How to Project Your Voice With a Sore Throat

A sore throat is sometimes the first of several symptoms to arrive. But when your voice is crucial for work, there is never a good time to come down with a sore throat. Often, the voice begins to fade out while the throat is sore. The same irritants that affect the throat also affect the voice. There are a few things you should do in preparation to project your voice to get through an important day.

Things You'll Need

• Ginger tea
• Honey
• Lemon

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Instructions

• 1

  Rest your voice with vocal silence for as long as you can from the moment you get sick until the day of your presentation. Whether singing, speaking, laughing, coughing or whispering, forcing your vocal cords to make sound while inflamed is very damaging. This damage can be permanent and painful. Ideally, your voice needs five days of rest.

• 2

  Switch from coffee to hot tea, preferably ginger tea, which is good for the throat. Drink the tea with honey right before you begin using your voice to lubricate and warm the vocal cords. If you feel thick mucus in your throat, add lemon to your tea. The astringent qualities of the lemon will help clear it.

• 3

  Avoid known causes for your body to produce excess mucus, such as orange juice and dairy, while you have a sore throat. This will obstruct the function of the vocal cords. Instead, keep hydrated by drinking plenty of water kept at room temperature.

• 4

  Take breaks during your speech or presentation, if possible. Drink hot ginger tea with lemon to help soothe the damage that is being done and keep the voice from going out completely. If you cannot take breaks, you will need to sip water and hot tea during the presentation; otherwise you may lose your voice before you finish.

• 5

  Push air through your vocal cords using your abdominal muscles while you speak instead of straining the muscles in your throat to shout. This is best achieved by breathing low, as if you are pulling air into your abdomen, then tightening the abdominal muscles to push the air back out as you speak. This will give your voice the fullest possible sound while putting the least amount of strain on the vocal cords.

• 6

  Use low notes to help your voice carry without shouting. Lower tones in the voice tend to be easier to access with a sore throat and are less taxing, so stick to the lower part of your vocal register where the voice resonates in the chest.

• 7

  Avoid coughing and clearing your throat. Both are violent enough to exacerbate your symptoms, thus shortening the amount of time you will be able to use your voice with a sore throat. Instead, use lozenges, warm fluids and cough syrup. To clear your throat during your presentation, sipping hot tea with lemon is a far better choice.