Vanessa Van Edwards shares five techniques to slow down your speech: use power pauses for drama, read poetry aloud to build muscle memory, breathe deeper, take sips of water as natural breaks, and practice articulating difficult words. Voice coach Anoushka Taylor emphasizes intentional enunciation.
I wanted to share some of these tips to help you if you also speak too fast. So step number 1 is go figure out if you're actually speaking too fast. Number 2, use power pauses. The way that we do this is we think about adding power pauses at the end of our sentences, but also in the middle of our sentences to create drama. Third tip, read poetry aloud. This is actually a really easy way to slow yourself down and get yourself in the habit of muscle memory training yourself to speak a little slowly. Fourth tip: breathe more. So this has a double power effect in that one, it helps you slow down, but also it helps you sound better at the end of your sentences because you're not running out of air. Fifth, drink water, drink coffee, drink tea. I slow myself down by continuing speaking after I take a sip of water. It just lets me take a pause, catch my breath, and catch my thoughts. Anoushka Taylor, a voice coach, suggested this last tip, which is intentional articulation. And so intentional articulation is identifying a couple words that are longer, more than 3 syllables, that you struggle with and not swallowing them.
