Have you ever listened to someone's tone of voice and cringed? Have you ever spoken to someone whose body language and words haven't matched? Have you ever interacted with someone and they have constantly looked everywhere but at you? As human beings, we look for meaning in everything. In every interaction we have, we are assessing the validity of what we are hearing and seeing consciously and unconsciously. We have looked at how to influence the brain. Now let us take a deeper look at what happens on a physical and vocal level. When we are assessing someone, we're looking for signs of congruity. Breath is one of the unconscious factors we assess. If the breath is shallow and high, we think the person is going into panic mode or fight flight or freeze mode. We can then start to become distrustful and think they have something to hide. When we breathe into our belly however, we are connecting to the neurotransmitters which are fondly nicknamed by some scientists as the second brain. Here lie 100 million neurons more than the spinal cord. When you get nervous, anxious or fearful, we often move from the parasympathetic nervous system which includes our normal bodily functions such as salivating and digesting to the sympathetic nervous system. The blood then leaves your organs and goes to your major muscle groups and prepares you for fight, flight or freeze. Your eyesight becomes keener, your heart beats faster and your breathing becomes more and more shallow. Breathing into your chest is when it's very shallow. However, when we accept what it is we are feeling in our gut, we breathe into our bellies and we slow the breathing down, bringing more oxygen and allow our brains to think more clearly. This supports our voice and instead of a shrill, harsh tone, the sound is much more supported, richer and more resonant. When I was training as an actress in New York, we did a class called committed impulse. I was asked to get up in front of my class and do my monologue. The teacher, Josh Pison an amazing person asked me before I started, how do you feel now? Really nervous, I answered as I started my monologue. Hi, my name is Cassandra and I've just finished the first half of my secrets of fascinating women course. And Mercy tells me I'm well on my way to being totally fascinating. He stopped me. How do you feel now? Excited, I said. He said off you go. I said hi, my name is Cassandra and I've just finished the first half of my secrets of, how do you feel now he asked. Agitated, go again. Hi, my name is Cassandra and I've just finished the first half of my secrets of fascinating women course and now he said, angry. Go again, hi, my name is Cassandra and I've just finished the first half of my secrets of fascinating women course and Mercy tells me I'm well on my way to being totally fascinating. You see our emotions change all the time if we let them. If you ignore them, repress them, they get worse and worse and worse. For example, if you're going into a job interview and you might feel anxious or nervous and you think I'm not nervous, I'm not nervous. You stop connecting with your belly and your emotions, you stop breathing properly, your breath gets very shallow and high and your voice becomes shrill. However, if you breath into your belly, breath into your emotions, accept them, then they change very, very quickly. So how do we prepare our breathing and our voices so that there is congruent and as easy to listen to as possible? Here is one of the leading practitioners in the states, Chuck Jones. His work impressed me as it connected the breath to the emotional state. His work is also very closely linked to Kristen Linklater's work, who specializes in freeing the natural voice. So let's do some work, shall we? Make sure you're comfortable, preferably sitting in a chair or lying down. Lying down is great because it allows your body to relax and for gravity to take over so that you're only using the muscles you need to perform any particular task. As human beings we create a lot of unnecessary tension in the body due to the way we sit, use computers and phones. Have you noticed the babies can cry for hours and hours without getting a sore throat? It's because they have no unnecessary muscle tension. So relax as you sit into the seat, relax your muscles. And now we're going to take some deep breaths, so that's right. Now, yoga is great, but it encourages people to breathe only through their nostrils. When we speak, however, we naturally breathe through both our nose and our mouth. I've only met one man who did this. [SOUND] Hello, Arabella, how are you today? [SOUND] What's the plan? [SOUND] Where are we going from here? [SOUND] [LAUGH] So make sure you're breathing in through your nose and your mouth. It is the fastest way to bring oxygen into your body, and when you speak, you want air quickly. Now, take a deep breath and connect to whatever you're feeling. You don't even need to know what it is. You take a deep breath, connect and let it out on a ha. I give you an example. I take a deep breath. I connect to whatever I'm feeling, Ha. Deep breath connect. Ha. Remember to breathe in through your nose and your mouth. Deep breath, connect. Ha. All right, now let's take it a step further. We're going to take a deep breath, connect, breath in through nose and mouth, let it out on a ha and then go to a hum sound. I'll show you how. So take a deep breath through your nose and mouth, connect with whatever you're feeling. Ha hum. And again, deep breath through your nose and mouth, connect with whatever you're feeling. Ha hum. One more time, feel the vibrations on your lips. Breath in through nose and mouth. Connect with what you're feeling. Deep breath, connect. Ha hum. Yes, you may even want to move your lips around, so you start to feel the vibrations throughout your whole mouth. Now, we're going to take in another step further. You take a deep breath, connect, breathing through nose and mouth, connect with whatever you're feeling. Go from ha to a hum sound, then to an open sound. I'll show you how it works. I take a deep breath, I connect, ha hum. Now your turn, deep breath, connect, through nose and mouth. Ha hum. And again, deep breath, connect. Ha hum. Nice, good work. Now let's take it again, a step further. We're going to take a deep breath, connect with whatever that were feeling, and we're going to let it out on an sound, but this time you're going to sing, happy birthday. Yes, that's right on an open sound. I'll give you an example. I take a deep breath. I connect with whatever I'm feeling. [MUSIC] Push all the air out, all the air out. Good and then you take a deep breath and connect. [MUSIC] And so on. So let's do it together. Taking a deep breath in through your nose and mouth, connect with whatever you're feeling and you're ready to go. [MUSIC]. Push all the air out, push it out, push it out, push it out. Good. Deep breath, connect. [MUSIC] Good. Deep breath, connect. Go for it. [MUSIC] Deep breath, connect. [MUSIC] Hip, hip, hooray, well done. Now I've got a cold, so you should sound better than I do. [LAUGH] Well done. [MUSIC] So now your voice is connected to how you feel emotionally. It is authentic, it's open, and rich. One last step, take a deep breath. Breath in through your nose and mouth, connect with whatever you're feeling and say, hi, my name is, and your full name. Let's do it together. Deep breath, connect. Hi, my name is Arabella. McPherson. One more time, deep breath connect. Hi my name is Arabella McPherson. Good work. What we are also learning to do here is to speak on a sigh. When we speak on a sigh, our sound waves travel and reach the person we're speaking to. Most people speak like this and their voice stops here, their sound waves stop here. But when we let the air out, our sound waves travel and reach the people we are speaking to which has a far greater impact. It also helps with the downward inflection. You've heard people, haven't you with their upward inflection at the ends of sentences and it sounds like they're always asking a question. If you want to sound impactful and create positive meaning for the people you're speaking to, it is much more effective to have a downward inflection. If you speak on a sigh, you cannot go up at the ends of your sentences. In fact, most of Shakespeare's work was written based on the iambic pentameter five strong beats and five weak beats, dadam dadam dadam dadam dadam, to be or not to be that is the question. That has an extra weak beat at the end, but most of it is based on the iambic pentameter, why? Because five seconds was considered the average length of a human breath. It means you speak, take a breath and then speak again. One breath per sentence. When you speak this way, not only do you sound rich and resonant, not only do your sound waves travel and land on the person you're speaking to, not only do you stay emotionally connected, but you also speak in a good measured way. Because you cannot speak quickly if you're speaking on a sigh. When you breath and speak in this way, people will trust you more as you are emotionally connected, relaxed and resonant. This will help create a positive impression of you and therefore attach a positive meaning to what you say. Now it's your turn. In the course materials you'll find a paragraph. Use this paragraph to practice speaking on a sigh, connecting emotionally and letting those sound waves travel. See how you go and see how rich and resonant your strong voice will come across. [MUSIC]
