Explained: Why you hate the sound of your own voice.

Image via iStock.

Here are three things most people hate listening to. 1)The word “moist“, 2) Nickelback, and 3) hearing the sound of our own voices.

While the word moist and Nickelback are in some ways debatable – why do most of us cringe upon hearing our voices played back to us?

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Well, there’s an interesting reason for that. The voice you hear in your head is actually different to the voice everyone else hears out aloud.

“When we speak, we hear ourselves with our ears (air conduction), and at the same time, we hear ourselves through vibration of the sound in our skull bones (bone conduction).” Esther Bruhl, a speech therapist with over 30 years experience, explains.

Let’s just allow that to sink in; to everyone else, your voice sounds like the one played back to you. Great.

"The added bone conduction gives us a more resonant, deeper tone to what others hear," explains Bruhl.

"When we hear ourselves in a recording , we are only hearing ourselves via air conduction. We aren't used to hearing ourselves this way, and so we generally don't like the sound of our voice. In this instance, most people say they think their voice sounds high pitched and immature."

Yep, she's spot on.

Our skulls lower the frequency of our voice, which is why we often perceive ourselves as higher-pitched when we listen to a recording. (Post continues after gallery.)

That explains why we don't like what we hear - but can we do anything about it?

One way people can learn to like the sound of their own voice is to have voice training.

"Many speech therapists who specialise in voice training and projection can teach people how to speak with a richer, more effective and resonant voice. If someone has a voice disorder, or is in a profession where they need to talk a lot or present to others, this sort of training can produce great results." Bruhl says.

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But for those of us who don't need voice training? Bruhl suggests that we just keep listening to recordings of our voice until we get used to the sound. If you can bear it, that is.

You can find out more about Esther Bruhl via her website, Facebook page and Twitter page.