DR. MICHAEL MOSLEY: Don’t let your voice age you, practice singing in the shower!

Have you noticed that your voice has changed as you get older? While the most obvious differences occur in teenage boys during puberty, our voices also change when we reach middle age, and then again as we get older.

It’s not just the pitch, but also the power that changes. This summer quite a few aging rock stars put on live shows and while some, like Bruce Springsteen, reportedly had an impressively powerful voice, others like Blondie and Elton John – still brilliant performers, of course – were perhaps past their prime vocally. .

What is Bruce Springsteen’s secret and how to keep your voice in good shape?

While we’re all too aware of the graying hair, expanding waistline, and hearing loss that come with age, those sometimes subtle changes that occur with our voices over time may be less apparent to us.

In fact, for women it’s not just age: when a woman is pregnant – and after she gives birth – her voice becomes “deeper and monotonous.”

So says Dr Kasia Pisanski, a researcher in the Mammalian Vocal Communication and Cognition Research Group at the University of Sussex, based on analysis of the voices of 20 mothers recorded before and after pregnancy and after giving birth.

She was inspired for this study by singer Adele, who revealed a few years ago that her voice became “a lot lower” during her pregnancy, making it easier for her to pull off certain songs, including Skyfall, the theme song for the demanding James Bond movie. bass required.

Dr. Pisanski suggests this could be due to hormonal changes that affect the vocal cords, or that postpartum women subconsciously deepen their voices to sound more authoritative.

As she explained, “Research has shown that people with low voices are generally perceived as more competent, mature, and dominant, so it may be that women are modulating their own voices to sound more authoritative, faced with the new challenges of parenting.”

Whatever the explanation, this effect is temporary. The major long-term changes in our voices occur as we enter our fifties and sixties, when, according to the British Voice Association, women’s voices tend to deepen while men’s voices get higher. The sound of our voice is made as air is forced past our larynx (or larynx). This causes the vocal cords to vibrate, producing sound – the more vibrations, the higher the pitch. The pitch is affected by the length and tightness of the vocal cords — the sound produced then resonates in your throat, nose and mouth to produce your voice.

In women, the drop in sex hormone levels after menopause means changes in the vocal cords that make the voice lower, rougher, and fluffier.

However, men are more likely to develop an age-related condition called presbylarynx, in which the vocal cords become thinner and stiffer. This makes the voice sound hoarse, weaker and higher. As far as I know this has not happened to me yet.

Presbylarynx can be treated with voice therapy or even a voice lift, which involves injecting the vocal folds with a filler, such as hyaluronic acid (the same stuff used to make lips look fuller).

However, the best thing to do is to try and protect your voice as much as possible against the ravages of time.

For starters, you could start singing in the shower; singing is a great way to keep your vocal muscles in shape and the steam will also moisturize your throat.

Studies have shown that trained singers manage to keep their voices young for longer, plus you get the other benefits of singing, including improved mood, reduced anxiety, and even relief from chronic pain.

Other ways to prevent your voice from fading include keeping your vocal cords well lubricated by drinking plenty of water (at the very least, try to drink a large glass of water with every meal). Reading aloud, humming through a straw, or blowing into a straw when it’s submerged in liquid (the kind of thing you did when you started blowing bubbles into your milk as a kid) would also be good for your vocal cords, by working muscles that help give your voice resonance.

Professional singers take care of their voices by not smoking and avoiding too many loud, drunken late-night parties.

In a recent interview, Bruce Springsteen said, ‘When I’m on the road, I’m basically a monk. I’m doing the show, I’m going back to the hotel.’

He added: “It seems like people are burning their voices out, not on stage but talking in a nightclub. I always noticed that when I burned out my voice, it was because I stayed up three to four hours after the show.”

So if you want to sound like the boss when you’re in your 70s, don’t smoke and try to keep your “shouting loudly in nightclubs” to a minimum.

People who work in a noisy environment may want to chat outside.

And work on your posture, as it can make a big difference to how powerfully you project.

Keeping your spine straight, shoulders back and head high gives your lungs room to expand and allows your vocal cords to stretch, keeping you sounding younger than your years.

Why I prefer whole milk over the watery versions

When I was a kid, almost everyone drank whole milk.

Then in the 1970s we were warned that the saturated fat in dairy would block our arteries and make us fat. So we switched from butter to margarine and from whole milk to watery, low-fat milk.

Partly because of this, we British now drink a third less cow’s milk than 30 years ago and most of what we consume is skimmed or semi-skimmed milk.

However, I’ve gone back to butter, whole milk, and full-fat Greek yogurt—partly because I like the taste better, but also because there’s growing evidence that giving up full-fat dairy probably won’t make you any healthier. Take, for example, the results of a large-scale study published earlier this month in the European Heart Journal, involving 147,000 people.

It showed that to minimize the risk of heart attack or stroke, it is best to eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, fish and whole milk.

The same research team previously found that people who consumed at least two servings of full-fat dairy a day were 24 percent less likely to develop metabolic syndrome (a combination of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity) than those who didn’t. t consume. Why would this be? As it turns out, the saturated fat in full-fat dairy doesn’t seem to be the kind that’s bad for you.

A 2021 study in the journal PLOS Medicine found that people with higher levels of dairy fat markers in their blood had a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.

And because it’s higher in fat, which helps you feel full, there’s some evidence that whole milk may help you stay slim.

A 2019 review based on 28 studies found that children who drank whole milk were 40 percent less likely to be overweight or obese compared to children who consumed low-fat milk.