When you sleep your body breathes for you. It doesn’t need any conscious input at all. You can deduce from this that your body is pretty good at breathing without your help.

The more you can get out of the way and let the reflex of your breath do its work, the better. The problem for most people when they speak to an audience is that they overdo things, losing their natural ease and instead becoming tense and talking too quickly. The instrument doesn’t work well when you force it. It works much better when you understand the power of a tidal breath.

 

This is the reflex breath that your body naturally does when you get out of the way.

You know how well it works because your body breathes really efficiently when you’re asleep. When you are relaxed your breathing naturally replaces itself.

If you want to understand your breath, try this exercise:

Go to the beach in your mind.

Imagine the sights, smells and feelings of that beach. Imagine the waves coming in and going out, and focus on the rhythm of the waves. In – pause – out – pause is the rhythm of each wave as it comes into the beach.

Notice how if you relax and observe your breath, it naturally reverts to the in – pause – out – pause rhythm.

Breath is tidal, it has the same rhythm as a wave on a beach. A wave of breath comes in, a wave goes out.

Your body functions on this wave power, all day, all night; through every moment of life your body breathes, your lungs and your heart are expanding and contracting.

When you find that rhythm naturally you start to harness the energy of the breath in a way that will really power your voice.

It’s a highly renewable energy.

This natural rhythm is always there if you relax and let it happen. I recommend you do. Trust that your body knows how to breathe. Just look after the out- breath and then relax and let the body replace it with the in- breath in its own way. You don’t have to pull it, there’s a natural reflex that senses the need for oxygen and tells the body to breathe.

Don’t obsess about whether the breath is coming in through the nose or mouth. When you breathe out notice the moment after the out breath and before the next in- breath. For the body, this is a lovely moment of pause between the breath – a stillness. Air has flowed out of the lungs and the body is in a state of rest between the two forces of the in- breath and the out- breath (in- and out- breath cancel each other out).

It is a moment without respiratory movement. It’s a time when the body can stop and relax.

If you ever need help to relax when trying to fall asleep, follow the out- breath all the way to the end and then let the body wait for the wave of in- breath to happen in its own time. Your body will start to relax.

‘Feel a breath wanting to enter again’, says the voice teacher, Kristin Link later. ‘And then all you do is yield to that need . . . let it happen . . . Let the air breathe you.