Yikes I Lost My Voice Advice For Actors

Written by Ginny Kopf

February 17, 2017

The big audition or performance is today and you have a sore throat! What can you do?

Maybe you suspect it’s the beginning of a cold or flu. Or an allergy. But you have to consider that maybe you pushed it too hard the day before, screaming, belting, talking all day, using wacky character voices, or just being stressed out. If you’ve overused or abused your voice, then you need rest, plain and simple.  And you need to prevent it from happening again by figuring out what you are doing wrong that’s contributing to the sore throat.

I’d love to be able to tell you there’s one miracle pill to take, but it just ain’t so. But let me offer some tips that just might help you minimize some of those nasty symptoms. All of these are natural remedies, no drugs at all.

1. Salt water gargle.

A warm salt water gargle is nature’s healer. You can do it many times a day. When throat doctors are asked what products to buy for the throat, they all recommend water and rest are best.

2. Citrus: use it, but beware its downsides.

If your throat feels thick with mucus, put some lemon in your water sipper to cut the phlegm. But if your throat feels dry, don’t use lemon or drink grapefruit juice, as it robs your throat of the mucus it needs to function–instead drink lots of water and suck on sugar-free lozenges, like “Riccola” and vitamin C drops, ones without drying antihistamines.

3. Cold-Eeze.

The second you feel a little something wrong in your throat, take “Cold-Eeze” Zinc lozenges. They are proven to cut the length and severity of a cold by 45%. These have kept a cold at bay for me for years. Do not use numbing chloraseptic sprays.

4. GermMD.

Some people swear by “Airborne”, but it doesn’t have much in it to help you once you are sick.  I’ve discovered “Germ MD” which is a combination of Vitamin C, Zinc, and other natural extracts for supporting your immune system.

5. Throat Coat Tea.

Warm tea is fine. “Throat Coat” is a recommended herbal tea. It has “Slippery Elm” which soothes.

6. Scarves.

Wrap your neck so it stays warm. Baby your throat at night by sleeping with a scarf tied around your neck. The warmth will aid in healing by relaxing your neck muscles.

7. Ocean Nasal Spray.

You can clear your sinuses by using “Ocean” or other similar nose sprays, which are simply saline.

8. Soft vocal exercises.

Clear your sinuses by humming, humming, humming for at least 3 minutes.  Direct the hums right into the nose. Light humming also helps sore throats–do a siren around the pitches that seem to vibrate where your throat hurts the most.

9. Go to the doctor. Seriously.

A cough or clearing your throat may be from a cold or flu, but often it is an allergy or reflux, so get it checked out. If your problem is viral, unfortunately nothing is going to help but time, although natural remedies can certainly help ease the symptoms.

Above all, don’t ignore a throat problem. Get help from a doctor and a qualified vocal trainer. Do everything you can to build up your immune system, and take precious care of your instrument every day.



Need some advice? We’ve got you covered.

Ginny Kopf is well known in Florida as a vocal trainer to singers, actors, business professionals and media personalities. For 20 years she has given private lessons and taught courses on Voice, Diction, Dialects, Accent Reduction, and Professional Image at L.A. Acting Studio, UCF, and Valencia Community College. Ginny has done extensive speech and dialect coaching for Disney, Universal Studios, and numerous theatres and corporations, locally and nationally. She has a Masters Degree in Theatre Voice and an MFA in Vocal Science, and has authored a textbook, The Dialect Handbook and a CD series, Accent Reduction Workshop.

Article photos: #4 photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash.