The effect of lavender on the acoustic parameters of voice

Singers and other voice professionals are sometimes advised to use medicinal herbs to improve their voice. However, there is little evidence that such prescriptions are beneficial to voice production. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of lavender essential oil steam inhalation on the acoustic parameters of voice in comparison to water steam inhalation. 19 healthy adults divided in two groups of experiment and control has participated in this study. Investigated voice measures were jitter, shimmer, harmonics to noise ratio and fundamental frequency which were acoustically analyzed before and after steam inhalation of lavender essential oil and water separately. The results showed that lavender essential oil has a positive significant effect on jitter, shimmer and HNR values, while it had no effect on F0. Water steam inhalation also indicated some positive effects, though they were not significant