Firstly SMILE!
You can hear a smile in a voice and it instantly lifts the energy of what you are saying. Practice smiling and talking at the same time and use it especially if you are talking about something good. To achieve full vocal resonance, your false vocal folds need to be retracted back into the lining of the larynx. They can “pop out” when you are nervous. Fascinatingly when you lift the muscles under the eyes, and the easiest way to do this is by smiling, the false vocal folds can’t pop out. Having them in place will avoid a shaky weak sounding voice. Your vocal folds also need to be moist and so the body needs to be hydrated but that means the time to drink water is hours before you present. If you experience a really dry mouth and don’t have access to water while you are presenting a quick tip is to bite your tongue to release some saliva.
Secondly BREATHE!
know this sounds obvious but when we get nervous we shallow breathe in the top part of our chest and this will leave you feeling breathless or running out of air mid sentence. Get practiced at breathing deeply by filling your abdomen as if you are blowing up a balloon that’s inside your stomach. Breathing a few deep breaths before you go on and one just before you start will help to calm and anchor you and get rid of voice tremors.
Thirdly PRACTICE OUT LOUD!
Read your presentation through out loud before you present it so that you really understand what you are talking about and to make sure it sounds like you. We tend to write much more formally than we speak so you may want to change a few words so it sounds more ”natural” and conversational and more like how you actually “talk”. If you believe in what you are talking about your voice will naturally adjust with highs (High = excitement) and lows (Low = authority, believability) Also if you think about the real people that are being affected by your information, is it positive or negative, it will naturally show in the timbre of your voice.
