to stop and change the way you use your voice to avoid vocal fatigue, tension or even pain. And the first step to changing “something” is awareness.

Ask yourself: What am I doing that causes my voice to get tired easily or hoarse or strained? I found that many people can improve their voice just by being more aware of what their voice is doing. In our coaching program where we work towards finding more vocal freedom, I often hear the members say: I am just more aware of my posture, or I am just more aware of how loud I talk, or I am more aware of my tongue. Yes, there are a lot of parts that can contribute to vocal strain, it’s not just the vocal folds. For example, if your habitual posture is poor, your voice will suffer. If your breathing is shallow, your voice will be weak. If you hold tension in your jaw, that will affect your articulation and the vocal function. 

If you are experiencing vocal strain, tension or even pain when speaking, and you are ready to work towards a free, strong and confident voice, you can apply to our Vocal Freedom System here: https://calendly.com/myhealthyvoice/vocalfreedom 

Tip #2 Warm up your voice

All athletes warm up their muscles before they practice or compete. All athletes, including amateurs and professionals. Unfortunately, only professional voice users like singers warm up their voices. And not all professional singers always do that. But in a sense, anyone who uses their voice for a job or even a hobby, is a professional voice user. Do you talk on the phone all day long? Do you teach over Zoom for several hours? Do you give presentations? Then, you are using your voice like a professional athlete and you need to treat your voice that way.

You can warm up your voice in the morning or several times throughout the day just before your demanding vocal task. And your warm ups don’t need to be fancy. You don’t need a piano or a set of audio tracks to effectively warm up your voice. You can use simple humming or sirens on NG, or straw exercises or lip trills to wake up the resonance in your face and the muscles that bring the vocal folds together, muscles that stretch them out and shorten them. 

If you warm up your voice, you can prevent tension and your voice will last longer.

Tip #3 Release tension from your voice

If your voice feels already tensed and strained before you start speaking, then tension reduction techniques are in place. You can use vocal exercises to release tension from your voice or you can apply manual tension reduction techniques.

You’ve probably heard me talking about SOVT, or semi-occluded vocal tract exercises before. These are vocal exercises that use sounds with a partial narrowing or occlusion in the vocal tract. This narrowing creates a back pressure that helps the vocal folds work more efficiently. Examples are lip trills, tongue trills, straw exercises, humming, sounds like fricatives, nasals and many other sounds. 

If these kinds of exercises, either vocal or manual, work for you, then create a regular daily routine and release tension from your voice even before you start talking.

Here is Tip #4 Improve vocal technique

Sometimes, strain in your speaking voice comes from inefficient vocal technique. Maybe you bring your vocal folds together in an abrupt manner, maybe you press them together too hard when speaking. Maybe you tend to use high breath pressures under the vocal folds. And maybe you push your tongue root down, which inhibits the laryngeal movement. And maybe you move your jaw forward when speaking or slide it to the side, which creates tension that is spread out. All these examples put a lot of strain on your vocal folds, which then leads to a strained voice. The only solution to this problem is to work on improving your vocal technique. If this is you, I highly recommend that you speak to a voice professional and ask for help. Sometimes small adjustments in your technique can lead to big changes.  

Finally, Tip #5 Re-evaluate your breath

Inefficient breath management is often a cause of vocal issues. And you have probably heard people saying - you need to breathe from your diaphragm to support your voice or you need to take a deep breath to avoid straining. I see many people focusing on inhalation. But in my experience, the problem is often in exhalation and in the amount of breath you push through the vocal folds. Straining is often caused by too high breath pressures under the vocal folds. Here is a simple exercise to see how much breath you need for talking. Inhale as you would normally do and then exhale and then start counting from 1 to 10. I can still speak even if I exhale most of the air from my lungs. Very often, it’s not about how much breath you inhale but how you use the breath you have.  

So, these were 5 tips to improve your strained voice. But there are more things to consider if you are experiencing vocal strain, discomfort or even pain when you speak.

I made a video, in which I walk you through 7 steps that lead to a strong voice without tension. If you want to know what voice, body and mind considerations you need to take to truly free your voice, click this link: https://how2improvesinging.mykajabi.com/strong-voice-without-tension 

Here is a video that has more details on each tip: 

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaxTMO-qec0