What instruments are to musicians, voice is to singers. For them, it is their only tool and resource for a melodious future ahead. Therefore, singers need to take good care of their voices. Whether they are at the learning stage or are well-established artists, they need to be mindful of various factors that could make or break their voices.
If you are also a singer and want to learn how to take care of your voice, this blog will help you answer all your questions related to vocal health. Maintaining optimum vocal health will not only help you polish your singing skills but will also help you perfect your craft, attain high notes easily, and prolong your career as a singer while maintaining the ideal voice quality throughout.
In this blog, we are sharing some insightful suggestions and habits worth adopting to maintain perfect vocal health. We have also marked out the practices to be dropped immediately or avoided to safeguard your vocal health and keep it from deterioration.
So, let us learn about vocal health and go through the considerations mentioned below.
Aspects To Take Care Of For Maintaining Optimum Vocal Health
Like our overall physical health, our vocal health requires proper nurturing and care. Certain factors significantly affect our voice and throat and should be taken care of. Such as,
Healthy Lifestyle
Maintaining the ideal posture and voice quality during intense and continuous singing sessions requires fitness, energy, and strength. It can only come from maintaining a healthy lifestyle consisting of healthy food habits, voice exercises, and physical exercises.
A nutritious diet would give the body the energy to practice dedicatedly, voice exercises will help improve the tone, pitch, and overall voice quality. Moreover, physical exercise will help you build the strength to sing without getting tired or distracted for long hours.
Moreover, a healthy lifestyle also includes proper rest, adequate sleep, and avoiding overstraining your voice and body.
Environmental Condition
The weather or environment we live in keeps changing constantly, be it the temperature, moisture, or heat. Interestingly, all these factors have their effects on the throat or voice. Therefore, singers need to try and keep their voices unaffected by these environmental changes.
Proper Hydration
Singing continuously for long hours can cause dryness and irritation in the throat, leading to voice breakage and coughing. Therefore singers should maintain a healthy water intake to keep their throat as well as body hydrated for a smooth singing experience.
Regular Exercises
As discussed above, practicing the right vocal as well as physical exercises will help you enhance your potential and capacity as a singer. It will help you build the core strength to attain the toughest or the most intricate notes effortlessly. These exercises will improve your singing range and potential.
Mandatory Warm Up
As our body needs to warm up before intense or rigorous physical activities, our throat also needs a warm-up before indulgent singing. It helps prepare the voice and makes it easy for you to control or tune it to produce the required sound, rhythm, and vibrations.
Proper Rest
Rest is one of the most overlooked and underestimated aspects of vocal health. As a singer, you need to give proper rest to your voice to help it recover from the strains sustained during intense singing sessions and remain in a healthy state for a considerably long time.
Implementing and adopting these suggestions will help you enhance the voice quality, prolong its effectiveness, and train it to deliver diverse singing rhythms and requirements.
Things To Avoid For Achieving Ideal Vocal Health
Now that you are aware of the things that should be done to attain the ideal vocal health, let us also highlight the things that are harmful and should be avoided to keep your voice from losing its quality.
Irresponsible handling and negligence can lead your vocal health towards degradation. Giving up these habits or elements will prove beneficial for your vocal health in the long run.
Straining Your Voice
Despite the need or inclination, you should try not to strain your voice beyond a certain point often, as it could irritate your throat internally, leading to voice hoarseness.
Alcohol and Smoking
Alcohol and cigarettes are extremely harmful to health, especially for singers and musicians. It not only deteriorates their physical health but also excessively damages their voices.
Smoking and drinking can seriously damage the throat and the voice box while taking away your control over the mind and the muscles, which is vital for everyone associated with the field of music.
Caffeine Intake
Caffeine is known for changing and compromising voice quality. As a singer, you must avoid the things and food items that have high caffeine content in them or you can limit their intake.
Salty and Fried Food
Food items that are high in sodium, and salts, and are excessively oily can prove harmful to your vocal health and can lead to throat ailments. You must check the level of sodium, salts, and oil in your food and try to keep it regulated for optimum vocal health.
Exposure to Allergens and pollutants
As a singer, you need to remain extra careful while moving in places with high pollution. You must use a face mask to keep the dust and soot particles from entering your mouth and throat as it can cause irritation and throat infections that could damage your voice.
You must also keep away from things that you are clinically allergic to, be it a food item or any other thing. You must ensure optimum distances from such products to avoid allergies and swellings, especially in the throat.
Wrapping It Up!
Voice and vocal health hold invaluable significance for singers, therefore they must be careful and precautionary with their throats and should indulge in practices that are healthy and favorable.
It is also necessary for singers to learn about things that are harmful to vocal health and avoid their consumption or practice to protect their voice from any potential damage and degradation.
Going through this blog will help you identify such factors and encourage as well as guide you towards acquiring the best possible vocal condition.