# Speech Management Participants in these studies reported several speech habits that they considered crucial to managing their fluency. While the increased attention to speech required by these habits may be uncomfortable at first, with time the stress and discomfort will fade away, leaving only the calm presence of mind that you need to make fine-tuned adjustments to your speech. Whereas the fluency-shaping techniques used in speech therapy that always require attention and effort, these changes will eventually become effortless, unconscious habits. We stutterers tend to feel like we need to start speaking as soon as it is our "turn" - the millisecond someone answers our phone call, or as soon as a teacher calls on us. We have our finger on the trigger, anxiously itching to pull it. This impulse to speak right away only creates tension, which may further compound anxiety. Instead of racing ahead, relax that tension and allow yourself a half-second before you speak. If you observe fluent speakers, you'll notice there is usually a brief moment before they start speaking; there's nothing wrong with doing the same. In general, practice being relaxed in the moments leading up to speaking; calm confidence leads to better fluency than impatient anxiety. In a similar vein, practice speaking a little more slowly than you otherwise would. Dysfluency aside, stutterers generally speak at a faster rate than fluent speakers. This difference can be greater if you're trying to rush through speech before dysfluency strikes. Speaking more slowly brings a host of benefits. It provides you with more time to notice and maneuver around blocks before they become too entrenched. Think of it like driving: you're better able to spot and avoid potholes when you slow down. Speaking at a slow, controlled pace also reduces the odds that you meet the resistance of a block by pushing against it with brute force. Or, if the block is too difficult to work through, you will have the presence of mind to stop and start over, which will likely be more effective than continuing to push against it. Stutterers also have a peculiar habit of running out of breath when we speak. This happens when we start speaking on a shallow breath, or fail to refill our lungs while we're speaking. Sometimes, when we're down to our last few molecules of oxygen, we'll try to push the words out by squeezing harder on our diaphragm and speech muscles; this is not effective for fluency, nor is it a pleasant sensation. It's much more effective - and less stressful - to speak with proper breath support. It's so simple that it seems silly to think about it, but make sure to breathe before you start speaking. Then, as you're speaking, pay attention to how much breath you have left. When you feel like you're running low, pause for a second to breathe, and then carry on. At first, these maintenance breaths may come at unnatural times; that's fine. As you become more practiced at maintaining breath support, you'll become better at foreseeing when you will run out of breath, and you can place those maintenance breathes at more natural times. Eventually, you will always speak with proper breath support without even paying attention to it. A primary component of successful management's improved fluency is having a better understanding of one's speech and fluency. As part of their transition, interviewees in the studies reported that this awareness came through speech practices that they devised themselves. One interviewee would read aloud from a dictionary while standing in front of a mirror. Another enrolled in Toastmasters, a group where members practiced public speaking in front of each other. I found benefit by reading aloud from the prose of Ralph Waldo Emerson; President Joe Biden has said that he read aloud from Emerson's poetry. Demosthenes, the Ancient Greek politician, practiced oratory while standing on a cliff in front of a roaring ocean with pebbles in his mouth. Developing your own practice will give you more exposure to the subtleties of managing your speech and a safe place to practice working through blocks. Whatever kind of practice you end up doing, the most important thing is that it works for you and that you can stick to it. # Benediction Successful management is the best possible outcome as far as we know, but it demands that you earn it. The journey may be difficult, it may even be the hardest thing you've ever done. You may be tempted to put it off for later. Don't. Take it on now. Commit yourself to action. Have faith that taking on your stutter will eventually lead to a freer life than you've ever let yourself imagine. Aim high, and imagine who you would be if you were not limited by a stutter. You are the only person who can do the work needed to reach your goals, and you are the only person who knows how to motivate yourself into action. Do this work, because while the climb out of the valley may be difficult, as we'll see in the next chapter, the view from the top is spectacular.