Warm Up for All Day Talkers

top 5 tips for speaking

Here’s an essential warm up to keep you on top of your game.

As a Pilates Instructor, it goes without saying that I talk A LOT throughout the day. With private clients and in classes, cues are critical for influencing body awareness and focus. I’m also a performer and use my voice and body to help me nail on camera and VoiceOver jobs. 

Last week, I had my first in-person VoiceOver job since COVID-19. I was excited and I knew the material would be dense. If you’ve never had to speak for an hour or more, it’s more challenging than it may seem. The voice can get horse after a while, your nerves can make your voice shaky, your breath short and shallow, and your mind wanders. 

I’ve put together a warm-up to help anyone who finds themselves in the position of talking for an hour or more, like:

• Giving a Presentation at Work

• Teachers

• Lawyers

• Leading a Group Meeting

• VoiceOver Artists

• Performers

• Customer Service Representatives

• and many more

The Warm Up:

• Wake up and head outside. Exposing your eyes to natural light for 10-20 minutes will help engage your visual system. We need our eyes in good working order if you’re reading from a script or powerpoint or just reading the room. 

• Keep your head still and begin to move your eyes, focusing on objects near and far, in the top left, bottom left, top right, bottom right in your field of vision. Focus on something and then shift your gaze to something else - moving on only after the object has come into focus. Spend anywhere from 30 secs to a minute on this exercise. 

• Exercise your diaphragm. Lay on your back and breathe in through your nose. As you exhale, count to 10 as many times as you can until the last drop of air is gone. Then, inhale in through the nose again. Do this 5 times and finish by taking 5 breaths in through the nose and out through the nose until you’ve smoothed the breath out. During the exercise, you’ll feel the core shrink-wrapping around your midline - this is how we can use the breathe to strengthen the most important, and often over-looked, core muscle: the diaphragm. 

• Vocal warms ups before speaking are a must. There are many of them out there, but I’ve found the best way to warm my voice up is singing in the car. Find a song you love, that’s within your vocal range, and sing like no one’s listening. This will help warm up vocal cords and the vibration of singing stimulates your Vagus nerve. This nerve stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system which calms your nerves and allows for natural breathing. 

• During your speech, when you find your breath getting short and shallow, take a moment for a breath or two - in through the nose and out through the nose. 

I found this warm up helped calm me down from all the excitement, deepened my breath control allowing me to speak more naturally and with authority, and stay focused on the task at hand. 

Give it a try and let me know how it goes!