I'm so excited to be here to share three things to never, ever, ever do with your voice.

Now, as I was preparing, And came across my notes and looking at some of the former clients I've worked with, my list got larger. And it's not just three things. It's going to be more like half a dozen or more things that you really should not ever do with your voice. While you're sitting there, start that breath with me.

One hand on your heart, the other on your solar plexus, taking a breath through your nose or mouth past your lungs into that solar plexus muscle. So that right hand on your belly moves forward with your inhale. Let's start there together. Breath in. And release.

And breath in. And release. Beautiful. So getting grounded. I am Sloane Reali, vocal coaching by Sloane so today, three things to never do with your voice and here's the bonus, what to do instead. If you struggle with any vocal challenges, I'm going to be talking about vocal fry. If you lose your voice, if you find that you are vocally fatigued, if your voice is literally tired at the end of a work day or the end of a week, or if maybe you've attended an event, a sporting event or a concert, and you've come home with laryngitis.

If you struggle with anything like this, I hope to cover some of this today, but my question for you is if there's some chronic or acute issue that you're dealing with with your voice on a regular basis, what would it feel like for you to eliminate whatever the vocal challenge is that's happening for you?

Think about that for a second. If you're watching this and you struggle with anything, anything, with regards to your voice. Maybe it's just your confidence level around your voice. Maybe, maybe when you hear the tonal quality or your voice on a recording, it's a cringe moment for you, right? How would it feel to be able to hear your voice and not?

Do that, right? What would that feel like? How would it feel to go into a meeting or maybe a difficult conversation, , whatever it is that you gotta go use your voice and be on as an authority. How would it feel to go in to these places, these meetings, these, , gatherings, important sessions with people that you work or you know or you love with confidence that your voice is gonna show up and support you?

the way you want it to, right? Today's session. Awesome. Awesome stuff. And much more to come from. The first issue I want to address. Now, it's not really a vocal thing, but it affects your vocal cords. Coughing. The number one thing you should never, ever do, like at all costs, avoid it, is coughing.

Coughing is traumatic to all of the muscles in your throat, but it's also a traumatic aspiration of air. And it's also your vocal cords coming together literally in a harsh and tense and traumatic way. Coughing. Right? I don't even want to pretend to do that. But, , there's all kinds of other muscles related.

What you should try instead, and here, Katy Power, I'm giving you a plug if you happen to see this, Katy Power, this is an awesome resource, people. Never Lose Your Voice Again by Katie Power, this is something I picked up earlier this year. I found it very useful. What I really found helpful, thank you Katie, you confirmed so many things that I had already been doing earlier Or I had intuitively discovered with my own voice clients.

But she's got some great stuff in here. You can pick that up on Amazon. She's got all kinds of great things available, but the chapter here, what she says about, and this is where I learned about silent clearing, but essentially what it is, is if you feel the urge to cough, what Katie suggests that you do, I cannot

First of all, being aware, being mindful that you're feeling that tickle in your throat. Now, first of all, before you even get to that point, If you are feeling a tickle in your throat, if you are dehydrated, and Katie and I both agree on this, water is your best friend. Clear, clean, you want to avoid caffeine, dairy, anything that dehydrates the vocal cords, smoke, vape pens, certain medications, none of that stuff is good for your voice.

And if you are having a tickle you don't usually have, or if you've been sick, I know we've had some, a lot of illness going around right now, you want to avoid. from having to cough in the first place. So staying hydrated, throat lozenges, all kinds of great things on the market, non medication, all natural, soothing, coating type, for the throat.

If you do feel that urge coming, What she suggests is stop, close your mouth, and swallow. So the hardest part of that is if you've been sick, and there's this chronic constant cough, you want to stay ahead of that before you go into the coughing fit. Your three best friends, staying hydrated, using the lozenges, and when you feel a cough coming on, stop.

As best as you can, because it's a reflex, and close your mouth, and mindfully, in tune with your body, swallow, you're creating more, lubricant, in that case, and nine times out of ten, you're gonna stop a cough, which just isn't good for your voice anyway. Try that instead. Screaming! Oh my gosh. Now, I know that there's there's healthy fun screaming when you're an athletic event or a sporting event or a concert, and then there's the not so healthy and, you know, I've confessed years ago when I was raising kids, there were some times that I really lost my stuff, and literally, I will not exaggerate.

This is probably a decade ago. I'm happy to say I do not I use my voice that way, but the confession is, I can't remember even what it was or which kid it was or what even happened. But something happened with one of my kids that threw me over the top. I completely lost it. I was in a screaming fit.

Don't, I can't even tell you what it was about. I'm embarrassed. I even, I'm confessing this to you even in public , but the point is I screamed so loud and so harsh from my throat, not from my solar plexus where I teach my clients if you're, if you're doing that death metal type of rock. I definitely worked with those types of clients, but there's a correct way to do that.

My point is, if you absolutely must, hopefully you're at some fun event and you are really excited and you just want to cheer for your winning team or your, your star or your artist on the stage, whatever it is, the way to do this. Is from the solar plexus. We've talked a lot about breath work, drawing that air from your solar plexus up through your body and creating an exit for that right here.

It's a two part formula. If you absolutely must, you have no self control. Just kidding. But if you want, if you're excited and you're at an event and you are starting to get really loud, I was in a meeting yesterday presenting and a gentleman, he's a coach, an athletic coach. I presumed it was maybe for, for kids or college or something.

Anyway, he was asking me why he loses his voice when he's coaching, yelling, coaching his teams almost consistently. And this is the remedy for that. Two parts. Make sure you're breathing in that solar plexus, that you're drawing all that air up, and that you're creating an exit to release it all, using that open forward placement I talk a lot about.

Okay, here's another one. Vocal Fry. I'm renaming this Lazy, the Larry, Lazy Larynx. A lot of air, a lot of energy, and this actually came out of, I had not, I didn't know what Fry was until I started getting clients that have this Fry. Hear what that is? That's energy sitting on my vocal cords. It is a I believe it's something that came out of a couple of generations ago.

What it literally is physically in the body is it's laziness. It's laziness sitting there in the vocal cords. It's energy sitting in the vocal cords that needs to move out of the body. If you are a young adult, entering the professional arena, And you think you have this, it is really important if you're on job interviews, for example, let's say it's you and another person completely qualified, same credentials, same education, same background, same, same experience, every across the board, completely even, but you have fry at the end of anything that you're speaking and the other competitor for the same position does not, who do you think is going to get hired for that position?

Not the person with the fry. So if you think you have fry and you you'll know, I'm exaggerating it when I speak like this, but if you have any of that going on in your voice, I'm going to tell you how to clean it up in just a second, but before. It's also known, as the squeaky hinge. Roger Love calls it the squeaky hinge.

And it's very air. There's, there's no melody, it's energy sitting there. And the way we fix it is the same way you scream or sing a big ballad. It's connecting to that breath in the soul. It's an air, it's an air problem. So you're not getting enough air. Moving through your vocal cords combined with oh my goodness.

I'm coming back again. Open forward placement. What are you doing up here? Right? For example would be, let's see. oh, goodness. What did I do? Yeah. Oh, say, can you see? Oh, say, can you see? I use this in a presentation yesterday. If you were doing this with fry oh, say, can you see? It's very subtle.

I'll try to exaggerate it. Oh, say, can you see? I sound like I've smoked like a hundred packs of cigarettes or something. Anyway, it's, it's hard for me to demonstrate it because I, my voice is so trained to do things correctly. It's hard for me to do them incorrectly anymore, but you will know. If you have this thing, practice taking a little deeper breath instead of holding long phrases or sentences.

Cut them up into smaller pieces. Cut them up, breath, into smaller pieces. Oh, say, can you? No, I would break that up differently. Oh, say, can you see? So air, energy, shorter, we call it in the music, staccato, individual little phrases versus, oh, say, can you see? And again, I'm super exaggerating that. Other things that you, well, let me make sure that I've covered everything there first.

So, no coughing. Try the silent, silent swallow instead. No screaming. If you absolutely must , scream from your solar plexus. Using open forward to move all that energy out of your body. Vocal fry. If you have that, first of all, it's also not good for your vocal cords. It wears them out like sneakers.

You, you don't. want to be ever doing anything from your throat in the first place. If you have that, clear that up using air energy open for a few other things you should not be doing with your voice. I mean, this could really this could be costing you. It could be costing you in certain relationships.

It could be costing you getting a promotion at work. It could there's any any number of ways.

I've had a number of clients that have come to me with stuttering. What is fascinating about stuttering is that it's a different part of the brain. When we're singing, I have clients that have come for stuttering issues. We can sing complete songs from beginning to end without a single stutter. As soon as we go back to singing.

Speaking. Now we've shifted over to another part of the brain. It really is about what part of the brain and how you're approaching it and some remedies for stuttering. Again, it's another airflow issue. And the success that I've had with clients who have stuttered challenges with stuttering are kind of like the fry slowing things down and breaking them down into smaller chunks.

Being really mindful of when we're taking the breath before we go into the next sentence or phrase. You notice what I'm doing there? I'm actually taking a breath and moving all that air through my vocal cords. It's a complete connection, this yin and yang thing going on with my solar plexus muscle drawing up and releasing.

Beautiful. Most of this is related. to airflow. And then there are a couple of other things. We've talked about vocal cord dysfunction. I spent a whole chapter over the summer at some point. How to fix this again, it's about breathing and vocal cord dysfunction mimics. Asthma, so you're going to grab your breath and you can't get the air.

It's not asthma, but it is very often misdiagnosed as being asthma. So again, connecting mental brain to what your physical body is doing, being very conscious of how you're breathing and how you're exhaling. Right? Using open forward placement to release, recreating an exit to let that energy go.

Volume and energy can play a part in fixing vocal cord dysfunction. Just a little extra energy, a little extra volume, connecting. All of the breath work that I do, connecting our mental brain to our physical body, if we need, we have a hand actually on the solar plexus, that as we inhale, those hands are moving forward on the inhale, on the exhale, your hands are moving back towards your spine, and, fillers is the last one here.

Fillers are all your ums, your ohs, you have seen me, uh, do, uh, fillers Um, do this way more than I like to. I think what happens with me to my ums and as, but I do want to be a good model.

I want to. Practice and demonstrate great, positive, healthy ways to use your voice. And also if you are leading meetings, if you are starting to do presentations for large or small groups, I want to be able to model. a professional way of doing all of that. So with that, if you are struggling with any of these issues or any others around the voice, please feel free, reach out.

It's a great time of year to be checking out specials for holiday, gift giving, tons of fun stuff. And with that, More videos available if you want to dig a little deeper if you just have questions, and you're not sure if you're struggling with an issue Please give me a call reach out my contact is available all over the place you can Call you can text me you can email me your issue.

We can set up a Complimentary 15 minute call just to discuss whatever your issue or your challenges are with your voice and see if vocal coaching might be right for you So, with that, my love, bless everybody, and have a wonderful rest of your day.