Hearing is something that many of us can often take for granted. Imagine not being able to hear your loved one’s voice or being able to listen to your favorite songs? It’s important to look after your ear health, just as much as you look after your teeth or general health. Here are five things that could be impacting your hearing.
Having The Television On Too Loud
Most of us love watching television. Whether it’s to catch up with the latest boxset series or to have an evening of Netflix. However, one thing that we can sometimes be unaware of is how loud our television speakers can be. It might not be something that you’re aware of, especially if you’ve conditioned your ears to find that level of noise acceptable. However, if you’ve got small children in the room with you watching TV, think about how loud it is when their ears are probably not used to that volume. Even more so, their ears are not fully developed, and so you can be doing some serious damage. To practice a better level of sound, try turning your TV down to a lower setting and really concentrating your ears to listen to the sound. This will help train your ears to listen without having the volume on high. Hopefully, you can still save your hearing if it hasn’t already been affected.
Infections And Illnesses
We all have times where our body is affected by ill health or infections, and one area that tends to suffer the most is our ears. Infections around the ear can cause pain, but typical illnesses like the flu can impact your hearing, if only temporarily. It may be though that you can take medicines whilst you have these infections and illnesses that can help with reducing any swelling or pain in the ear that’s affecting your hearing.
Headphone Volume Too High
This is likely to be something that you’re unaware of too, and it can be handy sometimes to whack your headphone volume on maximum to block out what’s happening around you. But that red warning sign as you crank up the headset volume of your phone or tablet is important. Many of us have no idea of the damage that this could be doing to our ears, and so you should be rethinking how loud is too loud when it comes to headphone volume. The ideal sound level should be somewhere between 85 to 90 decibels. Anything over this and used over a long period of time can lead to hearing loss. Most standard headphones will be able to emit sound well over 100 decibels, and that can be critical to our hearing. Practice lowering your headphone volume where possible, and if you can, try to avoid wearing your headphones for long periods of time.
When it comes to headphones, you want to go with a pair that are high-quality in terms of their sound but are also comfortable when sitting on top of or in your ears.
Build Up Of Ear Wax
Ear wax is made in the outer ear canal, and it protects the skin in your ear. It provides lubrication but also a defence against bacteria and other harmful things like fungi, water, and insects that can become problematic if it gets into your ears. A build-up of ear wax though can, in fact, cause some problems with your hearing, and too much of it might be hindering it a lot. Using cotton buds to try and clean out your ears is probably the most common thing people do to try and get rid of ear wax, but that’s actually pushing it further into your ear. This means that you can be causing more damage and affecting your hearing. If you want to remove excess wax, then it’s worth seeing a professional to clean it out effectively. And if that doesn’t help, then hearing aids may be the next thing to consider.
Your Job
Depending on your job, your ears may be directly affected if the proper safety procedures are not put in place. If your job is on a worksite, for example, and you’re working with loud machinery, you need noise-canceling headphones. If you avoid wearing these or your company isn’t providing them, then this could be very dangerous to your ear health. Continuous use of loud machinery without the proper protection has and will lead to hearing loss.
Looking after your ears is very important, so make sure you do your part in protecting your ear health.
*collaborative post
