The process started from the age of 40 (presently 55) when I was able to leave the corporate world, and I decided that I wanted to actively try and reduce my stutter. My first observation was that my breathing was absolutely terrible. I would often run out of breath when speaking and my chest was tight. I have always been a mouth breather. The simple act of people being able to breath and talk at the same time was a mystery to me! I was actually going around asking people how they did it! I concluded that I should become a nose breather in order to increase my air flow. I figured that if I could breathe through my nose that I would be able to speak through my mouth at the same time without stopping to breathe. If you’re a mouth breather, google how to become a nose breather and start working on that. In regard to my chest feeling tight, probably what helped the most at first was learning how to swim breaststroke. At the age of 40, I couldn’t swim 25 meters. What I learned while trying to learn how to swim by myself was that, once again, my breathing was terrible! My chest was tight, and I felt like I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. Over the course of 10 years, I very slowly learned how to swim the breaststroke. I’m still a terrible swimmer, and it’s the only stroke that I can swim (badly), but now I can swim it without any tightness in my chest, and consequently can swim long distances in a pool without stopping. Swimming was, for me, my form of meditation. For one hour, I would swim the breaststroke, and every single stroke I was basically thinking about only the next stroke. It served, for me, as one hour of focused DEEP breathing, albeit through my mouth. Getting to the point where my chest was not tight while swimming was a huge accomplishment, and I feel that it definitely helped my breathing on dry land, too. So from a physiological standpoint, my improved breathing skills and relaxed chest were definitely my biggest changes that helped reduce my stutter. I also tried things like breathing only through my nose while running, but I have flat feet so running wasn’t my strong point and that didn’t last long. I also have very bad pollen allergies so I started using a neti pot to clear out my sinuses and that was important for nose breathing. If your sinuses are blocked, you can’t breathe through your nose efficiently. This was actually one of the reasons why I think I became a mouth breather because I’ve had allergies since the age of thirteen. In short, do whatever you can to improve your breathing and reduce any tightness in your chest. These days I don’t feel any tightness in my chest, although I am not a 100% nose breather. On the flip side, I’m not a 100% mouth breather, either. Actually, I don’t really think about breathing much anymore, and I just speak, which is pretty much how it is for most people who don’t stutter. In addition to this, I’ve also done a lot of fasting during the past 10 years. Alternate day fasting for 1 year. 1-2 week water fasts. Most recently 1-3 day dry fasts. Fasting could potentially be useful because it reduces overall body inflammation, and less inflammation is always better. Perhaps it has changed my neural network, too, to a certain degree. I don’t have any concrete proof. Just mentioning it because I’ve done a lot of it, and it definitely helps with many things. Finally, one other thing that I feel has probably helped is cold showers and most recently cold exposure. I started taking cold showers (first normal warm and end with one minute cold) about 10 years ago. The last three years since COVID ended, I now wear only shorts and t-shirts outside all year round. During winter time temperatures are 0-10C for 2-3 months. I even bicycle like this. This really helps my breathing. I breathe continuously and consciously using various patterns, and this allows me to not feel cold. Once again, for me, it ends up being a form of meditation and breath exercise, similar to swimming, but more accessible because I have to do it everyday now in winter when I go outside for 1-2 hours. So this is what I have done myself. Perhaps others could substitute a concentrated daily routine of pranayama and meditation, instead, and perhaps achieve similar results, but I prefer physical movement and activity. Having said all this, I am not completely “cured”. Although being 98% better, there are still a few words and sounds that consistently get me from time to time. And although I want to one day do stand up comedy, the fact that I grew up stuttering has kept me from attempting it. I can’t say that I’ve completely given up on that dream, but psychologically I probably want to try and fix these last few situations that I still struggle with before getting on the big stage in that capacity. I’ve always been a secret stutterer who chose silence over embarrassment, although I have managed to learn a couple of other languages despite my stutter. I did do a little bit of reading out loud, talking in a deep voice, talking to myself, etc. but I wasn’t consistent and never did anything long enough to have any impact. As I mentioned, I preferred movement oriented activities, although I do believe that if done consistently, these types of vocal exercises could prove very useful. I was just too lazy. Perhaps I should try them to try and overcome my last few problematic sounds. I hope you get something useful out of all of this, if nothing else hopefully some inspiration or hope. If you have any questions, let me know.