Often speakers at a meeting experience dry mouths and ask for a glass of water.
You can solve the problem by activating the saliva in you mouth. First gently
bite the edges of your tongue with your teeth. Or press your entire tongue to
the bottom of your mouth and hold it there until the saliva flow. Or you can
imagine that you are slicing a big juicy lemon and sucking the juice.
Before you begin your talk, be kind to your voice. Avoid milk or creamy
drinks which coat your throat. Keep your throat wet by drinking a little
sweetened warm tea or diluted fruit juice. If you sense that you are losing your
voice, stop talking completely. Save your voice for your speech. You may feel
foolish using paper to write notes, but the best thing you can do is to rest
your voice. If you need to see a doctor, perhaps you can get some advice from a
professional singer. In the meantime, do not even talk in a low voice.
What about drinking alcohol to wet your throat? I advise you not to touch
alcohol before speaking. The problem with alcohol is that one drink gives you a
little confidence. The second drink gives you even more confidence. Finally you
will feel all-powerful and you will feel you can do everything, but in fact your
brain and your mouth do not work together properly. Save the alcohol until after
you finish speaking. Perhaps you want to accept the advice, but
you may wonder if you can ever change the habits of a life-time. Of course you
can. Goethe, who lived before indoor skating rinks or swimming pools, said, "We
learn to skate in the summer and swim in the winter. Take this message to heart
and give yourself time to develop your new habits. If you are willing to change,
you will soon be able to say that you will never forget these techniques because
they became a part of your body."
单选题
All the following are mentioned in the passage about how to solve the
problem of dry mouths EXCEPT ______.