What is the V Voice secret? Flight or Flight or Rest and Digest ?
Your Vagal system sends messages to your brain. If your Vagal nerve transmits a message that you are under threat, you will feel performance anxiety: the fight or flight or freeze response.
Your diaphragm is the big breathing muscle that is hooked into this Vagal system. The way to send the message to rest and digest (and therefore, decreasing anxiety), is to allow your diaphragm to move the way it wants to move. It wants to move downwards towards your pelvic floor. Diaphragmatic breathing sends the right message. The brain believes what the body tells it is true!
Test: Place your hand on your collar bone. If it moves when you breathe, you are breathing shallowly and you run the risk of sending the fight or flight spark to your brain.
I love this system – it means you can decide how you want your voice to be – connected and real or tense and forced.