Nitrous oxide is an odorless, flavorless gas commonly used recreationally for its narcotic effects.
This substance has many influences on the body, both short- and long-term. One particularly intriguing effect is the way nitrous oxide temporarily lowers your voice.
Below, we explore how nitrous oxide makes your voice deeper and other gases that have voice-altering effects.
Please note that inhalation and recreational use of nitrous oxide can pose significant risks to your health. We strongly recommend you avoid using nitrous oxide without proper medical supervision or consultation with a licensed health professional.
How Nitrous Oxide Makes Your Voice Deeper
Nitrous oxide makes your voice deeper because it is a heavy gas; its molecules are far denser than oxygen. This weighty gas reduces the rate at which your vocal cords vibrate and increases the volume of low-pitched tones, making your voice sound deeper.
But how exactly does this work?
To understand how nitrous oxide deepens the voice, we must first consider how sound travels.
Understanding How Sound Travels
When you talk, air travels through your vocal folds (also known as ‘vocal cords’), which come together and vibrate. During exhalation, the motion of the vocal folds disrupts the airflow from the lungs, creating sound.
As you speak, your vocal tract changes shape, resonating with the different harmonics you produce with your vocal folds.
This action makes the harmonic frequencies produced by the vocal folds louder than others. Effectively, the harmonics your vocal folds and tract produce pair together, enhancing certain sounds and reducing the volume of others.
Sound travels around 1200 km per hour through air. This is due to the air’s relatively low density of 1.225 kg/m³. However, what about nitrous oxide?
Effect of Nitrous Oxide on Sound
Nitrous oxide has a density of around 1.947 kg/m³; it’s denser than the air we typically breathe, meaning the molecules within the gas are much more tightly packed together.
If you are talking through a denser or ‘heavier’ gas, sound travels more slowly.
As a result, your vocal folds vibrate at a slower rate, reducing the frequency of high-pitched harmonics and thus enhancing the volume of lower-pitched sounds. This gives the characteristic deep voice common with nitrous oxide inhalation.
Due to the nature of gases and their varying densities, other substances also have voice-altering effects. Some have higher densities than air, while others, like nitrous oxide, are considered heavier gases. Let’s find out the different drugs and their effects.
Gases Which Make Your Voice Higher
When it comes to making your voice sound similar to a woodland creature (namely, a chipmunk), there is only one gas reported to have this effect: helium.
Helium is less dense than air—sound passes through it three times faster. This makes your vocal cords vibrate more quickly, accentuating higher-pitched, resonant tones and dampening lower-pitched, antiresonant frequencies.
Gases Which Deepen Your Voice
The weightier gases like nitrous oxide serve to lower the voice. Two other well-known gases appear to have this effect:
- Sulfur Hexafluoride: This gas has the exact opposite effect of helium. Its high density (6.261 kg/m³) shortens the sound waves. This amplifies the lower tones, making your voice very deep.
- Xenon: Xenon is 3.2 times as dense as air, so the speed of sound is slower after inhaling this gas. Because of this, your voice sounds lower as the gas reduces the volume of the higher-pitched tones.
Why Inhaling These Gases is Bad News
Inhaling concentrated gases like nitrous oxide can have serious health risks.
Researchers have found a link between the recreational inhalation of these substances and various health concerns. Let’s take a look:
- Nitrous Oxide: Nitrous oxide inhalation can cause brain cell death through oxygen deprivation and damage the nervous system, depending on the inhalation method.
- Helium: The longer you inhale helium, the more time your body is without oxygen. This can ultimately lead to death by asphyxiation.
- Sulfur Hexafluoride: With sulfur hexafluoride, intense exposure can result in headaches and confusion, as well as dizziness, fainting, and seizures. Furthermore, heavy exposure can lead to lung-fluid build-up, suffocation, and unconsciousness.
- Xenon: Recreational inhalation of xenon may result in allergy-like symptoms, including hives, itching, swelling of the eyes, tongue, lips, and face, a rash, and shortness of breath.
It’s wise to avoid inhalation of any gases such as these to circumvent health repercussions.
The Last Word
Inhaling nitrous oxide can have the temporary effect of lowering your voice. The reason for this? It’s density.
Other gases, such as sulfur hexafluoride and xenon produce similar results. Helium inhalation, on the other hand, will cause your voice to sound high-pitched and squeaky due to the gas’ low density.
While the narcotic and voice-altering effects of gases like nitrous oxide may sound appealing to some, these substances can have profound health implications.
As a result, experts warn against the recreational use of these substances.
- Temple Head & Neck Institute. (2018, April 11). How does my voice work? https://www.templehealth.org/about/blog/how-does-my-voice-work#:~:text=When%20you%20want%20to%20speak,we%20listen%20to%20someone's%20voice!
- Beeler, C. (2015, November 2). Why exactly does helium make your voice sound so weird? WHYY. https://whyy.org/articles/why-exactly-does-helium-make-your-voice-sound-like-that/#:~:text=Inhaling%20helium%20makes%20the%20higher,Chipmunk%2Dlike%2C%20flat%20sound
- The Wonders of Physics. (n.d.). Changing voice. https://wonders.physics.wisc.edu/changing-voice/#:~:text=The%20density%20of%20the%20gas,or%201200%20kilometers%20per%20hour.
- Helmenstine, A. M. (2020, February 3). What is the density of air at STP? ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/density-of-air-at-stp-607546#:~:text=The%20ISA%20or%20International%20Standard,water%20vapor%20in%20the%20air.
- Compressed Gas Association. (1990). Nitrous oxide. In: Handbook of compressed gases (pp. 519–525). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-0673-3_46
- The Franklin Institute. (2020, April 1). Change your voice with science. https://www.fi.edu/sparkofscience/experiments-with-density#:~:text=Helium%20is%20a%20less%20dense,emitting%20a%20low%2C%20deep%20voice.
- The Linde Group. (2017, October). Sulfur hexafluoride: SF₆. https://www.linde-gas.com/en/images/Linde%20Sulfur%20Hexafluoride%20datasheet_tcm17-446027.pdf
- Harris, P. D., & Barnes, R. (2008). The uses of helium and xenon in current clinical practice. Anaesthesia, 63(3), 284–293. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2044.2007.05253.x
- Drug Science. (2022, July 1). Nitrous oxide (laughing gas). https://www.drugscience.org.uk/drug-information/nitrous-oxide/#1614731712738-d087d77d-4bca
- Santos-Longhurst, A. (2020, February 3). Inhaling helium: Harmless fun or health hazard? Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/inhaling-helium
- New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services. (2002, April). New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services: Hazardous Substance Fact Sheet (No. 2551–62–4). https://nj.gov/health/eoh/rtkweb/documents/fs/1760.pdf
- IBM Micromedex. (2022, February 1). Xenon Xe 133 (inhalation route): Side effects. Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/xenon-xe-133-inhalation-route/side-effects/drg-20075195
