In the 20 years I’ve been a TV producer, media executive, and speaking coach, I cannot count the number of times I’ve seen people literally cringe upon hearing their own voice. Sometimes it’s a slight scrunch of the nose and sometimes it’s an audible sigh. Why do we hate our own voice? And what can we do about it?

You’re not that special. I don’t mean that rudely, but you’re actually a member of a very large club. The reason you hate the sound of your own voice is grounded in biology. In evolutionary terms, we have only been hearing our voice played back for a short amount of time. While humans have been around for hundreds of thousands of years, our recordings have not. Thomas Edison first recorded and played back his own voice just 150 years ago. (Fun fact: he sang “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”) Our body has not caught up yet to technology.

Why do your friends not cringe at your voice, but you do? They hear your voice differently than you do. When we hear our own voice, there are vibrating sound waves hitting the ear drum and vibrations inside our skull due to our vocal cords. As they travel, the lower tones come through stronger. That makes us think our voice is deeper and richer than it is. When we hear our voice as it actually sounds, we’re not used to it.  

When you’re just starting to improve your speaking skills, it’s very hard to listen to recordings of your own voice.

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