Although there is no known cure for stuttering, there are easy things you can do that will transform your speech and, for all practical purposes, eliminate your stutter!
Notice I didn’t say “completely eliminate your stutter”. See, it turns out that very few people have perfect speech. Pay attention the next time you hear Barack Obama, the president of the United States and possibly the most powerful man in the world, give a speech or an interview. If you listen carefully, you’ll hear him stutter, repeat himself, and use interjections (like “uhm”). However, most people don’t think of him as a stutterer, because most people don’t pay attention to those few words, as long as they aren’t excessive. And that same observation applies to most people. It turns out that a very small minority of people are truly fluent (that is, they speak perfectly almost 100% of the time).
With that said, we’ll soon find out how to eliminate most of our stuttering and freezing episodes to the point where they’re not very noticeable. On the rare occasion that we do encounter a stutter, we’ll learn how to make it sound natural and smooth.
Before we get into the details, we need to understand how stuttering occurs.
Try the following experiment:
With one hand, take the other hand and make sure they are locked together, as shown in the image to the left. Make sure you hold on tight.
Now try to separate them, but make sure you don’t let go. Keep trying to pull away as hard as you can, without letting go.
Did you notice what you felt?
If it didn’t, try the simple experiment one more time. This time, pay close attention to how you feel. Pay attention to your mouth, lips, throat, and stomach.
You will notice that all of these muscles suddenly tensed up and became very tense.
This process is known as the Effort Closure Process. It is a normal process that has various uses, such as performing feats of strength, protecting our body from external dangers, and it is also the process that helps us produce speech! This effort shutdown process also happens to be the main cause of stuttering!
Speech is produced when we build up air pressure in our lungs and then strategically release that air to produce sounds and form sentences. To increase the pressure, our brain signals our body to use the effort shutdown process just like it did in the previous exercise. Research shows that stutterers struggle to control and regulate their effort closure process. So, for example, we may apply too much or too little pressure, or not “release” the pressure at the right time.
This is what goes wrong when you stutter
– You come across a sound you’re having trouble with, such as the “p” sound at the beginning of the word “PLEASE.”
– To pronounce the “p” sound, your upper body tenses up so your lungs can build up air pressure.
– With the lips closed, the throat and mouth are also tensed briefly to maintain pressure.
– Just when you are about to release the pressure and vocalize your “p”, your muscles do not obey the order of the brain.
– Your lips are still tense, your upper body is still tense, you are building more and more pressure.
Your body does the only thing it instinctively knows how to do during times of stress: the process of shutting down from exertion.
– As the pressure continues to build and you can’t release it, your extreme tension may cause you to shake your head or squint.
– You can continue this for a while, or you can stop and repeat the process several times
– You feel very anxious, nervous, embarrassed and stressed
– Finally, the sound comes out, but it is very hard, and now you are very self-aware.
– Tension remains in your body and you struggle with various other words
So now that we understand stuttering, how do we fix it?
Remember the important fact we revealed earlier: stuttering occurs when the effort shutdown process doesn’t work properly. So, to get rid of unnatural stuttering, we need to focus on learning how to perform the effort shutdown process correctly. We also need to learn good speaking techniques, especially those that help our speech flow more smoothly and effortlessly.
But learning good speech techniques alone is not enough. As stutterers, we develop poor breathing habits (we usually breathe quickly and shallowly), and breathing is an extremely important factor in reducing the likelihood of stuttering. It is also very important to learn to relax the muscles involved in speech, because during stuttering our muscles become very tense.
Speech, breathing, and muscle relaxation techniques alone are not enough. You will also need to develop certain mental habits that will help you be aware of what triggers your stuttering, and also work on the emotional aspect associated with stuttering.
How to beat your stutter in 10 steps
– Have a complete understanding of how speech works and how stuttering occurs.
– Understand how your body processes effort shutdown and how it triggers stuttering
– Train your body to perform a PROPER effort closing process
– Develop an awareness of how tense your body is and how that affects your stutter
– Train your brain to communicate correctly with the muscles of speech
– Learn speech techniques that minimize the likelihood of stuttering (easy start, light touches, withdrawal, etc.)
– Learn proper and good breathing habits
– Program your mind to make all these techniques a habit
– Break the emotional cycle of stuttering and develop a greater knowledge and awareness of yourself.
– Establish new habits in your mind so that all these new habits become second nature to you.