7 Steps to Healing Your Singing Voice and Never Losing Your Voice Again

From time to time, even the best singers run into vocal issues. From losing your voice after a gig, to chronic hoarseness or losing your voice altogether, it’s very unsettling and disheartening. Especially when you depend on your voice for a living.

But when it happens to you, it can be kind of tricky to figure out what is wrong and how to get back on track. I know anytime it happened to me, I would immediately wonder if I would never have a healthy voice again.

Over the years of coaching singers, I’ve been able to help many singers recover their voices by addressing a large number of vocal problems.

Here are my 7 steps for how to identify what is wrong, get on the path to healing, and develop an even stronger voice than before. And never lose your voice again.

Step 1: Identify the root cause.

Knowing what is going wrong is half the battle. Vocal problems can come from a myriad of sources and it can be puzzling to figure out the root cause.

Are you over-singing? Under-singing? There’s an epidemic of weak or burned out singing voices out there from lack of proper training.

Is it from a lack of technique that protects your vocal health or perhaps you’re struggling with environmental factors like allergies? Reflux? These are chronic issues that plague singers’ voices. Sometimes reflux can be what they call “silent reflux” or “laryngeal reflux”. In this case, you won’t even know that you have reflux, but your voice is breaking, and cracking and you know something is wrong. It happened to me onstage. I’d never had anything like that happen and I knew something was wrong. Sure enough, when I got a vocal scope I had laryngeal reflux.

In some cases a regular doctor who isn’t a specialist with singers voices (not all ENT’s are), they won’t even see it – or if they do, they’ll put you on medication that doesn’t fix the root cause and now you’re taking a medication that is drying your voice out. All pharmaceutical medications dry the singing voice, which can be a real problem. A dry, dehydrated voice won’t function as well and can lead to hoarseness, lost range and burning out early.

For more help, here’s what I suggest:

1. Take our Vocal Health Quiz to evaluate your level of vocal health here.
2. If you need more help, schedule a Vocal Health Session with me. I’ll send out a bigger list of intake questions to get a full picture, we’ll meet and I’ll identify the source and create a custom regimen and treatment plan to recover your voice.

Step 2: Eliminate foods that cause vocal problems.

There’s a specific list of foods that can be the root cause of your problems. Starting with marinara sauce (super acidic) to orange juice or eating clementines or tangerines, stomach acid is no joke. These foods and more are known culprits. When your stomach acid washes up on your vocal cords, it burns them. You may or may not know it’s happening. If you are burping up acid, it’s even more extreme. It takes 3 days to fully recover from reflux once it stops. For a full list of problematic foods to avoid and more vocal health tips, grab a copy of my Vocal Resource Library here.

Step 3: Get more hydration and sleep.

I worked with an ENT in New York who said that if his clients drank more water he would lose 3/4 of them. Read that again. Staying hydrated is no joke for singers.

Here is my Ultimate Hydration Plan that I use for myself and my singers:

Daily Goal: 6-8 glasses of water / 48-64 oz.

Morning:
– 1-12 oz glass of water with a 1/4 squeeze of lemon
– 1-12 oz water before noon.

Lunch: 1-12 oz green juice

Afternoon:
– 1-12 oz glass of water w/4 cubes of melon.
– 1-4 oz glass of water with electrolytes
– 1-12 oz glass of water

= 64 oz of hydration per day

Sleep and hydration are the two things you really can’t hide in the voice if you don’t get them. 7-8 hours of sleep is necessary to keep your voice healthy. If you need help, there are natural herbal sleep aids that really help. There are so many, just Google them to find the ones that work for you.

Step 4: Yoga, Bodywork, Massage

Often vocal problems are stemming from deep contractions in the muscles of the voice and breathing. Start addressing it by getting a massage, going for bodywork and doing some yoga.

Even 2 sessions of 20-30 minutes of yoga a week can make a real difference.

Here’s what I do and it works well for maintaining a healthy voice by keeping my body free of those deeper tensions. If you aren’t used to massage or yoga this will start chipping away at it!

• 2x per week: 2-30 min sessions of yoga per week.
• 1x per month: 1 massage or bodywork sessions per month.
• 1x per month: Hot baths with epsom salts

Step 5: If it’s progressing, don’t wait, go get a vocal scope.

Step 6: Start a vocal therapy regimen to restore your voice and learn a healthy vocal technique.

1. If you have vocal problems, start our Vocal Therapy Program with our Vocal Rescue Kit. It has a full set of vocal therapy exercises, exercises for your speaking voice and conditioning cool-downs to reduce inflammation and reduce hoarseness. Singers have recovered their voices using these exercises.

Watch below to hear my vocal student Melanie Keith’s experience using these techniques:

2. If you are just weak and don’t have vocal problems, then start with our Singers Gift Vocal Warmups. Singers have transformed their voices with these exercises alone.

“Cari’s ‘Singers Gift’ is my go-to program every day – particularly before concerts. No other program gets my voice into its best shape so fast. In about 40 minutes, I have great power, dexterity, tone, and dynamic. I’ve used it hundreds of times, and I still love it!” – Alyse Black, singer-songwriter

Step 7: Build a healthy professional vocal technique.

The next step once you are healthy again is to strengthen your instrument with a real vocal technique that can build a strong, healthy, resilient professional voice.

1. To learn more about the Cole Vocal Method — a master holistic vocal method that builds a strong and healthy voice. Learn about how it works, learn more here.
2. To get the method start here with The Vocal Freedom Circle. This is the best starting place and the most inexpensive way to learn the Cole Vocal Method. Comes with over 70+ exercises on audio and video and 8 modules of learning at your leisure. Transform your singing voice in just 20 minutes a day! You can find out more information here.
3. Private sessions. If you’re like me, you just want to go for the gold and work directly with the Founder. Visit my private session page here. We recommend starting with the 30 minute Vocal Assessment to get an evaluation, or jump into the 60 mintues Vocal Technique Power Hour where Cari will get you started on the Cole Vocal Method, fix any issues you are having, and create a regimen and plan for your vocal development. All sessions are recorded for playback and you get immediate access to exercises so you can get started on your vocal journey right away. If you need to reach us email info@caricole.com, the office is open Mon – Friday 10:00 am – 5:00 pm ET.

If you need help deciding where to start, take my Free Vocal Health Quiz, a short, simple quiz to asses your vocal health and learn my top tips and resources to keep your voice healthy.