Say Goodbye to Hoarseness: TIPS FROM A VOICE TEACHER ON How to Protect Your Voice During Virtual Meetings

Zoom, Google Meet, and WhatsApp, Oh My!

With the past few months of working from home, many of us have had to start relying on virtual meeting platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, WhatsApp more than ever before. This tech-intensive period has taken its toll, including its impact on our physical bodies. There have been rising complaints of neck and back soreness, eye strain, and throat hoarseness after hours of needing to be speaking for hours on end. Many of us are unintentionally straining our voices during these meetings, as we begin to speak more loudly to compensate when technical difficulties arise (Does “CAROL? HELLO? CAN YOU STILL HEAR ME?” ring any bells?) and speaking louder than we would in person without even realizing it.

If you are someone who finds that after a few days or week of meetings your voice is feeling completely fried, check out this list of tips you can try to help avoid future hoarseness.

1. HYDRATION IS KEY

Water is essential to keeping your voice (and your whole body, for that matter!) healthy. It’s so easy to get into the habit of not drinking enough water during a heavy work day, where you might prefer to have coffee by your side during a long Zoom meeting. I recommend keeping water stocked at your home work space and making time for “water breaks” in addition to coffee breaks.

2. ENGAGE YOUR CORE

In order to reduce the pressure on your throat, it’s important to engage your core. Before a meeting where you know you’re going to need to be speaking for a while, do a few rounds of diaphragmatic breathing. The link will bring you to a tutorial to show you how.

3. FIND YOUR JULIA CHILD VOICE

It’s easy to get stuck in the “vocal fry” which is the lowest registration of the voice. When we speak in vocal fry for a long period of time, it puts stress on the vocal cords, leading to strain, hoarseness, and in severe cases, vocal injury. I recommend exploring your vocal range by doing exercises like lip trills, buzzy hums, in addition to simply trying to vary the range of your speaking voice. This video lays out how to warm-up your speaking voice in just a couple of minutes.

4. REMIND YOURSELF TO SPEAK MORE SOFTLY

More often than not I find myself speaking way too loudly during a Skype lesson, fighting with the overlapping of sounds. This is a gentle reminder, for myself included, that when you find yourself rising in volume to not only try and speak higher pitched (see video above) but also softer.

5. TRY STANDING MORE OFTEN

If you have a surface that’s high enough, try standing during meetings here are there. It’s important to stand so that the muscles in your head and neck can relax: When seated for long periods of time, it’s easy for the jaw to jut forward, which can cause tension in the neck and throat. In addition to try standing during a meeting or while teaching, do a few shoulder rolls and tilting your head to one side and the other in between sessions.

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I hope these tips have been helpful in order to help you avoid feeling hoarse after your next round of virtual meetings. Let me know how these end up working for you! Feel free to comment below.

Wishing you all long-term vocal health,

Lauren

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Lauren D’Ottavio, M.A.

Studio D’Ottavio, Owner