Day 1: How to keep your voice steady when you’re feeling emotional.

🎄Day 1: How to keep your voice steady when you’re feeling emotional

(People ask me this one a lot.)
Christmas often comes with lots of feelings. You might have had a great year and be full of gratitude, happiness and nostalgia. Or your year might have included some really hard things like someone you love not being there, or exhaustion from worry about your job, your mortgage, your kids…

Then someone asks you to speak and you find out that emotions can make your voice wobble.

A wobble doesn’t really matter – you’re just human and connected to what you’re saying – but you might like your voice to be steadier.

Try these:

1.     Name the emotion you’re feeling
Even just saying to yourself, “This means a lot to me” releases some pressure because it gives you permission to feel those emotions rather than bottling them up and having them pop out unexpectedly into your voice.

2.     Exhale and relax your voice box
Five minutes before you have to speak, hold one finger in front of your lips like you’re telling someone to shush. Take a slow, deep breath. Exhale through your mouth slowly while making the sound “vwuuuuuu”.
(To me, that sounds like an aircraft propeller slowing down, but quieter. 😉)

3.     GENTLY press your teeth down on the sides of your tongue.
This interrupts the adrenaline spike that tightens your throat. It’s also good for getting you a little more saliva so you don’t have a dry mouth. I’m emphasising ‘gently’ here!

4.     Get grounded
Press your toes into the floor to ground yourself. When your body feels steadier, your voice has more chance.
Also, keep remembering to exhale. When we’re nervous, we remember to inhale (a lot) but forget to exhale and get rid of the carbon dioxide that’s building up.

5.     Use shorter sentences
Emotion will often catch you in the middle of a sentence. Short sentences allow you to have a tiny break to steady yourself.