Help for a Tight Throat
By Susan Berkley
Subscriber writes:
I do many full-day trainings and it seems that quite often somewhere between 11am-12pm my throat tightens up – never in the 9am-11am slot and never in the afternoon. I drink plenty of warm water when I’m teaching. Sometimes the room is cold, sometimes the room temperature is just fine and the content of the training is often different. Still, this seems to be my weak throat time. What do you make of this?
Susan:
Thanks for writing. Few people realize that the sound and the health of the voice is directly linked to the state of the soul. Many voice problems are a warning light on the dashboard of our body, encouraging us to look under the hood at our inner life that is generally hidden from view. Our emotional state is closely linked to the sound of our voice. Stress has been proven to cause a lump in the throat, a trembling voice or cause us to lose our voice altogether. Of course, if you experience any of these problems for more than a day or two, please see a medical professional.
In this case you complain of a speaking weakness at a certain time of day. One thing’s for sure, the clock has nothing to do with your problem. It’s how you feel about the time of day that counts. It’s just a hunch, but I suspect that between 11am and noon you’re getting hungry for lunch, right? If that’s the case, you might be having conflicting thoughts about wanting to teach and wanting to leave the room to eat. You fight those thoughts because you’re a professional. While every one of us can relate to wanting to stop work because we are hungry, you are unaware of how much you idealize yourself, expecting that you should have a superhuman desire to work and expecting yourself to be immune to such discomforts. You are probably not consciously aware that you have these feelings, but they still cause guilt, which nobody likes to feel. Like all of us, you try to deny the guilt and this causes tension, which tightens the muscles of your throat. Make sense? Hope this helps. Please write again and let me know how you are doing.
