Clamps in the throat

[Teacher]

Voice and character

Our voice comes from the throat. And this is the next segment of our body, in which various muscle clamps can form, which prevent us from speaking clearly and convincingly. Much more often than from diseases and overloads, the voice suffers from them. And then we feel that our voice seems to be suppressed, our throat “intercepts”, squeezes, up to the sensation of pain - but we cannot do anything about it.

Throat clamps are the body's psychological responses to stress. And if your voice is constantly clamped, then you are experiencing stress, even if you do not feel it. Our body gets used to it and freezes in some kind of defensive reaction, and we stop feeling this part. And only when the rest of the body is relaxed - then the compression, spasm in this area becomes more noticeable. This is why we get sick so often on vacation.

Notice how we adults, educated people, react to pain, mental and physical. We want to scream - from pain, from anger, from resentment - and we clench our lips, teeth, throat. Unlike children, who immediately respond with an open, sonorous cry. The child's reaction is instantaneous, non-judgmental: impulse - reaction. In our country - with a hitch in the assessment (decent or indecent?). Therefore, the child throws out emotion through his voice and quickly forgets about his trouble. And we restrain our natural reactions and chew on our "unvoiced" problems for years.

And one more rule: "Crying is indecent!" And instead of “howling” like children cry, we “swallow tears”. And it is also indecent to yawn! Moaning with pleasure is also indecent (what if the neighbors hear?). The muscles of the larynx stop working, the pharynx closes, and the voice, finding no other way for itself, comes out either through the nose (nasal sound) or "gets stuck in the throat" (dull dull sound, pain, tickling) ...

How do we smile? Lips fakely stretch into a smile when you don't want to smile at all. This is the "social smile" - our defensive reaction to danger. In animals, such a "smile" is called a grin and means - "Better stay away, I am strong, I have sharp teeth." And we have such a "strained" smile unconsciously signals: "I am strong", or "I am strong." And also: "Don't get too close." This smile betrays our fear: the fear of sincerity, openness, naturalness. That is, in fact, it reveals our weakness. The voice with such a smile becomes "flat", "fake", overly corny or harsh.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

* To "unclench" the clamp in the larynx region, practice opening your mouth so that the lower jaw "unfastens" from the upper jaw and moves relaxed.

* Keep your hand on your chin and read any text out loud.

* On each percussion A, O, E, lower your jaw (with your hand!) As low as possible, make sure that your mouth opens vertically, as wide as possible - you will be surprised how much louder and freer your voice will sound!

* Learn to yawn at the top of your voice, like children, cats and dogs yawn. Try to make yourself yawn artificially and pay attention to how your larynx, pharynx, where the tongue is moving at this time.

* Another exercise is laughter. Remember how you laughed and could not stop. What hurt you? That's right - the stomach. Or rather, the diaphragm, which actively works under voice load. And the throat at this moment emits sonorous, voluminous, loud sounds. If you learn to laugh "on demand", you can instantly remove the voice clip and quickly cheer yourself up.

Little secret - in fact, it is not the throat and not the ligaments that sound - the voice resonates throughout the body. Wherever a clamp appears in our body, it instantly affects the sound of the voice. In a free body there is a free voice.