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Unit 4. The Voice. In this unit, we will investigate the importance of the voice that has today almost totally replaced the body as the medium of our conversations. Our era of distance is characterized by the digitalization of all that surrounds us, including our relationships. The conferences, for example, have become virtual today, but not for this less real or less important than those involving face to face. During video conferences, it is often common experience to feel anxiety and stress: everyone's attention is concentrated on us and our emotion can emerge through the voice. How to do it then? Thanks to this unit, you will learn not only the importance of the voice as a fundamental means of communication, but you will also learn how it is connected to breathing and what the consequences of this relationship are. It is important to focus on the way we breathe, as well as on our posture, in order to keep our states of anxiety and stress at bay and catalyse our attention on performance. Let’s get going. Our age is characterized by the digitalization process, which involves many aspects of our personal and working life. Virtually everything can be digitized, and even our relationships are now becoming digital. More and more you are spreading what we usually call Smart Working, or I-work, namely: «A method of implementing the employment relationship by agreement between the parties, also as a form of organization for the stages, cycles and objectives and without precise time or workplace constraints, with the possible use of technological tools for carrying out the work activity ». Today teleworking allows more and more people to work from home or from the places they prefer, without necessarily having to go to the workplace. This mode certainly requires the use of technology as well as to adapt to new forms of relationship that the distance imposes. Our globalized world is in fact characterized by relationships that affect various parts of the world. Of course today we can move easily between one state and another, but not always to move physically can be the best choice. In the event of a distance, therefore, it is possible to rely on new technologies and the new types of relationship they allow. On the other hand, our personal relationships are also radically changed: we think of social networks and endless possibilities of contact they allow us. Thanks to social media and new technologies, you can stay in touch with your friends every day, constantly. Facebook's success, for example, was due precisely to the endless possibilities offered by this platform: people with whom we have lost contact with can be easily traced and relationships can resume. However, there are some difficulties and resistances in the use of new technologies and in accepting this radical change of our lifestyle and our way of working. Not everyone is still able to appreciate the possibilities that video conferences offer us. The reasons are many and different, but for us it is important to remember that what is missing in video calls is the body. It may seem a trivial observation, but if we pause to assess the importance that the body, the movement and expressions of the face are in our relationships, we can understand the scope of this absence. In fact, it is now known that the body is attributed almost all the burden of communicating: 70% at least of our communication is in fact not verbal or para-verbal! But what is the voice? «In phonetics, the voice is the sound produced by the soundproofing of the human being. [...] produced first of all through the phonation (the process with which the vocal ropes produce a specific range of sounds through appropriate vibrations that also involve different larynx structures), often accompanied by other airflow modification mechanisms (articulation) ». This definition makes us understand first of all the close relationship that exists between voice and word. Secondly, even more important is the relationship that exists between voice and breathing! It is on breathing, therefore, that we must concentrate to better use our voice. We think of those moments in which we find ourselves in the middle of a video conference: voice is our main ally, but also our first enemy, together with the anxiety that can sometimes hit us in situations in which everyone's attention is focused on us. And on the other hand, for this same reason, that many prefer meetings in presence, rather than those at a distance. In fact, in video conferencing the only medium of the speech is our voice, our energies must be concentrated on it. It is therefore necessary to pay attention to breathing to be able to use this means, the voice, to the fullest. Proper breathing, in fact, can help us defeat anxiety and trembling voice. Correct breathing is something that often goes unnoticed. Many of us believe that breathing is so natural and that therefore it is not necessary to think about it. Yet it is not so, many of us do not breathe in the best way and this can even develop problems with anxiety. Try to put yourself in front of a mirror and watch the rhythm of your breath. It is difficult to become aware of the quality of your breathing. However, it is important to know what the best way is for breathing because this can help you improve many unpleasant situations. Learning what the best way is to breathe to help you fight anxiety. Learning how to breathe means also to know each other better: learning to listen to your body is the first step towards greater self-awareness, towards greater psychophysical harmony that will allow you to tackle small obstacles, like that of anxiety. Correct respiration helps against stress: it favours the relaxation of muscles and tissue oxygenation. As we said, therefore, understanding this will help you not only feel better, but also to better use voice, which in a hyper-technological and digitized world as ours has become one of the main means of communication. The distance prevents the body, as well as its involuntary movements, to fulfil the function of the communicative medium. Yet breathing is an autonomous function of our living organism: we don't need to think and want to breathe. We are unable to stop breathing on the other hand. It is our neurological system that requires us to breathe, and is always this that determines the rhythm of our breathing. However, not always, as we have said, we breathe in the right way. Pulmonary Specialist Dr. Francesca Puggioni, in an article published on Humanitas Health, talked about how to breathe in a proper manner: "Proper respiration derives mainly from a correct use of the diaphragm. The use of this organ, completely natural if we are in a relaxed position, can be more difficult in those who are overweight or when we are in positions not particularly comfortable ". It is precisely for this reason that when working from home and videoconferencing it is necessary to be careful with posture. Correct posture can therefore help us breathe better and keep stress at bay. To be sure to sit properly, a good solution is to follow these simple suggestions. Sit with your back straight. Pay attention to your shoulders, try to keep them back. Also pay attention to the position of the buttocks: they must touch the back of the backrest. Respect the normal back curvatures when you sit at the desk. To do this, use a small rolled towel on itself. As an alternative to the towel you can use a rounded shape pillow. A more difficult but very useful tip is to sit at the end of the chair. This will help you maintain a correct posture and your back straight. At the same time, sitting at the end of the chair will train the back muscles that enter the relax mode when you abandon yourself on the chair or on the sofa. Sitting correctly, therefore, can help breathing and check the stress. Dr. Puggioni also suggests a way to understand how we breathe. It is not always easy to pay attention to our own breathing, especially because most people believe that, being an involuntary activity, surely the way each of us breathe is the correct one. However, it's not like that!