I worked in several call centres before and it was common there to be assigned in the grave yard shift. You wouldn’t believe the number of people complaining at night. You get the impression that they never sleep and they just spend their night complaining, but that’s another topic. Now being assigned in the night shift means that I have to drink an insane amount of coffee every night and there was no going around that. That is not surprising since my colleagues all did the same thing. We consumed enough coffee to support a small coffee producing country. I know that other types of work also require coffee in the same dosage that we do, but something happened to me that proved to me how coffee consumption is something to be considered in the line of work that I was in.
It all started when I got down with the flu. I thought I was okay after a day of resting but when I finally came back to work I lost my voice while I was in the middle of taking calls. It was not a simple matter of sore throat. I could feel that vocal chords were straining to produce the sound. I went to a specialist right away and I was advised to give my voice a rest for two weeks. It was laryngitis and if left untreated my doctor said that it could result in complete loss of voice. That was when I realized how serious it was. No one is going to enjoy the prospect of going speechless for the rest of his life.
Is Coffee Bad for Your Voice- I was told by my doctor that in my case what caused the laryngitis is a condition known as acid reflux. This condition is caused when the acid from the stomach starts to come up into the esophagus and the larynx. Because the stomach acids are very harsh and because the tissues in that part of the digestive system is unprotected that can cause damage. It can hit the vocal chords as well and cause serious tissue damage as well. In my case, my laryngitis was caused by that condition. I didn’t even know that there was such a thing until my doctor told me about it. My doctor told me that the acid reflux can be caused by a lot of things but one thing was definite for me and that is the fact that I have to avoid coffee.
Coffee is very high on acid, anyone can tell you that. The acidic content of the drink can trigger the acid reflux and in my case that is exactly what had happened. In this manner coffee can definitely have an effect on the voice of a person just as in my case. It might be kind of indirect but if kept on drinking coffee which was the main trigger of the acid reflux then there was a real danger for me to lose my voice.