How to stop your voice shaking when you're nervous

You stand up to speak, open your mouth and hear it straight away. Your voice is shaking, thin and higher than usual, with a tremble on every other word. Then you notice it, and noticing it makes it worse.

A voice shaking with nerves is one of the most common signs of stage fright, and one of the most frustrating, because it feels as though the whole room can hear how anxious you are. A shaky voice mostly comes down to breath and tension, though, and both respond to a few simple techniques.

Why does my voice shake when I speak in public?

When you're nervous, your body releases adrenaline to get you ready for action. That has three effects on your voice.

First, your breathing gets fast and shallow, high in your chest. Your voice runs on a steady stream of air, and short, uneven breaths give it an uneven supply. That's where the wobble comes from, and why you can run out of breath halfway through a sentence.

Second, your muscles tense up, including the small ones in your throat, jaw and neck. Tight muscles around the voice box raise your pitch and make it harder to hold a note steady. Adrenaline can also make muscles tremble, the same way it makes your hands shake.

Third, your mouth goes dry, because the stress response puts digestion on hold. A dry throat makes your voice crack more easily.

None of this means anything is wrong with your voice. It's a normal reaction, and it tends to ease once you're a minute or two in and your body realises nothing bad is happening.

How to stop your voice shaking in the moment

These work while you're standing up there, and nobody in the room will know you're doing them.

• Breathe out first. Before your first word, breathe out slowly for a few seconds, longer than you breathe in. A long exhale is one of the quickest ways to calm your body down. Then take a relaxed breath low into your stomach.
• Go lower and slower on the first sentence. Nerves push your pitch up and your speed up together. Aim your first sentence slightly lower than feels natural and say it more slowly. It gives your voice a steady place to start, and the rest tends to follow. How to speak slower has more on pace.
• Breathe at the full stops. A shaky voice often comes from trying to say too much on one breath. Pause at the end of each sentence and take a small breath. The pause sounds confident to the room and refills your air.
• Sip some water. Keep a glass nearby, at room temperature if you can, and take a sip before you start and whenever your mouth feels dry. It also gives you a natural pause.
• Plant your feet. Stand with your feet about hip-width apart and your knees soft rather than locked. A stable base makes it easier to breathe low and steady.
• Speak to the back of the room. A voice aimed at the person furthest away gets more breath behind it and wobbles less than a quiet, held-back one.

Warm-ups to stop your voice shaking before you speak

A cold, tight voice shakes more easily. Five minutes somewhere private before you speak, like an empty room, the car or a toilet cubicle if that's all there is, makes a real difference.

1. 1Breathe in through your nose for a count of four and out through your mouth for a count of six. Do this five times, with one hand on your stomach to feel it move.
2. 2Hum quietly on a comfortable note for a few breaths, feeling the buzz on your lips. Then slide the hum gently up and down your range.
3. 3Do a few lip trills, blowing air through loosely closed lips so they flutter like a horse, while sliding up and down in pitch.
4. 4Yawn, then sigh out on a gentle "ahh" from the top of your range to the bottom. It loosens your throat and jaw.
5. 5Say your opening sentence out loud twice, at the pitch and pace you plan to use.

Some people also hum through a drinking straw, which is a gentle way to warm up the voice and steady the breath. If you have more time beforehand, our guide to calming your nerves before a presentation covers the hour before in more detail.

Do people notice a shaky voice?

Much less than you think. Psychologists call it the illusion of transparency: when you're nervous, you believe your nerves are far more visible to others than they are. You hear your voice from the inside, through the bones of your head, with every tremor magnified by the fact that you're listening for it. The audience hears it through the air, from a distance, while they're mostly thinking about what you're saying.

The best way to see this for yourself is to record a rehearsal and play it back. The wobble that felt huge at the time is often barely there on the recording. If you record a minute in Stagefright, the coach also reviews your vocal variety, meaning your pace, pauses and energy, so you get an outside view of how you come across.

Practise until your voice knows the words

A voice shaking under pressure often settles with repetition. The more times you've said the words out loud, the less your body treats saying them as a threat. If your voice shakes every time you speak to a group, the bigger fix is regular low-stakes practice over a few weeks, which is what our guide to the fear of public speaking walks through.

If your voice shakes all the time, not only when you're nervous, or you've noticed other changes to it that don't go away, mention it to your GP. A voice that trembles in everyday conversation can have other causes and is worth getting checked.