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Vocal Health Care with Eucalyptus Oil Using essential oils to care for the voice can be extremely helpful for any voice professional. Essential oils work with the body to help heal whatever issue the body is dealing with. There are oils for almost any ailment a voice professional deals with. One difficult and pressing issue that happens to almost everyone, including voice professionals, is the issue of clogged sinuses. We may go to sleep feeling fine and the next morning wake up with a completely clogged sinus passage. If you have a performance, rehearsal or presentation that day, you need to open your sinuses quickly and safely using a clearing agent that will not affect your voice adversely as prescription medications and over the counter drugs can do. Eucalyptus oil is an excellent way to do this. Vocal Health Care Tool If you wake up in the morning with a clogged sinus passage and need a very powerful agent to clear out your sinuses, here is a way to immediately clear out your sinuses and stay clear for your presentation or performance. This is what you will need before you begin: 1) 1 bottle of quality Eucalyptus oil. 2) 2 Q-tips 3) A warm shower Turn on your shower to a heat you can handle without it being to hot on your skin. Put a number of towels at the bottom of the door so the steam from the shower does not escape under the door. Just steaming alone is excellent and essential for proper vocal health care and when your vocal apparatus is under siege; however, this procedure will speed healing even more. Before you get into the shower, take each Q-tip and dip it in the Eucalyptus oil making sure it is covered completely and soaked. Put the Eucalyptus oil and Q-tips on a clean towel or tissue on the counter next to the shower or somewhere close so you can reach them from the shower. Before you get into the shower, spill a few drops of Eucalyptus oil on the floor of the shower. Be careful how much you use; if you use too much, the oil may burn your feet, so just a few drops. Get into the shower and breathe deeply and slowly allowing the mixture to fill your lungs. Take a few minutes to let the steam and mix of Eucalyptus oil begin opening up your sinus passages. After you have begun to allow the steam open you up, take one oil-soaked Q-tip and insert it into one nostril. Very gently and slowly, slide the Q-tip up into your sinus passage, making sure it goes all the way up into your sinus passage as far as it can go. Next, slowly and even more gently twist and turn the Q-tip so it coats your entire sinus passage. Now slowly pull the Q-tip out as you feel the openness in your sinus cavity and the energy of the oil working. Take the other oil soaked Q-tip and do the same thing to your other sinus passage. Within 30 seconds (or sooner) you will probably begin to sneeze longer and stronger than you ever have before! This is the clearing power of the oil and your sinus passages expelling all the mucus and bacteria that has been clogging you up. In addition, the oil will slide down into the back of your throat opening, cleaning, and clearing out any mucus or bacteria. If you are a voice professional, someone who uses their voice to make a living, this clearing is something I recommend you do every couple of weeks. It is another tool in the tool box of your own personal vocal health care regimen.

Foods to sleep by for Vocal Health Getting enough sleep is one of the most important things a voice professional needs. When we get the proper amount of sleep, at least 7 hours, our body is refreshed, strong and full of energy. The strength, power, clarity and focus of our voice is very dependent on our body. If we feel weak and depleted then our voice will more than likely sound the same way. A good nights sleep is crucial for quality vocal health. While exercise and mental clarity are definitely important for a good nights sleep, diet is equally important. Vocal Health and Eating before sleeping The body needs to rest while sleeping. If we eat up to three hours before sleeping, then our digestive system is working very hard digesting our meal, taking energy that should be storing up as we sleep. This energy is also needed to restore and heal whatever our body and voice is going through even if it is just basic repair from the days normal activities. In addition to, and even more important is the effect of eating before sleeping on the voice. Eating before sleeping is one of the most common reasons voice professionals have GERD, also known as acid reflux. Many times because of eating before sleeping and lying down while digesting, food is not able to digest properly and excess acid from the stomach can move up into the throat and sit on the vocal cords causing a myriad of problems ranging from waking up with mucus on the cords to inflammation and even vocal cord deterioration. Eating the wrong foods before sleeping can also lead to a difficult nights sleep due to the effects on the brain. Sugars, white flour, processed foods, dyes, fried foods, glutens and carbohydrates all effect the brain negatively not allowing it to slow down and rest while sleeping. Tryptophan for Vocal Health It is important for voice professionals to know what to eat before they sleep to get a good nights sleep. One amino acid that is very useful in helping the body to slow down and rest peacefully is tryptophan. Tryptophan helps to combat depression, stabilize moods, and insomnia. It also helps to alleviate stress, is good for migraine headaches, and aids in weight control by reducing appetite. If you must eat within three hours of going to sleep, try eating smaller amounts of food and eating foods with high levels of tryptophan. Some excellent sources of foods containing tryptophan and have a low potential to create mucus include: Alaskan salmon Asparagus Baked potatoes with their skin Beans Brown rice Chicken breast Cod Eggs Halibut Hazelnuts Hummus Kelp Lentils Meats Nuts ( sprouted not roasted ) Quinoa Seaweed Sesame seeds Shrimp Snapper Soy protien Spinach Spirulina Tuna Turkey Winter Squash Certainly this list is not all inclusive and there may be some foods that do not digest well in one person and are okay for another. Each person needs to know what works for them and their vocal regimen. As a voice professional your vocal health must be one of the top priorities in your life. Get the right amount of sleep and eat properly to insure your voice delivers for you when you need it to. As always, I wish you the best on your quest for Superior Vocal Health David Aaron Katz