I wrote this article a little while ago on how sleep benefits your voice and your brain.
I thought it also worth discussing how poor sleep can impact negatively upon your voice, so you can recognise the signs. I’ve copied the relevant bits from my other article, so we can make reference to the consequences that occur when we don’t sleep well.
1. Mucus
When we use our voice every day, it suffers wear and tear. A bit like if you work in a job that keeps you on your feet all day every day, your legs acclimatise, but they are tired by the end of the day.
The vocal folds are remarkably small, so the tiniest tear or swelling can yield a tremendous difference in vocal quality and (most importantly) how your voice feels to you. If you want to reach high notes with no strain or difficulty, even a little bit of swelling or vocal fatigue that hasn’t recovered from the day before can just shut down any chance of that.
The chief protection mechanism our body deploys against wear and tear, is mucus. The vocal folds are meant to have a thin layer of mucus on them to protect them during normal wear and tear, but if we don’t get the necessary recovery, the body deploys MORE mucus.
This is why after even one night’s poor sleep, you may notice your voice is gunkier than normal the next day.
2. Heavy and/or light feeling voice
Unhealed wear and tear can lead to inflammation in the vocal folds, which can lead to the voice feeling sluggish and heavy the next day. It can feel akin to having been shouting loudly at a football match or singing along at a loud gig. Poor sleep can lead to this kind of inflammation, and a heavy feeling voice.
In contrast, sometimes there isn’t a lot of inflammation, but the vocal folds are still tired and fatigued. This can lead to the voice feeling lighter and even weaker than normal, where the muscles are not rejuvenated from poor sleep.
Generally people’s bodies tend to lean towards one or the other, but occasionally someone can experience both at different times in their singing life.
3. Uncooperative vocal tract
The vocal folds generate the pitch, the vocal tract shapes it. We need both parts to do their job well. Inflammation or general fatigue can mean the vocal tract is less willing to form the precise and acoustically efficient shapes it needs to do.
Hence even if the vocal folds are not egregiously bad on a given day, the vocal tract may not be willing. This can lead to singing in one area of your voice sounding OK, but as you try to sing elsewhere (typically higher) things feel tight and pinched off, or you may even find you keep flipping for high notes.
4. Blocked sinuses/nasal cavity
This is something I personally notice a lot after poor sleep. I generally find my nose runs a lot more, and my sinuses feel a little more clogged than a typical well-rested day. Upper resonance is also impacted as a result.
This is tied to the same issue of lack of recovery and combatting inflammation by mucus generation that I mentioned in the first point. This is generally less overt than the first few points, but for more experienced singers this can be quite off-putting and affect how high-quality the voice can be when singing.
Sleep is good. Who knew!
It may feel like teaching people to suck eggs, but the consequences of poor sleep (especially sustained poor sleep) on one’s body and voice is not to be underestimated. No matter how good you try to make your practice, if you are consistently running your body into the red, you’re going to find your voice keeps hitting a wall.
While voice sessions with me won’t necessarily help you sleep better, if you’d like some help combatting the vocal wear and tear that’s impacting you, you can book in for a session with me right here.