You’ve heard it a thousand times but it bears repeating: Prevention is better than the cure when it comes to health. People can live longer and healthier lives by taking care of their health.
People may not take advantage of preventive health because they don’t know what it means or how important it is. Preventive health means you don’t wait to get help until you’re sick, addicted, or in a health crisis. Instead, you can do things early in life that makes it more likely that you won’t have health problems as you get older.
With preventive health, you are encouraged to make good choices about your lifestyle. This gives you the best chance of staying healthy and avoiding long-term problems like diabetes, addiction, and mental health problems.
The best way to keep your hearing healthy and avoid hearing loss is to protect your hearing.
Did you know that about 25% of adults ages 20 to 69 experience hearing loss caused by noise? This means that you or someone you know probably has hearing loss in one or both ears.
What is noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL)?
NIHL, which stands for noise-induced hearing loss, is one of the most common types of hearing loss. Damage to the cells in the inner ear is what’s causing this hearing loss. These cells turn sound waves into electrical signals and send the signals to the brain. But loud sounds can hurt these fragile cells. They stop sending messages to the brain, so you start to lose your hearing.
What causes NIHL?
NIHL is caused by sounds that are too loud and could hurt you. Musicians who practice and perform for long hours could lose their hearing because of the noise. Long days on noisy construction sites can cause hearing loss in people who work there. Farmers, factory workers, police officers, and people who work in airports are just some people who risk losing their hearing every day because of noise.
Some hobbies can also lead to hearing loss from noise. Hearing loss can be caused by riding a motorcycle or ATV, firing a gun, going to a concert or sporting event, or even mowing the lawn.
How to keep your ears safe
You can protect your hearing in a few ways:
- Get out of the way of the noise. You can protect your hearing if you can move away from the source of the noise. You could move away from the speakers at a concert or leave the area to protect your hearing.
- Wear protection for your ears. If your job makes a lot of noise, you can’t quit. Most of the time, we can’t just walk away from the noise. And many of the things we like to do can be loud. Putting on hearing protection is a great way to protect your hearing. Earplugs of foam can lower the volume and protect your ears’ cells. Earmuffs make a seal around your ears and protect your hearing even more from deafening noise.
- Reduce the volume. Do you turn up the sound when you listen to music? Noise-caused hearing loss is most often caused by listening to music on personal devices. When the volume is turned up, the sound can hurt your hearing in just a few minutes. To protect your hearing, turn down the volume.
How we can help
If you notice something wrong with your health, you visit a doctor. And if your hearing changes in any way, it’s time to see a specialist in hearing health. A hearing test is the first step. This test doesn’t hurt you in any way. You will put on headphones and listen, then let us know when you hear something. This test lets us determine the softest sound we can hear. It tells you if you have hearing loss and what ranges are hard for you to hear.
If you have trouble hearing, we’ll help you find the best hearing aids for your needs and how you live. Some of our most popular devices have advanced speech enhancement programs that make it easier to hear conversations even in noisy places. Many of our devices have batteries that can be charged, so you won’t have to worry about replacing them. Some even have features that let you connect them to your phone so that you can use even more features.