How Celiac Disease Affects Your Voice

Celiacs seem to have a specific set of singing challenges. The physiological response to feeling as if you are being internally stabbed in the abdomen is to lock down the RA (six-pack) to protect. Therefore the respiratory system and the fascial SFL/SBL (trauma or computer posture) are compromised.
And it’s tricky to solve - even when the student discovers what appears as healthy breathing, there continues to be a deep trauma-memory knot in the upper RA that will continue to battle against healthy phonation.
Symptoms:
- Extreme RA hyper-tonicization - inability to inhale diaphragmatically or exhale with surrender sigh
- pectoral, trapezoid, latissimus dorsi, neck, jaw, tongue, laryngeal tension
- lack of diaphragm tonicity or core strength
- Low neural drive (muscular amnesia) from the thoracic diaphragm down
- Diaphragmatic inhalation doesn’t seems to transfer to phonation. - High notes, long phrases peter out
- Mix and register issues.
How to help:
1. Yoga twists, all of them every day
2. 24/7: Learn how to move on/with the surrender sigh exhalation to combat the trauma-memory’s habit of clenching the RA with every effort
3. Vocal and respiratory flexibility exercises (more than usual)
4. Restorative Yoga Abdominal Massage Sequence:
- Lie face-down, pillow under abdomen
- Lie face-down on 75cm exercise ball
- Lie face-down, yoga bolster under abdomen
- Lie down, up on elbows with Wilson Method Sea Blue 4” Breath Ball high in the solar plexus
- Lie down, up on elbows with the Wilson Method Volcano Red 5” Breath Ball high in the solar plexus
This graduated sequencing is important as a Celiac’s solar plexus will usually be even more painful than for asthmatics or anxietals. This is deep emotional trauma we are dealing with, especially if the attacks occurred early in childhood. All poses are combined with the Surrender Sigh - gentleness and patience are key...