You can’t always prevent hearing loss. For many people, it’s a natural part of aging. However, certain bad habits and lifestyle choices could increase the risk of developing hearing loss earlier.
By protecting your ears, you can prevent premature hearing loss. The following post explains exactly how to protect your hearing.
What Causes Premature Hearing Loss?
There are a few different things that can damage our ears and cause premature hearing loss. Ear infections that are not treated may cause irreversible hearing loss. Injuries from sports or activities like diving can also cause hearing damage. There are even links between smoking and a higher risk of hearing loss.
However, the most common cause of premature hearing loss is prolonged exposure to loud noise. The cells in our ear are only able to withstand so many decibels before they get damaged. Eighty-five decibels tends to be the point when hearing damage can occur – which is roughly the average volume of a busy city street. Power tools, rock concerts and motorsports vehicles are all typically much louder than this.
How To Protect Your Hearing from Noise Exposure
There are a few ways in which you can protect your ears from noise exposure:
Wear Earplugs
Earplugs are a form of hearing protection that can help to reduce exposure to loud sounds, helping to prevent hearing damage. Nightclubs, rock concerts, construction sites and motorsports events are some of the environments where you should typically wear earplugs.
There are different types of earplugs that you can look into. Some are designed simply to muffle sounds, while others can help to reduce the volume of sounds while maintaining a level of clarity.
An alternative form of hearing protection to earplugs is earmuffs. Earmuffs typically offer less hearing protection, but they are easier to put on and take off.
Keep Your Music at a Sensible Volume
Do you like to listen to your music at a loud volume? You should be careful not to crank the volume up too much so that it exceeds 85 decibels as you could be damaging your hearing.
You should take particular care when wearing headphones. Many devices now warn you if the volume level is too high. Generally speaking, you shouldn’t be able to hear your music clearly through your headphones while they’re not on your head – if you can, then the volume is too loud.
Give Your Ears Time to Recover
If you’ve been hanging out in a loud environment for a few hours such as a nightclub or rock concert venue, you may be able to reduce the risk of long-term damage by resting your ears afterwards. Spend the next day in a quiet environment and try not to subject your ears to any louder noise. Your ears need their recovery time.
Know the Signs of Hearing Damage
You can usually tell when hearing damage is occurring – the noise will usually be uncomfortable and possibly even painful. You may also get a buzzing sensation in your ear. When this happens, you should try to cover your ears or take a break from that environment.
Ringing in the ears is usually a sign that hearing damage has already occurred. If you’re playing music loudly, consider pausing to see if you experience ringing – this could be a sign that you’re listening to your music too loudly and you need to turn it down.
What to Do When Your Experience Hearing Loss
Hearing loss as a result of noise exposure is usually quite gradual. You may start to notice that you find it harder to hear what people are saying or that you have to turn up the TV much louder. People may have to shout or repeat things to get your attention. Social events in places with lots of background noise could be quite draining as you may struggle to hear people.
Hearing loss may be accompanied by tinnitus, which usually takes the form of a ringing or buzzing sound within the ear. Tinnitus may cause difficulty getting to sleep or may affect your ability to concentrate at work.
Fortunately, there is a simple solution to hearing loss and tinnitus. By getting a hearing aid you can restore some of your hearing to a more normal level. A hearing instrument specialist can help you choose the right type of hearing aid.
Book an appointment today
At Audio Hearing Aid Service, we are specialists in hearing. Whether you need advice on hearing protection or are looking to buy a hearing aid, we can help. Contact us today at 330-244-9881 or 330-364-6637 to book an appointment.
