Why is our voice lower when we wake up than when we go to sleep?
In: Biology
I wish there was a way to keep it that low. I sound so sexy when I wake up, but then half an hour later I’m back into Melvin-mode
A couple reasons. TL;DR looser from not being used, more mucus slowing vibration, and you’re waking up and feeling lazy.
Unless you talk in your sleep, you weren’t really using your vocal cords for eight hours. The muscles in your throat are more relaxed, so the vocal cords aren’t going to vibrate as quickly, leading to lower pitch. Think the difference between a taught rubber band and a slack rubber band. The taught one will have a higher pitch when strummed.
Second, you haven’t been as actively removing the mucus from your throat. The lungs make a lot of the stuff, and during waking hours you end up removing a lot of it without thinking much. Also, you’re drinking water, which thins the mucus. When you sleep, you don’t remove as much mucus, and it gets a little thicker from having less water in it. To continue with the rubber bands, it’s like strumming a rubber band in water versus in air. The one in water will vibrate more slowly, and have a lower pitch.
Lastly, in the mornings, you’re tired and still waking up, and your grogginess means that you’re not putting in as much effort to speaking clearly. You see this happen when you get tired all the time, not just in the morning. Maybe if you’re in a situation where you go straight to an alerted state after waking up, you won’t experience it as much.
*taut not taught, I wrote this at 2am*
A combination of dry throat, which makes your voice sound more hoarse and deeper, as well as your throat muscles relaxing during the night while you sleep which makes the air passage way larger and therefore your voice immediately after waking up is still adjusting back to a tighter throat (think baritone saxophone vs Alto saxophone).
Another reason is because your breathing has changed! In singing we overcome the groggy morning voice by taking several deep breaths.
(◠ᴥ◕ʋ)
Why can’t I clinch my hands into a fist straight after waking up?
Your vocal chords are much more relaxed and lose after waking up. I remember when my choir class was first period and we had to do a lot of vocal exercises to wake up our vocal chords so we could have better control.
Because you are more lazy when you wake up and its to make girls think your voice is hot first thing in the morning which is the prime time as it were when we were primates
Wait, this is a thing? I’m going to have to pay attention when I wake up now.
Because your body fluid fills ur balls while u sleep then slowly releases the fluid back into your body as u wakeup.
#Facts
Pitch (frequency) is determined by the thickness and length of the vibrating body, and also, in the case of vocal sound, by the shape of the resonating chamber attached to the source of vibration (in this case, the vocal folds). It is true that your muscles relax during the night as you sleep, and it is also true that the mucus in your throat will thicken overnight (in part because your salivary glands shut down while you’re sleeping). However, the biggest factor in morning voice is probably the thickening of the vocal folds overnight due to fluid retention. When you lie down, fluid collects in some tissues in your body (your spine is another place where this happens, which is why getting out of bed is the worst part of the day if you have a disc injury), and when you move around, it redistributes. Surprisingly enough, if you’re more well-hydrated overall, this happens less. But remember, hydration for vocal tissue is systemic rather than direct (when you drink a glass of water, none of it actually touches your larynx…or if it does, you’ve just inhaled water & that’s not good), so the water has to be absorbed via your digestive tract to reach your vocal folds. This means you have to consistently hydrate over time to keep your folds limber.
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