Do you know someone who has a stutter? Or do you have a stutter yourself? Stuttering can have a real impact on your life. No matter how significant your stutter, it can affect your ability to talk to friends, in public and in private. This can have an impact on your confidence over time, with it making you feel awkward in social situations as well as nervous to talk to others. We want to support you in any way we can.
Over the last year, we have worked with a young man, James, who developed his stutter as a teenager. While he still continued his life on a day to day basis like everyone else, he wanted to find out how he could reduce his stutter and eventually stop it altogether. Alongside speech therapy sessions, we provided James with 3 tips that he could work on outside of sessions to reduce his stutter altogether. These tips are easy to follow and can be applied to everyone in their daily lives. Here are the 3 hacks James has used to stop his stutter.
1. Slow Down Conversations
One of the tips James began to use, was to slow down conversations. In todays fast paced environment, everyone feels as if they are always on the move, rushing everything from their meals to the conversations that they have with others. Speaking at such a fast rate, can have a significant impact on people who stutter, often causing the stutter to increase more than usual. By James slowing down his conversations with people, he not only felt more relaxed, but had the time to build sentences in his head, reducing the amount that he would stutter during conversations.
2. Focus On Breathing Techniques
Another tip that we provided James, was to focus on using breathing techniques that we had taught him in our private sessions. Using breathing techniques helps to calm people down, which helps to relax them before engaging in conversation. James found this method extremely useful, as he would often feel tense or uncomfortable before he would engage in conversation. By breathing down, he could allow himself to relax and bring his thoughts back to the moment. As a result, he was focused on the conversation at hand and consequently his stutter reduced entirely when using this technique.
3. Avoid And Practice 'Trigger Words'
Many people that stutter will have certain words that will trigger the onset of their stutter. Such words can range in how complicated they are and depend entirely on the person. By avoiding trigger words in conversations with others, James was able to reduce his stuttering while talking to others. Additionally, by practicing trigger words at home in the mirror, James was also able to reduce the impact the trigger words had in his sentences. Beforehand, his trigger words would cause a significant increase in his stutter. Now, these words have a lower impact and can even be used in sentences from time to time with no stutter following them.