A lot of voice problems are caused by muscle tension in the chest. We hang on to our breath and never allow the lungs to empty.  When you feel muscle tension in your chest if you’re nervous about speaking or when you start to speak, this is a reason why.   With regular simple breathing exercises, you can alleviate chest tension.

When starting voice exercises you need to release your breath.  Most people are not used to completely emptying their lungs and you need to do this in a relaxed way before taking a breath in.   Your muscles can then learn to handle the breath in your lungs for maximum vocal interpretation.

Here is a picture of the flop over which allows the muscles in the stomach to flatten forcing the diaphragm up and expelling the breath from your lungs.  The other pictures show Pilates positions which flatten your stomach and expel the air from your lungs.

The flop over flattens your stomach and releases breath.  Gently some up while breathing in through the nose.

Once you get to know how to completely empty your lungs you can go on to more advanced exercises that will help you to get rid of muscle tension and give you a better voice.  Want to know more?  Come on one of our workshops.  You can fill in a contact form.