Stuttering – Page 6 – Sweeney's Blogs

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Today’s blog is going to talk over an idea I have for a new blog series that I am hoping to launch in a few weeks. If people do want to see this series then I will start creating plans for the series and then will launch it in a few weeks. At the minute I am planning to temporarily pause the Male Mental Health Series and launch this one.

Currently, I am finding to think of as many ideas for the Male Mental Health series compared to when I first started it and don’t want it to seem like I am just forcing out blogs as that’s not how I want my page to be. In my head now I am thinking that if I pause the series and launch this one for a few weeks then when I start to write more blogs for it they will seem fresher and will have better deeper meanings.

The topic of stuttering has always been a topic that is very close to me. I have had a stutter for as long as I remember and it has impacted my life in numerous ways. The true effects stuttering has on an individual is often overlooked in modern day society, which is a thing that I want to change. The actual effects that a stutter has on a person is much more than simply skin deep. Stuttering can lead to a lot of problems such as self-confidence, job position and social standing to name but a few.

This series would also not be the first time that stuttering has been brought up on my blog page. I talked about my stutter in regards to how a bully used it to bully me in the Personal Experience 1 blog of my Looking into Male Mental Health series. This can be accessed either through the Blogapedia page of my website or through the following link – https://sweeneysblog.com/2019/05/07/looking-into-male-mental-health-blog-4-personal-experience-1/. This blog helps tackle just one example of how a stutter can lead to you being bullied and how it can be used to really lower your self-confidence.

I also talked about having a stutter in one of my earlier blogs which revolved around a ‘Stuttering Solution’ that I created called Rhythmical Thinking. This blog, which can be found here: https://sweeneysblog.com/2019/02/07/rhythmical-thinking-a-stuttering-solution/, talks about a method I use to help reduce the number of times I stutter. The blog links in my history of playing in a brass band and how that helps me when controlling my stutter.

The series that I am thinking of launching, Stuttering in Mainstream Media, will build off the previous points and will talk a lot about how stutters are discussed directly in mainstream media. If the series does go ahead then I will be talking about some of the life stories of famous people, who you may or may not know who have a stutter, how they coped with it, how it may have held them back and the lesson we can take from their story.

I am hoping to look at acts who have auditioned on Talent shows who have a stutter and how it changes the way in which they perform. I will look directly on if having a stutter changed how they were judged in their respective competition, be it in a good way or a bad way. From this then we can analyse to see if we can learn from the people that go on these shows despite having a stutter and see if we can adapt the ways in which they handle themselves into our daily life. I have so many ideas for this series so if people do want to see it then I am more than happy to start planning it soon.

That is all I wanted to talk about in today’s blog! Thank you all for reading! What do you all think? Should I start a series on living with a Stutter? Should it be about living with a stutter in general? Should I cover how stutters are directly covered in Mainstream Media or specifically in one genre of a tv show? Let me know in the comments or via our Facebook Page.

I will be launching a poll on the pages Facebook page to see whether to do this series or not. If you have a minute or two spare then please vote in it, if there is no demand for it then I will not create the series. Whilst you are on the pages Facebook page please leave a quick rating and review, it really helps the page grow!

Thanks for reading and i hope you’ve enjoyed!

Sweeney’s Blogs

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James

Stuttering is one of life’s obstacles that can prove difficult to overcome. Certain types of people learn methods and techniques to help overcome stuttering, however, others can struggle. I’m going to be doing a series of blogs with methods I use to help reduce the amount I stutter. This method I like to refer to as the Rhythmical Thinking method.

During times when I stutter a lot, I always try a wide range of techniques to help reduce it. When I was younger there was a time when no matter what method I tried, I could not stop stuttering. I struggled to think of what to do and then a thought came to my head. I started thinking of a musical beat in my head. I slowly started to increase the beat when I stopped stuttering and I went back to speaking normally. I’ll go into detail about how this works after I give a bit of a background to how it worked for me.

I’ve been part of a brass band since I was very young. I learned to play the trombone when I was in year 3 in school and am still learning today. As I grew up playing in a brass band I experienced lots of different musical beats, rhythms and tempos/speeds. After playing these pieces hundreds of times you learn how to compose these beats in your own head.

Now how the Rhythmical Thinking technique works is as follows. When you start to stutter a lot you stop and think of a beat. This beat can be as fast or slow as you want it to be however I recommend starting with a slow beat. Once you have this beat in your head you can either just keep it in your head or you can tap your fingers or toes to it.

After the beat has remained constant in your head for a while start speaking in time with the beat. As you start to reduce the amount you stutter slowly increase the beat until you get back to normal. As you increase the speed ensure that you are still stuttering less. If you start to stutter more again then slow down again and try again. This should help you stop stuttering.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great day!

James Sweeney