It’s Allergy Season!

As somebody who suffered from substantial allergies in my childhood, I've been surprised to be waking up with a scratchy voice and itchy eyes over the past week. My allergies magically disappeared (along with my asthma) in my early 20s, but now I'm suspicious that I've inherited my Mom's ragweed reaction.

Obviously it's a pain, but how do you mitigate this when your voice is one of your main tools? If you're a public speaker, or a singer or even if you're on the job market, you want to be able to have a clear, strong voice with lots of power behind it.

Allergens can cause all kind of swelling - nasal cavity, vocal folds, sinuses. And the swelling creates irritation, creating more swelling and taking away your ability to resonate through your face as well as having clarity through your voice mechanism. If you're wheezing, then your chest is also irritated, so your true power centre (breath) is compromised as well.

Thankfully, there are several ways to balance the effects of allergies on your voice. Drinking water has the obvious effect of keeping your vocal mechanism wet, but is also thought to flush out allergens before they have the chance to really do some damage. Zinc is thought to potentially reduce swelling, and zinc lozenges give you the advantage of delivering the benefits right to the source: your swollen throat. Slippery elm lozenges are thought to put a protective and slippery coating over your throat and vocal chords, reducing the damages of speaking with an irritated throat. Think of it like this: if you have a scraped knee, and you're wearing jeans, the constant rubbing against your wound creates more friction, and makes it hard to heal. But if you put a band-aid over your scrape, you allow the wound to heal without adding further friction.

As with everything, I'd encourage you to do your own research. You'll never want to take zinc on an empty stomach, for example, and there are certain contraindications associated with slippery elm and pregnant women, or your ability to absorb medications. But for the most part, both are safe, and in my experience, absolutely necessary to work through vocal fatigue/trauma from any of the potential sources: illness, allergies, over-use.

For more vocal and public speaking tips, please follow me on Twitter: @ubuskills.