Essential Tips for Musicians to Stay Healthy During the Busy Season
Updated: Aug 22
These might sound simple, but remember, this time of year is about the basics. Just like with music, the basics carry us through a busy season. The same applies to our health.
1. Stay Hydrated (Especially in Heated, Dry Environments)
Indoor heating can pull moisture from your tissues, including your lips. Dehydration limits your playing time. It restricts blood flow, flexibility, and the elasticity of your tissues. This can lead to quicker fatigue, swelling, cracking, stiffness, and, if the cycle continues, inflammation.
A Helpful Guideline: If you wake up with a split lip, it’s not an embouchure issue. It’s likely a combination of dehydration, dry air, and a lack of moisture in your lips.
2. Use a Humidifier at Night
If you wake up in the middle of the night or in the morning with a dry or scratchy throat, inflamed nasal passages, or rough, scaly lips, your sleeping area might be too dry. A bedroom humidifier can help you avoid waking up feeling dry, cracked, or puffy. I also recommend using lip ointment at night. Be generous! Protect and hydrate your lips. My personal favorite is Aquaphor.
3. Protect the Skin Barrier
As I mentioned, using Aquaphor, Vaseline, or a similar ointment is essential—especially overnight or during long days. If you go outside and it’s windy, apply a layer before and after. Depending on the ointment, you’re providing a protective barrier while hydrating your lips.
4. Prioritize Sleep
This might seem obvious, but real recovery happens during sleep. While you sleep, the tissues around your lips, neck, and face rehydrate, repair, and release tension. Without enough sleep, every system in your body starts to function less efficiently.
5. Keep Your Body Moving
I find this one challenging during winter. Our bodies are meant to move. If we don’t get enough daily steps—some say 7k, 8k, or even 12k—our bodies become stiff. This stiffness makes movement, breathing, and playing more laborious. It might not seem like a big deal, but one key factor affecting performance-related injuries is the effort required to play.
As tension accumulates through the pelvis, it eventually rises up the rib cage and neck. The cranium and jaw start to twist and torque, affecting your embouchure's overall capacity.
This isn’t about starting a complete workout routine. If you have a regimen, great! Keep it up. If you’re unsure where to start, focus on movement you missed that day. For example, if you had a double today, you likely sat all day. In that case, get moving! Go for a walk, do some yoga, or try my personal favorite: breathing positional drills.
6. Warm Down After Playing
This habit separates consistent players from those who struggle during gig season. A warm-down doesn’t have to be elaborate. Think light airflow, gentle range, and slow releases of tension. As a trombonist, I enjoy soft lip bends, glisses descending into the lower range, pedal tones, or small long tones with a slight crescendo and decrescendo to relax my aperture.
Even just 3–5 minutes helps:
Promote blood flow, reducing swelling
Reset jaw and neck tone
Normalize pressure patterns
Prevent your breathing mechanics from collapsing between shows
I recommend experimenting with warm-downs after rehearsals or between double-show days. This last habit will help restore your embouchure’s mechanics and get you through the season without injury.
Your jaw, neck, cranium, and ribcage form a single pressure system. When they’re compressed or overworked, twists and torques will affect your embouchure position and the effort needed to play.
Incorporating any of the following exercises daily—either after playing, before bed, or even before warming up—can significantly improve consistency, reduce pain, and restore capacity:
Gentle release work for the ribcage, neck, cranium, or jaw
Basic joint mobility for the jaw, neck, and ribcage
Positional breathing to reduce tension accumulation and restore movement capacity
Short decompression sequences for the skull, neck, and airway
These don’t need to be long or intense. Short, strategic work gives your system the room it needs to do its job.
Quick Assessments to Check In With Yourself
Daily assessments can help you determine how much tension your body is holding and how stressed your nervous system is. If you monitor these over a month and notice discomfort one day, these assessments will guide you on which areas to focus on to reduce tension, restore space, and improve overall capacity.
Here are two simple assessments to gauge your system's response:
1. Jaw Opening Assessment
Open your mouth slowly as wide as you can. Notice:
Does your jaw shift?
Is there clicking?
Does one side feel tight or “late” to open?
Does your neck flare or lift?
Do you feel any tight, tender, or sore muscles?
These signs indicate compression patterns, not “bad embouchure" or "unhealthy playing habits."
2. Neck Rotation Assessment
Turn your head slowly to the left, then to the right.
Observe:
Is one direction tighter?
Is one side easier?
Does your ribcage move with your head?
Does the movement feel blocked behind the eyes or skull?
This tells you whether your upper body is holding stress in a way that affects breathing, phrasing, and lip control.
There’s a tendency to assume these issues are purely embouchure or technique problems. In reality, they’re whole-body adaptations that show up at the embouchure.
Remember, You Don’t Need a Complicated Routine; You Need Something Simple and Effective.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by rehearsals, shows, travel, or teaching right now, your body needs support that’s simple, not time-consuming. That’s why I created something specifically for this season.
If You Want Guided Relief This Holiday Season…
The 7-Day Jaw & Neck Reset is Now Available!
This short, accessible routine is designed for busy musicians who want to:
Reduce jaw and neck tension
Decompress the cranium
Improve breathing efficiency
Restore embouchure responsiveness
Feel better between demanding shows
This downloadable PDF routine offers daily guided sessions (5–10 minutes), gentle decompression work, and recovery strategies you can use long after the holidays.
If your embouchure feels tight, inconsistent, or “just not bouncing back,” this is the simplest place to start.
Or
I've posted a few screenshots of the PDF below as a sample.
