The alarm clock rings. Gudrun wakes up. She blinks. And recognizes – sunbeams dance on the ceiling of her bedroom. Gudrun howls desperately. Unfortunately, no rainy day again today. This sight awakens in her the desire to turn around and let the day be day. Despite this disastrous prognosis, Gudrun rises and staggers sleepily to the window. She sees pure sun and leaves swaying in the wind. The young green awakens. Unfortunately, so does the pollen. Gudrun already feels the familiar tingling in her nose. The first sneeze is about to start ... Particularly fatal today. Because today Gudrun not only has hay fever – as always at this time of year anyway – but also an important business presentation. In this she must and wants to be in full shape and completely "there". Which is hardly possible with red, dripping eyes, a runny nose and a resulting almost unrecognizable voice. "What can I do?" she thinks desperately and heads towards the bathroom ...
What can people do? like Gudrun, who suffer from massive hay fever, actually do in such a situation? Our voice experts from stimme.at have put together tips for dealing with voice and pollen for you here – however, all these tips are intended preventively and help to arm oneself proactively in the face of pollen counts in general.
However, if you want to be guaranteed to be hay fever-free in a certain situation, like Gudrun, you have a harder time. As a voice coach, I have a solution for almost all vocal challenges that lie in the type and position of the voice. When it comes to voice changes due to pollen, we voice experts are often at a loss. Since the influences come from outside and have an effect on our immune system, the usual and otherwise always very efficient exercises are hardly effective here. However, from my experience, what helps many people is the intensive mental preparation for the upcoming performance.
First of all, get your stage fright under control by grounding yourself before the speech or presentation and being completely with yourself, completely in the moment. Check your stance and let your knees loose! Take several deep breaths in and out and make eye contact with your audience. Wait until the last rustle, the last murmur has died down – and only then speak. Slowly, with many pauses in speech and very consciously ... Most of the time, the miracle happens – through your own immense concentration on your content and your audience – and hay fever takes a miraculous break. As if, through the pure power of your thoughts, the pollen bounces off an invisible shield and thus fizzles out without effect. I have often experienced this phenomenon and have been told by grateful and astonished coaching clients.
Gudrun also has it on this day managed to use these techniques to keep their sales pitch sneeze and sniffle-free, with clear eyes and, above all, clear awareness. As soon as she returned to her desk, colleagues immediately heard constant sneezing and snorting from her office again... Isn't it great how we can control our bodies when an extreme situation requires it and we also have some "instruments" at our disposal that make this possible?
My suggestion i.e. for all those who unfortunately count similar situations as part of their everyday life in spring: Heed the tips on stimme.at for prevention and use the tools presented here in the event of an explosive situation in which you have to rely on your voice. You – like your entire system – will probably not disappoint you.
Have a good time through spring and this year's pollen season! I look forward to new experiences and your own findings and conclusions on this topic: arno.fischbacher@stimme.at
Yours, Arno Fischbacher
The author:
Arno Fischbacher is a business voice coach and rhetoric expert, speaker and author. He prepares executives and employees of the top companies in Germany and Austria for negotiations, presentations and media appearances. Fischbacher is the author of several books, past president of the German Speakers Association (GSA) Austria, chairman of the European Network of Voice Experts, stimme.at.
If you would like to learn more about specific training opportunities with Arno Fischbacher, make an appointment here free information talk.
Fortunately, I myself am only a little affected by such an annual martyrdom. As described very well here, people who depend on their voice in particular have a doubly difficult time.
"Most of the time, the miracle happens – through your own immense concentration on your content and your audience – and hay fever takes a miraculous break." This phenomenon, which I quoted from the article, is astonishing. But obviously it works (for a short time) and therefore does not have to be questioned unnecessarily. Concentration/distraction seems to be the key to relief.
Personally, I believe that it is a great help if you come "out of winter" with a strengthened immune system. If I succeed in doing this, the allergic reactions are already much weaker. I've also had years where this didn't happen at all. If you like, you can also google "garlic-lemon cure".
It helped 😉 me, in combination with a lot of "going out"