This is a very common problem, especially for male speakers. We have all sat in an audience listening to the speaker constantly clear his throat. This habit not only irritates the audience, it is very irritating to the vocal cords. This may be a nervous habit carried over from childhood or the residue from a recent bout with the flu. It’s important to understand that mucous coats the vocal cords and is needed to protect them because . . . the vocal cords ARE mucous membranes, and when you continually scrape out the mucous to clear the throat, the body’s defense system simply sends more mucous to do the job. Any man or woman with a throat-clearing habit knows that, the more mucous you clear out, the more your mucous comes flooding back in. The solution is simple; go into your yawn position with a dropped, relaxed jaw, put your finger on your abdominal diaphragm, and manually push the air up and out of the mouth while saying “HA... ha... ha”. You will feel the breath exploding up through the underside of the vocal cords, clearing out the debris along the way. It's the "Roto-Rooter affect! (Secret shhhhhh. . .  Don't tell your brain who just gives you excuses for this very bad habit, but there is nothing to clear in your throat, it's the clearing that causes the mucous not the mucous, believe it or not. . . Mucous is your FRIEND!!!!!)

I don’t like to say this, but even "I" can be influenced by the sound of a mellow-toned, male voice rather than having my ears bombarded by an excited, high-pitched female voice. It's just one more of those cold, hard, facts: Men do have longer vocal cords, (a quarter of an inch longer on average), and bigger bodies than women. So, when it comes to voice, just like a good AV speaker, size does matter . . . and men definitely do have the edge.

That doesn’t mean that women cannot compete against their male counterparts vocally, it just takes a bit of knowing how to enhance the natural attributes of the male and the female voice which gives both a good reason to spend the time, and the effort it takes to create a competitive, yet pleasing, speaking voice. The benefits—professional and personal—Can be astronomical.

When we get nervous, our voice begins to raise-up like a stress meter. It’s that larynx, (Adams-apple) going into swallow position over the windpipe that causes the pitch to rise. By forcing the vocal cords to create sound while they are trying to block your windpipe, pulls them out of a relaxed position and puts them into a strained position. To solve this problem you will need to get that larynx back down into a relaxed yawn position so your vocal cords can lengthen and shorten with ease.  To feel this action, place your finger on your Adams-apple, and drop your jaw into a big yawn position. Yawning the larynx back into a dropped jaw position will release the pressure on your vocal cords. Remember this; you cannot yawn and swallow at the same time (just try it). To prove this to your brain, simply put your tongue against your bottom gum-line, drop your jaw into a yawn position and give a big yawn sigh, “Haaaaaaaaa”. See how easy it is to get that larynx down into relaxed voice position when you know what your doing? Also sipping water helps to get the larynx down and out of that pesky swallow position. By simply completing the swallowing process, the larynx will relax. Also by keeping your chin from rising up, you will keep your voice from rising up! FYI: If you want to go deeper, just read my Voice of Success book. It's included in the Voice Success Package.)

Not only do your knees and hands shake when you are nervous, but the part you can’t hide is the one part that shakes the worst, namely, your voice. In singing, it’s called “vibrato” when the voice oscillates up and down, in speaking it’s called, “embarrassing,” when the whole body shakes with nervous energy. The voice is simply going to go along with the crowd and your best defense is to speak slowly because shaky, rapid speech is impossible to understand. It’s important to know that a shaky voice does not start in the voice, it starts in the body. As long as you are trying to stop the voice from shaking and not calming down that shaky body, your efforts are totally miss-placed. If you are standing in front of your peers shaking, find something to hold on to like a lectern (podium), a tall stool, a prop, just remember it’s your body you want to calm down. Your voice will simply follow the body’s lead.