Unfiltered Thoughts

2023.01.25 – 0755 – Why Your Evening Meal Could Be Killing Your Voice   Acid reflux[1] This is when digestive juices (made up of strong acids and enzymes) find their way from the stomach into the oesophagus.
Known by doctors as GERD (‘gastro-esophageal reflux disease) or GOR (‘gastro-oesophageal reflux), symptoms include heartburn, indigestion, coughing, belching, general discomfort and a sour taste in the mouth.
For some people, these juices may even get into the trachea causing irritation to the larynx and vocal folds, and even into the mouth. This is known as LPR, laryngo-pharyngeal reflux, or ‘silent reflux’ as many people don’t have classic heartburn symptoms. This back-flow of fluids can affect your voice by causing: A feeling of a lump in your throat (‘globus’) and so, throat clearing and coughing spasmsAn unpleasant ‘acid’ or ‘bilious’ taste at the back of your mouthA feeling of a build-up of mucus in your throatExcessive burping, particularly during the day A sore, dry or sensitive throatCroakiness or hoarsenessChronic coughing
Reflux can be affected by what you eat and drink:Fatty foodSpicy food SugarAcidic drinks such as fruit juicesAlcoholCoffee And your lifestyle:Obesity or poor posture which can affect the valve that should stop this from happeningEating heavy meals or late mealsPregnancySmoking  How to make things better:Avoiding those foods and drinks and changing your lifestyleLosing weight and stopping smokingEating regular and smaller meals, eating more slowly, chewing each mouthful well and then chewing on gum afterwards to increase the flow of saliva which’ll cancel out the acidDrinking more waterReducing pressure on the valve by bending at the knees when you pick things up and wearing looser clothing around your waistSome say sleeping on their left side and with the head elevated (raise the head of your bed a couple of inches) can helpTaking OTC remedies (‘over the counter’) for indigestion or heartburn before getting professional advice to find out exactly what is causing the symptoms, and to get the right treatment.
[1] Sources: https://www.healthline.com/health/gerd/diet-nutrition; https://www.britishvoiceassociation.org.uk/voicecare_reflux-and-voice.htm; https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg184; https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng1; https://www.nice.org.uk/advice/mib176/chapter/summary   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2023.01.24 – 0754 – Why ‘Thirst’ Is Unreliable Your unreliable dehydration warning systemWhen you feel thirsty you are already dehydrated. That’s because whereas the body treats food with a ‘store now - use later policy’, excess fluid will simply be excreted. You’ll just pee.
So, the ‘thirst mechanism’ is unreliable. To stop feeling thirsty (and so, dehydrated), and because your thirst is satiated before complete hydration is achieved, regular sipping is the common-sense approach. Set a daily fluid-intake goal, either by using a marked-up water bottle[1], or a hydration-tracking app.
A good maxim is “If your pee’s all white, you’ll sound all right”, but bear in mind that some food and drinks can change the colour of your urine (such as fizzy vitamin drinks). On the day of a studio sessionGet hydrated and stay hydrated.  Make sure that the day before a lengthy session you have drunk plenty of water so your whole system is hydrated. Then keep sipping plenty of it during the recording, to keep yourself hydrated. This this will also give you a cause to pause and rest your voice for a moment. If you are taking water into a studio with you, put it in a pop-close type sports bottle and put it on the floor. Then if it is knocked it won’t spill on the equipment. [1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Marked-Water-Bottle/s?k=Time+Marked+Water+Bottle Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2023.01.23 – 0753 – Hydration Oughta Be Water, But…
Where hydration comes fromHydration oughta be water, plain, pure and at room temperature. But if you’re struggling to drink enough try:·        Try flavouring your water with fruit·        Drink caffeine-free tea like chamomile, ginger, or peppermint tea·        Eat foods that contain more water, such as cucumbers or melonso  Cruciferous vegetables, leafy greens and high fibre fruits contain good nutrients and vitamins, which help keep the voice healthy and lubricated·        Keep a humidifier running in the place that you sleep, and also in the place where you work or are most often using your voice. Essentially all fluids count, but it may be an idea to try and avoid: ·        Some people say dairy and chocolate affect their mucus levels, so you may want to monitor your intake and avoid them if you agree ·        Drinks from the machine: cold and fizzy or hot and caffeinatedo  Carbonated drinks will have the obvious result of causing burps and may affect breath supporto  Drinking caffeine (say in coffee) may increase your heart rate and make you more nervous you may have difficulty concentrating on the script or speak too fast. Caffeine can also speed up the production of extra-thick phlegm and that will mean you spend more time swallowing hard or coughing. A widely-held view that coffee will dehydrate you, is now thought not to be accurate, although it may affect some people in that way. ·        Alcohol can make you drowsy, slurred and contains sugar
Some medications  may also cause issues:·        anti-histamines, decongestants and anti-depressants tend to cause dryness ·        over-the-counter local anaesthetic medication for the throat create numbness reducing our ability to know if we are damaging our voice further Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2023.01.22 – 0752 – Hydrate to Sound Great. Here’s Why…
The more dehydrated you are:·        The drier the cords·        The poorer the quality of your voice·        The less you will get from each breath·        The shorter the time you can talk or sing ·        The more likely it is that you will get a hoarse voice·        The more likely it will be that you have weird mouth noises, clicks and sucks·        The more difficult it will be to clearly articulate, resulting in more verbal trips, increased mental anxiety and skeletal tension.
So, hydrate to sound great![1]
[1] A dry mouth could be an early warning sign for serious illnesses including diabetes, stroke and even HIV. https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/dry-mouth-could-sign-five-23901383 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2023.01.21 – 0751 – A Moment On Mucus
So, hydration affects the folds specifically in two ways:·        ‘Systemic hydration’ is the term for hydrating your whole body, the cells and the tissues from inside out·        ‘Topical (or ‘surface’) hydration’ affects the moisture levels of the surface of the vocal folds, keeping them slippery enough to vibrate.  The vocal folds are covered in a thin protective coating of slippery, stringy and slimy mucus[1] made up of water, antibodies, enzymes, proteins and salt. This film allows for optimum vibration with minimal effort, protects the folds from heat and friction, and also helps your tongue form word-sounds more easily.  If air is the fuel for the voice, the lubricants of mucus and saliva are its oil. When you get dehydrated the mucus becomes thicker and offers less protection and it’s more difficult to talk and damage can be caused to your cords. So, let’s hear it for a moist voice and a lubricated larynx! The health of vocal cords is measured in part by their PTP, the ‘Phonation Threshold Pressure’: the minimum pressure needed to get the cords vibrating and making a sound. The higher the viscosity of the cords (that is the thicker the mucous, because of dehydration), the higher the PTP, and therefore the more pressure needed from your lungs to produce a sound.[2]
[1] What’s the difference between ‘mucus’ and ‘mucous’? ‘Mucus’ is the noun and ‘mucous’ is the adjective, so mucous membranes secrete mucus. It’s not only snotty (!) biologists who insist on distinguishing between these two words.[2] https://www.drinkhydrant.com/blogs/news/hydrate-your-voice Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2023.01.20 – 0750 – The Hydration Situation The Hydration Situation (or How to ‘Get A Wetter Broadcast, Podcast and Voiceover Voice’)Up to 60% of the human adult body is water[1]: the brain and heart are composed of 73% water; the lungs are about 83% water; skin contains 64% water; muscles and kidneys are 79%; bones 31% water.
Each day we have to consume a certain amount of water to survive, depending on things like age, size and climate[2]. Generally, an adult male need about 3 litres (5 pints, 3.2 quarts) per day while an adult female needs about 2.2 litres (nearly 4 pints or 2.3 quarts) per day.  All the water you need doesn’t have to come from drinking liquids, as some of this water is contained in the food we eat.
[1] https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/water-you-water-and-human-body [2] You will need more water if there’s a dry atmosphere – for example a chilled air conditioner in a studio and after long periods of talking when you have been breathing through your mouth.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2023.01.19 – 0749 – Why Cough Sweets Are A Con
First up, it’s important to realise that nothing you swallow touches your vocal folds. Yep, those soothing cough sweets you take for example, go nowhere near them and any help they might give is either somewhere else in the vocal tract, or simply psychosomatic. (Indeed, as we’ll see later, such lozenges may actually be causing other problems!). I mean it stands to reason doesn’t it?: your voice comes from air from your lungs passing over your vocal cords, so logically (and physio-logically) anything you swallow can’t also pass over the cords, or it’d end up in your lungs! No, breathed air goes down one pipe, and swallowed food goes down another.  Your neck has ‘two tubes’. The trachea moves air to and from the lungs. (It is of course breath that powers your voice and part-way down the trachea are your vocal folds.) The other is the oesophagus down which food and liquids go to your stomach. If food and liquid go down the wrong one, you choke or drown. Fortunately, when you swallow, a flap called the epiglottis moves to block the entrance to trachea. So, any fancy throat teas you drink, lozenges you suck, won’t actually soothe your throat as they won’t go anywhere near where the problem may lie. Having said that, what you eat and drink can still affect your voice. And the most important element is H2O, water. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2023.01.18 – 0748 – Vocal Health as Asset Protection
As we have seen, the vocal cords are super thin muscular folds the length of your thumb nail. Air exhaled from the lungs passes over the taut cords and they vibrate[1], producing sound waves. High-pitched sounds are made when the cords are short and taut[2]. They work best when they are really well hydrated and it’s really hard for them to work, and they are more-easily damaged, when they’re dry or have too much phlegm on them.  Looking after your voice is ‘asset protection’: you’ll get more work done in less time, and earn more! But f ew of us have been taught how to properly operate the machinery of our voice. And when we want to add more volume, projection or emotion it’s like driving a Ferrari with the handbrake on … and we wonder why we’re too vocally exhausted to make it through the broadcast, podcast or voice-over session. Truth is most people don’t know any different, having been ‘driving’ that way for years, having got used to it, working on poor advice they were given years ago (such as “if you have a sore throat, just whisper…”). Even speaking in normal conversation our voice will tire, but that’s more likely more quickly in a professional setting of presenting and acting, with heightened voicing techniques for hours at a time. If your livelihood depends on your voice, it’s crucial you have strategies to strengthen your voice and minimise vocal injury. [1] See this video: https://youtu.be/kfkFTw3sBXQ [2] See this video: https://youtu.be/-XGds2GAvGQ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2023.01.17 – 0747 – You Are A Vocal Athlete
We are vocal athletes! Those of us who speak for a living are trained and skilled, we have physical strength, agility and stamina. We can get highly stressed and suffer from fatigue that affects our performance. And we use our body in an unusual way. So, be aware of what kind of foods, situations or symptoms are the precursor to poor vocal health. And then avoid them.
We all vary how much we speak during a day because of everything from studio work to social life changes.
But an NHS report[1] imagined someone who spoke for around 5 hours (18,000 seconds) per day would:
For a woman with a middle-range average spoken pitch, have her vocal folds vibrating at a rate of around 220 times each second, or opening and closing at least 4,140,000 times in one day, 1511,100,000 vibrations a year.
For a man with a reasonably low average spoken pitch, the vocal folds may be vibrating at a rate of around 100 times each second, that’s 1,800,000 opening and closings a day and 657,000,000 times in a year!
Now imagine the amount of work say an audiobook reader gives their voice, reading for 5 or more hours a day.

[1] https://www.wsh.nhs.uk/CMS-Documents/Patient-leaflets/SpeechandLanguageTherapyServices/6534-1-Practical-voice-care.pdf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2023.01.16 – 0746 – Exercise Advisories
Over the years in the many training sessions I have led, I have just known that the advice I have given to my clients in this area is going to be ignored: lip trills have been considered childish, to mindfully meditate was seen as ‘hippy’ hokum, stopping smoking as an unnecessary infringement. I am happy to say that in recent years those views have largely changed as people have become more aware of the value of looking after themselves vocally, physically and especially mentally.
Self-care is not selfish.
 I am not a doctor. Neither is Google. I don’t know your diet, your meds or your medical history.I don’t know your sleeping, smoking or drinking habits.I don’t know your physiological or psychological health,Your exercise or work regime, or your climate.
What follows is, although professionally-researched, still generic advice.  Listen carefully to your voice.With any negative change (loss in quality, range, stamina or control) lasting longer than two weeksalways seek the advice of a qualified medical professional.[1]
[1] What does your voice reveal about your health? Scientists say the way you talk could help diagnose a range of conditions from heart disease to Parkinson’s. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10729393/Scientists-say-way-talk-help-diagnose-range-conditions.html Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.