Ten Ways to Take Care of Your Voice During the COVID-19 Era
Drink a lot of water daily
Alcohol consumption has increased during the pandemic. Alcohol is a dehydration agent so counterbalance your wine o’clock with water. Coffee is also a dehydration agent so reduce your coffee intake or offset it by drinking more water. I know it is hard to hear that two of the most popular adult beverages aren’t good for your voice, and worse they are addictive so reducing intake or cutting them out is not easy. “Data from animal and human subject studies have revealed that systemic and superficial dehydration are detrimental to vocal fold physiology. The negative effects of dehydration on voice support a clinical focus on hydration intervention” (Sivasankar & Leydon, 2010). Drinking water will help replenish the healthy mucosa that lines the vocal cords. This healthy mucosa is needed in order for you to produce voice adequately and functionally. I personally keep my water bottle full and keep it with me at all times to encourage me to stay hydrated and assure that water is easily accessible all the time.
2. Do not speak too loudly
We naturally speak louder when our voices are competing with other noise (background noise such as the TV, other people speaking). You have likely experienced this when you are listening to music with headphones and you talk to someone and they tell you, “I am right here, why are you yelling?”. This phenomenon is called the Lombard effect and if you speak loudly frequently and for an excessive period of time, this is called vocal overuse and it can result in physical damage to your body that could require surgery and/or voice therapy. A typical face to face conversation occurs at 60 dB (Bess & Humes, 2009) but in a study by Kisenwether and Anson (2019), people who communicate using just audio on a phone or audio and video on a phone “consistently spoke with four times more intensity than typical face-to-face conversation”. In order to prevent vocal damage, be proactive by not speaking too loudly and limiting noise.
3. Limit noise
Turn off or down music or the TV when you are speaking to someone. If you are frequently video conferencing for work or to socialize with loved ones, ask your colleagues and loved ones to turn off/down the background noise on their end and ask people to mute themselves when it is not their turn to speak so your voice is not competing with theirs. This will benefit your voice and their voices too.
4. Use gestures or written words
People may ask you to speak up because they are having trouble hearing you through your mask. Use gestures, writing in a notebook or typing on your phone/pulling up a picture on your phone and holding it up to your communication partner so you don’t need to speak, repeat what you said or speak louder. Not everything you have to say requires your voice! You can nod or shake your head, give thumbs up or down, smile with your eyes to say hello, point at what you need, show the shopping list to a worker if you need help finding an item, draw or write something etc. You would be surprised just how much of your point you can get across by pantomiming, gesturing, or showing a photo on your phone. These techniques have helped me successfully communicate with people whose language I do not speak and are handy if you are preserving your voice when communicating with someone who does speak your language as well. Your Pictionary and Charades skills have a real world application.
5. Rest your voice
If you do not need to use your voice, give it a break. As a speech-language pathologist, I am a professional voice user and am constantly talking for about 6 hours every work day. To preserve my voice, I try to give it a break. For example, if the student I am working with can read, I will have them read me the book or the question or give them time to silently read it to themselves so I do not need to read everything aloud to them. If I need to teach a student a new concept, I will share an educational video at the start of my session to teach the concept and spare my voice a few minutes of speaking. If someone wants to talk to me, I will tell them I am resting my voice and prefer to text, email or Facebook message as opposed to a phone call or video call. If you are the person scheduling and running video conferences, if it could be an email, make it an email- your voice and your co-workers will appreciate it! If it absolutely needs to be a video conference, tell the participants to rest their voice and that they are more than welcome to use the chat function to share their ideas rather than speaking.
Work having yet another video conference that should have been an email
6. Use a microphone
Utilize a headset with a microphone for video conferencing, teaching in person, virtual teaching/learning, telepractice sessions, and/or telehealth appointments.
7. Minimize your risk of contracting COVID-19
Physically distance from others, avoid being in the presence of people who do not properly wear masks, and follow proper hand washing procedures. If you already did not have reason enough to physically distance, properly wear a mask and avoid others who are not taking these precautions, “Many severe COVID-19 infections require treatment in the intensive care unit and can lead to lasting postrecovery sequelae including breathing, physical, cognitive, and psychological problems” (Helding, Carroll, Nix, Johns, LeBorgne, Meyer, 2020). Adequate breath support is necessary to use your voice so if breathing is negatively affected then voice will be impacted as well. It is possible to survive COVID-19 but “many suffer lingering reduction of respiratory and phonatory function” after being intubated due to the virus or just secondary to the virus itself (Helding et al., 2020).
8. Do not suck on mint, eucalyptus or menthol lozenges
These ingredients numb your throat and make your vocal cords feel better in the moment but then you will use your voice causing the swelling to set in.
9. Do not whisper
Whispering involves more movement of the vocal cords and the adjacent musculature. Whispering puts more strain on the voicebox so just use your inside voice or don’t speak at all.
10. Do not cough or clear your throat
Coughing or clearing your throat slams your vocal cords together and will make them even more swollen. Instead of coughing or clearing your throat, make a strong voiceless “huh”. This “huh” should be breathy like a dog panting. You can do this multiple times in a row. This allows the vocal cords to come together with less force and will help clear the unwanted mucus.
Important note: If you are experiencing hoarse voice, laryngitis etc. past 14 days, please consider seeing an Ear Nose Throat Doctor (ENT) or consult with your medical doctor. Although speech-language pathologists (SLPs) treat voice disorders, we always require a consult from an ENT or a primary doctor before starting voice therapy.
Bess, F. H., & Humes, L. E. (2009). Audiology: The fundamentals (4th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Helding, Lynn, et al. “COVID-19 After Effects: Concerns for Singers.” Journal of Voice, 2020, doi:10.1016/j.jvoice.2020.07.032.
Kisenwether, Jessica S, and Denis Anson. “Cell Yell!: Health Risks in Telehealth.” Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, vol. 4, June 2019, pp. 538–541., doi:https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2019_PERS-SIG18-2018-0005.
Sivasankar, Mahalakshmi, and Ciara Leydon. “The Role of Hydration in Vocal Fold Physiology.” Curr Opin Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg, vol. 18, no. 3, June 2010, pp. 171–175., doi:10.1097/MOO.0b013e3283393784.