I had a request from one of my favorite tweeps to write about restoring a fatigued voice. This is something we’ve all suffered at some point whether we’re a broadcaster, a voiceover artist, or a voice coach 😉 Two steps that really help are hydration and vocal rest. Let’s look at how each one can restore your voice.
Hydration is essential for a healthy throat. The cells of the throat need to be plump and healthy and the mucous in the throat needs to be at the correct viscosity to do it’s job. I’ve written about the values of good hydration for the throat in many of my posts. Take a look at this one for a good overview. If your voice is fatigued, hydration should be one of the first things you think of.
Vocal rest means, basically, not talking or doing other things like coughing or clearing your throat that might damage the vocal folds (check out this post on coughing). Complete vocal rest, which may be for several hours or several days, is hard to do, but the pay off in healing is huge. If you’ve talked too much, you may have irritated the tissue in the vocal folds enough that continuing to talk could cause significant damage. Laryngitis, completely losing your voice, is telling you that there’s so much irritation the vocal folds are not able to produce any sound at all. Don’t wait for this stage before you begin vocal rest!
So the next time you’re feeling vocal fatigue, hydrate and get some vocal rest. Grab a nice big mug of herbal tea and turn off your phone.
