Unless you are Clint Eastwood or a Marilyn Monroe impersonator, a voice that's too breathy can be one of the biggest credibility killers. On the positive side breathy speakers are stereotyped as compassionate, likeable and sexy. On the negative side they can come across as wishy-washy, weak, unintelligent, and unprofessional.

Breathy speakers expel lots of air when they speak. This makes them difficult to understand and can be distracting. Dr. Ralph Hillman, a speech professor and author of "Delivering Dynamic Presentations," conducted some interesting research on breathiness. He sent several male students to banks to ask for loans using a breathy voice quality. All were turned down. Next, he had the men make the same presentation at other financial institutions without the breathiness in their voice. Loan proceedings were initiated for all of them!

Excess breathiness is caused by:

1.Lack of muscle tension in the vocal folds.
2.Habitual speaking patterns.
3.A serious medical condition. If breathiness persists or worsens, see your doctor.

The good news is that you can improve the way you sound by training yourself to control the amount of air you exhale during speech. You do this by increasing muscle tension in the vocal folds. To see what this feels like, place the palm of your hand in front of your mouth. Speak a few words while exaggerating breathiness (like Clint Eastwood or Marilyn Monroe). Feel the air hitting your hand? Now, sit up straight and speak again. This time aim for a more "stacatto" sound, cutting back on the amount of air exhaled between the words. Hillman says you can also test for excess breathiness in your car. With the windows closed, count to ten loudly. A voice that is not too breathy will echo off the windshield. With a little bit of practice you'll learn to feel and hear the difference.