SPEAKING TRAINING, to express yourself optimally in the long term
We always talk about “the voice is loud” “their voice is beautiful” “my voice is busy” “he has a quiet voice” “my voice is going away” etc. We talk about the voice as if it were something material, a part of the body, something to touch – but that’s not the case!
Voice is just moving air
We exhale, the exhaled air causes our two vocal folds/vocal cords to vibrate and this turns the air wave into an audible sound wave. This sound wave then appears large – loud – quiet – unstable – how is this possible? … It always depends on the quality of the exhalation, our state of tension in the body. If we don’t know this, we can’t change it. What a pity!
It’s smart to turn the vocal job we have when speaking into a breathing job – or rather an exhaling job – to take care of our air – our air supply – in other words, to exhale more often and consciously. And in the pace of our everyday lives, the internal and external pressure that we build up again and again and more and more, we usually breathe in two thirds and out only one third, i.e. we are always left with residual air, which then literally puts us under counterproductive pressure. And we often hold our breath under stress and breathe more and more shallowly. It’s as if, if our body were a car, we would only ever drive with a full tank of petrol. That’s not so clever!
Our exhaled air is the fuel for our voice
First of all, we have to realise if and when we stop breathing deeply – and this happens more often than we think! Even when we are just thinking, thinking about something, we stop breathing!!! Because we are focussed on thinking. That’s fine, but when we speak again, we remain in this very low breathing action, i.e. we don’t consciously switch on our engine for speaking again: because our exhaled air is the fuel for our voice! Do we realise this? Usually not, because – unfortunately – we haven’t learnt it. This is not a commonly transmitted knowledge. Which is a shame, because it would be very clever to know. Because we have a lot to communicate and if we don’t actively lead our exhaled air, we speak with muscle power, with muscle tension, with muscle tension and the sound of our voice therefore becomes narrow, small to unpleasant – because we are mood makers with our voice.
We infect the other person with our tension when we speak – not consciously and not intentionally – but that’s how it works. We have to keep consciously moving air waves that become sound waves – that’s the job!
SPEAKING TRAINING TIPS super.simple.effective.
Add AIR to your LIFE CHECK LIST – this is mindfulness, serenity and health maintenance training!
Start noticing when you stop breathing and hold your breath
Start recognising patterns: are there certain situations, times, people, where and when it happens
You are your own inner coach: say to yourself: BREATHE, please!
It sounds so trivial and banal – but it’s not! Because exhaling means that we let go, that we give up the “have-not” position. However, this is only possible if we – or rather our Stone Age brain, which is responsible for around 95% of our lives (watch out! the word voice is in there again!) – feel safe, don’t sense any danger and want to be “on the run” to save ourselves, our bodies and escape from the threatening situation.
Unfortunately, we can’t directly reprogramme our ancient Stone Age brain to realise that our lives are not always a matter of life and death – well, we know that interpretations are individual and different. So again, it’s our job to reassure ourselves and our Stone Age brains. Because crazy enough, when we exhale, our Stone Age brain thinks we are safe (otherwise we wouldn’t have exhaled – it thinks so) and promptly stops producing stress hormones…
Yours,
Voice expert.
