Use your abdomen to speak, says expert

Use your abdomen to speak, says expert

Dr M Kumaresan, an ENT expert, gave a lecture and demonstration of the various voice care techniques to a large gathering at the Tamil Nadu Science and Technology Centre in Kotturpuram on Friday.

Around 150 teachers from various schools across the city and a large group of nurses participated in the seminar.

“Professional voice users like teachers, singers, politicians, managers and mimicry artists should all have a good voice,” said Dr M Kumaresan, who runs an ENT Hospital in Royapettah.

“The main factor for any voice change is not infection, but use, misuse and abuse of voice,” he added.

With laryngeal surgery, the quality of voice decreases, he cautions, adding that some professional voice users will develop nodule growth in their vocal chords. “If they ignore it and continue to talk, it can lead to haemorrhage, polyps and other complications. Hence, while hard nodule growths have to be operated upon, we can relieve the softer ones through speech therapy and specific exercises,” he says.

Dr Kumaresan told City Express that he had been conducting the speech therapy classes for the last two years in schools and colleges in Chennai, Tiruchi and Tirupattur. “We have also conducted sessions in association with Lions Club and Rotary Club.”

So, what is the secret behind a good voice? “Instead of using throat muscles, use the abdomen for speaking,” he exhorts.

People who stammer sing well. Do you know why, he asks. “It’s because while talking we use the larynx and, while singing, the abdomen for producing sound.” He adds, “God has not given us a voice box; only a respiratory system, which we can use.”

Singers who try to control sound by using their neck muscles can impair their vocal function and quality. “The ability of a singer to either sustain or vary a steady sub-glottic pressure depends upon accurate voluntary control of respiration by the abdominal muscle,” he pointed out.

Hence, voice care depends a lot on correct breathing techniques.

“Our every breath should ensure that the air goes into the lungs, although for survival it is enough if the it reaches the colon,” he said.

While inhaling and exhaling air, the diaphragm will go up and down and the exercise will help prevent tuberculosis and heart attack, Dr Kumaresan says.

“When the lungs get less oxygen, it becomes susceptible to a TB attack,” he adds. At the seminar, a group of virtual reality therapists, demonstrated virtual reality exercises to overcome fear.

Earlier, Mayor Saidai Duraisamy released Dr Kumaresan’s book, ‘Meymai Maruthuvam,’ on virtual reality medicine.

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