Healthy Head for Healthy Singing

You need a healthy head for healthy singing!

Recently, I have been corresponding with a singer who is primarily self-taught, but has also utilized my Singing Tongue digital lesson and taken my “Fearless Voice Power” affordable singing lessons.

He has been having some pretty serious problems with excess mucus and a nose bleed that wouldn’t stop.

I take the liberty to speak about this with his permission and without mentioning his name because I want to write about this important subject so that anyone who sings or is working on their singing voice, their singing tongue, singing breath, etc., can take direct action to insure longterm healthy singing habits.

You see, when we isolate certain parts of the body and attend to them from the traditional Western medical approach, we do not usually address the root causes of the imbalances that cause the symptoms, i.e., excess phlegm, drippy nose, cracked lips, unstoppable nose bleed, dry throat, panic breathing, etc.

I want to address your head problems!

Yes, inside and outside your head is part of it all, but your singing mindsets begin to deal with the inside of your head (your mind) and I have written and taught about this before (extensively), so I want to deal with one particular part of the actual physical parts of your head in this article.

What I have found over the years of singing performance, teaching, composing, writing, etc., is that I have to know how to preserve my voice for the long haul.

In other words, I can’t be unhealthy in body, mind or spirit and expect to preserve my singing health. It wouldn’t be logical to do so nor would it follow what common sense indicates.

Back to the singer I mentioned above. He has a great voice, by the way, and continues to work super hard to learn how to sing to his full potential for healthy and powerful singing.

However, he has had a number of serious physical problems that have caused him trouble and much distress, not to mention the amount of money he has had to spend on medical bills!

I will only speak about the nose bleed problem here though.

DISCLAIMER: Since I am not a medical practitioner and thus cannot give medical advice, I make no claims as to what will or will not work for someone else. I can only say what I would or would not do if I were facing a particular problem.

After he got the nose bleed that wouldn’t stop, his nose was packed with something by the doctors (I’m not sure what it was) until it stopped bleeding and then they cauterized it.

He wrote to me about this and told me that he was going to put Vaseline in it. I don’t know if the doctors recommended that or not, but I want to use this example as a way of speaking about body health – in this case the nose and what to put in it – and how it relates to a healthy singing voice over the long haul.

Again, I write from the point of view of what I would or would not do, and I would definitely NOT put Vaseline in my nose because it is petroleum based. Instead, I would use an oil.

Here’s why: my rule of thumb, which is logical and common sense-based, is to only put things on my body (or in my nose, mouth or ears) that I would eat. This is because the skin absorbs (transdermal absorption) whatever we put on the body (including nostrils, ears, eyes, etc.) into the body. I’m not sure why the Western medical doctors don’t tell you about this, but would you really want to eat Vaseline, for example?

Think about it.

Instead, I would use a high quality cooking oil, like un-toasted sesame, for instance, or coconut oil, sunflower oil or olive oil. I would use only organic extra virgin oils and cold pressed, if possible.

When I began doing this for my voice (the whole person and the whole body IS your voice!), I started out with olive oil. Since then I have learned about two other oils that are better than olive oil for the nasal passages. Olive oil tends to be very strong inside those delicate tissues, but it’s still better than Vaseline, in my opinion.

That is one of the reasons I am writing this article. I want you to know about what you can do to prevent and/or heal parts of your head in an easy and actually inexpensive way.

But remember my disclaimer and remember that I only write about what I would personally do in a similar situation.

This is what I would do:

• Use a face reflexology chart to do a daily face massage in the morning before I start my day or at night before I go to sleep or both! This opens up all sorts of things in my head and allows many toxins to be dispelled
• Using my pinkie finger dipped in an oil, lubricate the inside of my nostrils
• Use an organic sesame oil or organic coconut oil, depending on whether I want to heat or cool the area
• Sesame warms and Coconut cools
• I sometimes use a combination of the 2 oils
• My body let’s me know which is best when I pay close attention to it
• Use Nasya Oil (see below) for deep cleansing and deep lubrication of my nasal passages
• If I have excess mucus, I have to deal with a different part of the body to clear that up, but I cannot cover that in the scope of this article
• I might steam using eucalyptus, camphor, menthol, peppermint, rosemary or cinnamon bark essential oil once a week but not daily, again, letting my body tell me what it needs by paying closer attention to it

So CLICK HERE to see some of the things I use to keep the physical part of my singing voice healthy and strong. Some of these items are used for singing hoarseness too, which I explain in other posts in case you want to work on your healthy head for healthy singing. They are all available on Amazon so I have included links to them.

Nasya Oil has herb extracts in it that are used for healing. This type of oil has been use for centuries and I have found good success with it. The method of using it is to tilt back the head and use the dropper to put several warm (not hot) drops of it into each nostril then strongly snuff it up. This gets it up close to or touching the ethmoid bone, a spongy bony area that separates the nasal passages from the brain.

This is truly the fastest way to get healing essential herb properties to the brain. There is a ton of information on this elsewhere, but I don’t have time to get into it here. All I can say is that it helps with nasal health, which helps with singing health. I wouldn’t say this if I didn’t use it myself! Trust me, this oil has helped me!

These are the oils I use for massage (and eating and inside the nostrils): extra virgin organic sesame and coconut. I buy them by the gallon because I use a lot of it and it is less expensive by the bulk price.

Whatever you end up using, be sure it is extra virgin oil, cold pressed if possible (this keeps the nutrients in it) and certified organic.

If you have any questions, please write them below.

Enjoy your healthy head for healthy singing!