3 Ways To Support Your Hearing Health

Maintaining good hearing health is a lifelong process. You can enjoy music and conversations without straining when you protect your hearing. And for seniors, protecting their ears might help them have better balance and lessen the risk of falls and accidents.

If you have been diagnosed with a hearing problem or not, you can do some things to minimize the risks of it worsening while at the same time improving your general health. The following are three ways to support your hearing health:

Know the Signs

The first step to supporting your hearing health is being able to recognize the signs. For example, if you experience difficulty hearing in a crowd or on the phone, muffled speech, trouble understanding children’s voices or complaints from family members about the high volume of the TV or radio, consider getting a professional hearing test.

Limit the Noise

We live in a noisy world, and noise is everywhere. According to the CDC, the impacts of noise on your hearing will depend on the sound strength and the duration. Avoiding noisy situations is the best way to protect your hearing; however, there are many other ways to protect your hearing from loud noise.

Reduce the Volume

Ensure that the volume on your devices is low. Not being able to hear what someone else is saying or when a person next to you can listen to it too means that the volume is too high. So, if you love music very much, try following the 60 percent volume for not more than 60 minutes everyday rule.

In addition, keep the noise from the TV and radio as low as possible. You will know that your TV volume is too loud if you have to shout or repeat to make yourself heard.

Use Hearing Protection

The best way to protect your hearing from loud noise is by avoiding noisy circumstances, but what if you cannot evade loud sounds? Utilize hearing protection to reduce the noise entering your ears. How effective the hearing protection will work depends on how correctly and consistently you put it on. The common forms of hearing protection are earmuffs, earplugs and specifically made devices.

Earplugs

Earplugs offer an air-tight cover in the auditory canal. Earplugs can be formable, canal caps, custom-molded and pre-molded. Earplugs are very easy to obtain and are convenient. You can have them fitted for your ears by your local hearing instrument specialist (HIS).

Earmuffs

Earmuffs are available in many designs and models. They help protect your hearing by fully covering the external ear.

Specially Made Gadgets

You can get customized hearing protection gadgets designed for your ear. These devices can be active noise elimination headphones that can lower the noise in airplane cabins, earmuffs with inbuilt radios and even shrinking earplugs for concert attendees and musicians.

Follow the Rules

There are rules put in place to safeguard your hearing at work. And if the rules state that you must put on hearing protection, it means that there is a greater risk of permanent hearing damage. So, make sure that you follow the rules of your workplace and use hearing protection.

Wear Your Hearing Aids

Hearing aids are mainly helpful in enhancing hearing and speech understanding in people who have hearing loss that resulted from harm to the inner ear sensory cells. Hearing aids work by strengthening sound vibrations that are entering the ear.

The remaining sensory cells then detect the amplified vibrations and translate them into nerve signals that are later passed along to the brain. Therefore, greater sound amplification will be needed if the hearing loss is severe. If you think you have hearing loss, visit a hearing professional who might refer you to a HIS.

There are different styles of hearing aids that include behind the ear (BTE), in the canal (ITC), and in the ear (ITE). All these types of hearing aid work differently depending on the electronics used, which might be digital aids or analogue aids.

You will be doing yourself a great favor by wearing your hearing aids the correct way. Wearing your hearing aids helps improve your general health and mental health at the same time.

The best way to protect and support your hearing health is by having a robust relationship with a hearing professional. Hearing loss, especially one that resulted from loud noise, is preventable. Take these steps to protect your hearing and be prepared for a better future. Knowing the signs of hearing loss and early detection can help you get more treatment options. Contact us today at (855) 797-8002 to learn more about Niagara Hearing and Speech Clinic and how we can help you with your hearing care needs and ear health.