Did you know every 1 out of 5 adults in the US is suffering from temporary or permanent hearing loss?
Well, you can easily guess the main culprit behind it and who knows you might be having symptoms already that you are here.
But being late is better than reaching never so here are some logical but tested and tried tips and ways to get away with this issue.
How To Prevent Hearing Damage When Using Headphones?
I understand, you can’t live without headphones. But, you can manage it for your safe use, right?
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the best rule of thumb is to “avoid noises that are too loud, too close, or last too long.”
Reference: www.cnet.com
5 ways to prevent hearing loss:
1- Use of Noise Cancelling headphones
If you often use headphones while traveling or during exercise, you are more likely to listen to the music to avoid distraction and the environment not out of fun or for your love for the playlist. In such a case, you will end up increasing the volume every time the outside noise keeps intermingling with the music beating inside.
Isn’t it better to invest in noise cancellation headphones instead of catching a hearing loss problem due to extreme loudness where there is no option of investment for the healing later?
Noise cancellation headphones further have a choice between passive or active noise cancellation headphones, one works through the structure and the other through the system.
Depending on your budget and the need, you can go after either of these two with quite encouraging results.
2- Listening breaks
By chance, if you belong to a professional audio background, it is inevitable for you to keep the headphones on your head most of the time. However, listening to music at high levels now and then is also too obvious in such a situation. But fret not, there is still a very powerful solution at your service that if you swear by it, you will never regret being owned by the audio field. That is, taking frequent and regular breaks amidst the listening. For instance, after every hour, let your ears relax for 15 mins and after three hours, let your ears relax for one hour.
3- Stick to one volume limit
The researchers maintain the notion that if you do not let your volume level exceed above 60 percent and you also keep taking breaks in between, you can get over the risk of procuring any severe hearing damage or ear infection. But make sure to maintain the volume level down to 60 percent on every device you use, including MP4, smartphone, TV, laptop, and speaker, etc.
Because if you are rigid on this rule with your smartphone but your speakers still screams near 80 percent, no use you know.
4- Invest in quality headphones
Due to over demand for headphones among the young generation, the manufacturers are blindly loading the market with all kinds and quality of headphones, varying from good to bad. For saving some bucks, you may invest in cheap likewise poor quality headphones. Some of these may end up with an unbalanced or excessively fed decibel ratio with no direct limit or the source to limit, resulting in hearing damage. It’s better to do your research about a particular headphone brand you are interested in. Such headphones are too loud even at low levels and dangerously loud at the high levels. Please check carefully if your headphones administer the sound with decibels under 60 to 70 to eliminate the risk of hearing damage through headphones.
Read more: Apart from investing in the kind of headphones that possess quality, you should also pay heed to another element: comfort. The quality and comfort together render any headset the energy to be safe and sound. Check out for the best and top comfortable headphones of the year 2020.
5- Switch to headphones from earbuds
The headphones, especially over-the-ear headphones, carry less risk of damaging your hearing efficiency as compared to earbuds or in-ear earphones. The reason is the structure of earphones where you have to insert them directly and a little deeper which minimizes the distance of sound waves and the inner ear where the cochlea relaxes. This way, the sound waves reach the inner ear easily and in less time with twice the effect of vibration, leading you to the danger zone of hearing loss.
What are the types of hearing loss and which one is more usual to occur?
There are three types of hearing loss
- Conductive hearing loss: a kind of hearing loss in which you require extra energy or loudness to understand what is being said or played after losing the sensitivity caused by extreme exposure.
- Sensorineural hearing loss: a kind of hearing loss in which your one ear functions properly while the other one does not respond to the sound appropriately which calls for complete medical testing.
- Mixed hearing loss: a mix and match of both types and it is the one that occurs the most and again usually caused by volume abuse.
However, only an ear specialist can tell you the truth about which hearing loss type you have caught and if you can cover it or not.
Winding Up
If you feel an evident problem in understanding people at their regular tone and pace of talking or if you ask them to talk slowly but loudly after every minute along with some buzzing going on in your ear every time, you might be suffering from hearing loss. Go see a doctor asap!
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