Getting sick is never fun—but when your voice is your instrument, it adds a whole new layer of stress.
In this episode of Vocal Tips in 10 with Amber Mogg Cathey, I’m sharing what I’m doing to keep my voice as strong and supported as possible while recovering from bronchitis. From smart hydration strategies and go-to vocal tools to modifying how I teach and sing, this episode is full of practical advice to help you protect your voice during illness.
If you’ve ever wondered how to care for your voice when you're under the weather—or when you have to sing even while sick—this is your guide to staying vocal-healthy and realistic during recovery.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
01:45 – Managing Vocal Health During Illness
02:52 – Hydration Strategies for Singers
04:36 – Vocal Care Techniques and Tools
06:21 – Adjusting Teaching and Singing Practices
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Hello everyone, welcome to Vocal Tips in 10. I'm AmberMoggCathy and I am gonna do my best not to hack like a crazy person during this episode. I am dealing with bronchitis. I have been for the past week and change. I knew I had this upper respiratory thing for about a week. Still kept teaching because I know how to take care of my voice when I have to and that's what I wanna share with you guys today.
but I did move things to online because I was like, something has happened in with me and I am not looking to share with the singers that I work with. I teach a lot online anyway, but a week had passed and I wasn't getting better and I was steaming multiple times a day.
know, taking mucinex, just upping my hydration to just the maximum amount I could ingest. And I wasn't getting better, I was getting worse. So I went to the doctor. I have bronchitis, I'm on antibiotics, and I have an inhaler and benzenate to keep me from coughing and all of that good stuff.
And this has not been a dainty cough, y'all. I'm not a dainty coffer, but this is that kind of cough that's like, hey, we need to get gunk out of your lungs. So we're going to cough a lot and pretty aggressively. And there's nothing I can do about it, but go, okay, let's get that gunk on up out of there. So having coughed that much, my voice taking a real, beating this last week and a half.
I haven't lost it. I wanted to come on today and share with you guys how I am keeping my voice as healthy as I can, as usable and functional as I can while I'm dealing with something that affects the fuel source for our voice and the instrument itself, right to the source.
So I would say the number one thing for me, because the cough that I have or this bronchitis, even though it's gunky, it's been really dry and irritated off the get-go, of burning. I also live in Denver, Colorado now and it's winter, so it is dry as can be already. So just hydration.
has been the absolute number one thing, for me. I right now, I don't know if you guys can hear it. If you're watching this on YouTube, you might see like a little thing sticking out of the side of my mouth. I have a Ludens cherry throat drop in my mouth. I have consumed so much Ludens cherry, you guys. No, I'm not associated with them in any way. They are just great for your voice. That's one of the things that I've been doing.
Luden's cherry drops, one, are delicious. They taste like a cherry lifesaver. I've been consuming so many that I had to get this sugar-free version, because I was like, this is way too much sugar. And if we find out that they cause anything like Luden's cherry throat drops cause a third eye, get ready, it's coming. Because I just like one after another, as I'm using my voice, to keep my throat as hydrated as possible. So one, hydration, when I'm using that throat drop, it is not going to the vocal folds themselves.
Nothing we eat or drink touches the vocal folds.
So it's not going to the voice, but it's going to my throat that's really irritated. And that throat is a part of my vocal tract. It's pretty important that that stays hydrated. What I would say with throat drops is for most of us, we want to avoid menthol and eucalyptus. That being said, everybody is different. If you just chow down on menthol throat drops and it doesn't cause you any issues, live it up, You wanna listen to your body and your voice always.
But for many of us, menthol and eucalyptus are irritating ingredients, can be irritating ingredients. So again, I tell a singer, if you are so stuffed up that you can't breathe and a Hall's menthol throat drop kind of lets you have a little access to your nasal passages, do it, your voice, right? A little bit of irritation in the voice is the least of your worries right then. For me, I'm not looking for anything else to irritate an area that is already quite ticked off.
So what I'm focusing on are throat drops that are just going to moisturize. And the key ingredients you wanna look for are pectin,
That's all Ludens cherry has in it, pectin. Nothing else except what's going to help moisturize the throat and the mouth and all of that, get it salivating more. The other ingredient that's really great is glycerin. So a lot of people talk about Grether's pastilles. I actually, if you're watching on YouTube, I have a box right here. I don't have one of those in my mouth because I've used them all. Grether's pastilles, they're great too. I'm not associated with them either. If anybody wants to send me free throat drops, please feel free.
I would love it, because I'm going through them like a crazy woman. So pectin or glycerin, do you know another thing that has a lot of glycerin? Gummy bears, you guys. You literally could suck on a gummy bear at the side of your mouth and you will notice.
You get more moisture. It's more hydration for the throat. So I've been doing a lot of throat drops just to keep everything as hydrated as possible. I've massively upped my internal hydration. I already drink a ton of water. And it doesn't have to just be water. Let me point that out. Liquid is liquid. Water-rich foods are great. I drink a lot of water. I like it.
And the other thing that I've done is I've had electrolytes. I put electrolytes into all of the water that I'm drinking. I've really been doing that since I moved to Denver a year and a half ago where it's just a whole lot drier than I was used to. 24 years in Nashville where it is very humid much of the time and then moving here where it's really dry. I just found electrolytes really help. I use LMNT
LMNT, my friend Allie Moss, who was actually on the podcast last week talking about Harmony. If you didn't listen to that, you should. She is fab. She's the one who turned me on to it. Do you need to use LMNT No. I just really like them. I also am a person who needs more salt, more sodium. so LMNT helps me do that. That might not be the best fit for you, but I'm just throwing it out there because I know people always ask, well, which ones do you use? So that's what I'm using.
Upping my internal hydration and then my steamer and I, already we are very close, but we've had an extra close relationship this past week and a half. My poor husband cannot watch just a show on television at night and fully hear it because I've got like, steamer always going. Every single morning without fail, it has made a huge difference you guys.
Every single night without fail. It's not just soothing for my throat and my voice. We're getting actual surface hydration to the vocal folds there. I wear the masks so I get that great feeling in my nasal passages, but it just feels soothing to my...
overall body and mind.
So hydration is a big one. Another really big one is really purposefully setting up my day. I've still, like I said, kept teaching. I'm here talking to you right now. But I make sure that even if it is five to 10 minutes in between lessons and sessions, I take a full complete break where I am not speaking. It might be where I do a little steaming there midway through the day.
I'm having more water, I'm just letting everything rest. And then I do a little bit of an SOVT, semi-occluded vocal tract exercise before I go back in to vocalize again. One, to set my vocal folds up efficiently or reset them and two, to lock in resonance. The one I'm using right now when I'm vocalizing is a straw in water. I'm gonna take a straw, drinking size or larger. I've been using like a bigger kind of boba tea size straw. I put it down in the water a half inch to an inch. You've got to do what feels good for you.
I just focus on buzz around my lips. feel like that's a really great cue. Thinking about the fact that the straw, now, I'm gonna treat it like it's an extension of my vocal tract. So instead of the vocal tract ending at my mouth, it's gonna end at that end of the straw. I put it in the water and I vocalize. So think, but wrap your lips around the straw and sing in the water. It is the one thing that we can do that genuinely massages the vocal folds, the laryngeal tissue, which I just find to be so,
Helpful and such a rehabilitative tool when we aren't feeling great. So taking breaks throughout the day
I'm really trying to listen to my body. I would highly recommend, if you are getting over being sick, cut out anything you can cut out. And then the things that you have to do, make sure you are just hydrated like you have never been hydrated before. Try to modify as much as you can, right?
modifying where you can. So as a vocalist yourself, that would be if you've got a show, cancel it if you can. If you can't, really modify the set list, take any of those monster songs off, change the keys. Just try to in advance make the choices that you can to make your voice work as little as possible because you're not working at 100%. And then as you feel better, you can up it and up it and up it.
Okay, I feel like I just went off on a ramble fest and I'm really hoping that some of it is helpful for you guys. Let me do a quick summary from all of that. So if you are somebody who is getting over not feeling well and you want your voice to feel better, which is exactly where I'm at, hydration, hydration, hydration, up your water intake. I've been adding electrolytes to that because that really makes a difference for me. I'm just trying to get as optimally internally hydrated as possible.
I am steaming multiple times a day.
For throat drops, you're looking for the ingredients of glycerin and or pectin. We're going to stay away from menthol and eucalyptus unless you use those and they feel great. You're always going to listen to your body first.
And then you're going to take breaks where you can take anything off your plate that you can Modify what you can and then as you're starting to vocalize gentle SOV Ts and the one I'm using right now before I sing and before I speak is the straw in water drinking size or larger in about a half inch to an inch focus on the buzz around your lips and It's not going to only help you set up or reset
your vocal folds as ideally as you can.
using the straw and water actually gives you a massage of the vocal folds, of the laryngeal tissue. I am going to be much healthier, I have no doubt, when I talk to you guys next week. if you have any topics you really want to be hearing about from me, leave them in the comments please. If you're listening to this and you enjoy it, man, I sure would appreciate just a quick review. It really helps the podcast.
Happy singing, everybody, healthy singing, and see you guys in next week's episode.
