THE FACTS

Ever have a bad case of laryngitis? To protect your voice, you may have felt the urge to whisper. But many otolaryngologists advise against this, warning that whispering actually causes more trauma to the larynx than normal speech. Singers in need of vocal rest are often given the same advice: Avoid whispering. It will damage your pipes.

But Dr. Robert T. Sataloff, chairman of the otolaryngology department at Drexel University College of Medicine, said this recommendation was based on “years of pronouncement and almost no research, like so much in medicine.”

Image Credit... Christoph Niemann

So in 2006 Dr. Sataloff, who is also a professional opera baritone, sought out an answer in a large study, “Laryngeal Hyperfunction During Whispering: Reality or Myth?”With a team of colleagues, he recruited 100 subjects and examined their vocal cords with fiber-optic scopes as they counted from 1 to 10, first in a normal voice, then in a whisper.