Think tea, honey, or throat sprays are the secret to a healthy voice? Think again. In this episode, I'm busting some of the most common vocal health myths singers hear every day. From food and drink “fixes” to hydration hacks, you’ll learn what really impacts your vocal folds (and what doesn’t). Discover why hydration takes time, how food and drinks affect singers differently, and why listening to your body is the most powerful tool for vocal care.
Whether you’re preparing for a big performance or just want to sing your best, this myth-busting episode will help you make smarter choices for your voice.
00:00 Introduction to Vocal Myth Busting
03:26 The Truth About Tea and Vocal Health
07:06 Hydration and Vocal Performance
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Buckle up singers! Today we are doing some vocal myth-busting. I set these episodes up every week based on the questions I'm getting in my studio from one-on-one coaching, from my Vocal Pro membership, from the Erase Your Break course, and from loads of DMs that I get from singers on all my different social media channels online. And so many lately have been asking me questions about myths that they've heard that they've really based some serious habits around
that are not based in fact. And a lot of the myths that people have been led to believe are the same. So I thought, let's talk about it here. There are so many that we're just gonna focus today on vocal health myths. And then you all let me know, is this helpful to you? If it is, I will do more. There's just a metric truckload of...
technique myths and performance myths and industry myths so much. How many times can I say myths? Apparently a lot.
but I'm just gonna tackle some of the specific ones that I have been getting from singers just in this past week. The very first one is what tea should I use to help my voice feel and sound its best? I'm always doing tea with honey and lemon and I don't necessarily feel a huge benefit, so I must be using the wrong tea.
What tea can I use or is there a specific honey? Is it manuka? What can I use to really make my voice its very best when it comes to tea and honey and lemon? And the answer is none are going to make your vocal folds any better. Nothing you eat or drink, and that's going to be a recurring theme with a lot of these answers. Nothing you eat or drink touches your vocal folds. Your vocal folds are part of your respiratory system. Your vocal folds job.
Number one job, first and foremost, is not to speak, it's not to sing, so lovely, it is to protect your airway, to protect gunk, food and drink from getting down into your lungs. So that's part of the respiratory system. When we eat and drink and we swallow, that's our digestive system, two totally separate places. The only time food or drink has tried to go down into your respiratory system,
is when you feel like something has quote unquote gone down the wrong pipe and you start choking and coughing. Your body is not going to let that happen. So nothing you eat or drink is actually going to the vocal folds. So even when you have that yummy honey, your vocal folds themselves, your actual voice, it's not getting any effect at all. The tea, not getting any effect at all directly. Lemon, no effect at all.
Please don't get me wrong, I love warm tea. I love warm tea specifically when I'm singing. I know it doesn't go to my vocal folds. It does a couple things for me. One, it does go to the back of the throat, right, before it goes to the esophagus. The back of the throat is part of my vocal tract, so if that feels better and feels nice and warm and cozy and soothed, I think that's a good thing. And then the nice and warm and cozy is another thing that tea does for me. It just makes me feel warm and relaxed.
Something about it is just really soothing to the body and the mind. Well, of course that's beneficial for singing. That's wonderful. But I know it's not helping my vocal folds directly. And it doesn't matter what kind you use or who has told you otherwise. It's the basic biology of us. Just think respiratory system, totally separate from digestive system.
How the tea does affect you is that as part of your internal hydration, everything we eat or drink gets processed through the body and any of that that has hydration, which of course tea does, is going to help hydrate the body internally,
Honey is soothing, that's great. There's potentially some benefits, but I don't really know what if that is real and not real, and none of it is your vocal folds directly. And then the only thing I want you to think about with lemon, everybody is different, but if you suffer from reflux, lemon can be quite acidic. It is one of the foods, really all citrus fruits. I'm sorry to say, because they're delish. Bother me as a reflux sufferer. Does that mean you should not have lemon? No.
If you don't have reflux, you're golden. Also, you might have reflux, but citrus just doesn't bother you. We're all different. And that comes to number two. Amber, can you give me the foods and drinks that I need to be eating to make my voice its best, and then the foods and drinks that I need to be completely avoiding so that I'm not hurting myself?
My answer to that is everybody is different. There is no big blanket list that is one size fits all for everybody and every voice that you should avoid. And again, let's go back to no food or drinks directly affect your vocal folds, respiratory system. So that means it's all just how it affects your body.
which matters, our body is our instrument. So how it affects your body, hugely important, but every body is different. For example, a big one I get questions about, dairy. They're like, look, I avoid all dairy. I will tell you, I'm not a dairy person. It just makes me personally feel like gunk city. I've also gotten to the point, I've stayed away from it for so long that when I have regular milk, it tastes super gross to me.
And it's just like it's how I've trained my taste buds. I'm an almond milk, coconut milk, oat milk person. Does that mean that you should do that too? No. I'm sure I can have milk no problem. I just don't prefer it. I don't really like it. And when I have a lot of milky products, I feel gunkier. I work with some singers who are killer vocalists and I can watch them chug a lug a big old milkshake.
and sing and it seems to affect them not at all. Which really ticks me off, I'm just gonna say. Because I'm like, I can't have a milkshake before I sing, that's not fair. It is what it is. Our bodies are totally different. So there is no list of foods and drinks that you should avoid. Coffee's not bad for you across the board. Just like tea's not good for you across the board. It all comes down to you.
Keep a food diary if you are having some issues and wondering if food or drink has anything to do with it or if you possibly have some refluxy potential, keep a food diary and look and see what affects you after you eat it and drink it and what doesn't bother you at all. The things that bother you don't have those. The things that don't bother you at all, those are great things to have before you sing.
recommendations across the board, just not really super helpful or anything to really rely on.
Another one I get asked all the time, the throat spray. What is the best throat spray? Or on TikTok, what is this like the cough syrup that's supposed to be, just the jam that everybody keeps talking about? Guys, even the throat spray, none of it goes to your vocal folds. It's just the fact of the matter.
Can they hydrate your throat? Absolutely. Is the throat part of your vocal tract? Yes. If I've got a scratchy, itchy throat, my singing does not feel great But just know they don't go to your vocal folds. And then another one that a singer talked about is they're like, I don't know. I feel like I'm always dehydrated. But before every show, I drink like a gallon of water right before. And I still feel like it doesn't really help me.
I kind of mentioned this before because nothing goes directly to the vocal folds, you're not getting any immediate hydration from that gallon of water. It needs to go into your digestive system, then work its way throughout your body to get into you in a cellular level to start to internally hydrate you, which is what we want. It can take, I think it's like a minimum of four to five hours.
and I'm not exact on that, that's not gospel there, but multiple hours for it to start to actually make its way into hydrating your body internally. So, so many times I tell singers, if you've got a show tonight, it's about your hydration this morning, this afternoon, the day before that really sets you up for success. If you wanna be hydrated, you wanna be drinking regularly all the time so we stay optimally internally hydrated and then surface hydration can be really great.
a steamer or a nebulizer. Both of those will help get hydration directly to the vocal folds. But no spray, no tea, no lozenge. There are no golden foods or horrible foods you need to avoid. I wish there was If there was, I would make a list and I would share it with everyone. And wouldn't that be so easy? That's what we're all looking for. Just tell me what to do.
And unfortunately, what we need to do is just listen to our own body and our own voice. I hope this is helpful, everyone. I will have freebies for you guys in the show notes, like I always do. Let me know if you find this vocal myth-busting helpful, if you want me to jump into a technique version, an artistry version, an industry version. And I look forward to seeing you, like always, in the next episode. Bye.
