Stop It! You're Damaging Your Hearing Health Without Even Knowing It

Source (CC0 License)

When we talk about health, we usually look at the broad spectrum. However, health is actually made up of lots of different elements. There’s physical health, mental health, oral health, and hearing health. Other types of health exist as well, but we’re going to focus on your hearing health today.


What is it?

Hearing health refers to all elements relating to the state of your hearing ability. This includes problems with your ears, hearing loss, and so on. Having healthy hearing means that you can listen to things with no problems, and there are no signs of hearing loss.

What if I told you that you’ve been damaging your hearing health for years? Worse still, you had no idea you were doing it! This is true for so many people, and here’s what you’ve been doing:

Turning headphone volume up too high

So many people do this as they want to hear music at the highest possible volume. Sometimes, this is to drown out other noises around you. Other times it’s because you really like the song. If you keep doing this, then your ears will be damaged. You can harm the sensors in your ears that pick up sounds. As a result, you start to lose your hearing ability. This leads to full-blown hearing loss, and you’ll end up wearing hearing aids for the rest of your life. So, turn the volume down and maybe invest in some noise-canceling headphones that cut out background noise.

Using loud equipment with no protection

Are you fond of gardening or DIY? If so, then you probably use lots of powerful tools all the time. This includes lawnmowers, strimmers, hedge trimmers, power saws, drills, and so on. These items all create incredibly loud sounds. In fact, the decibel levels they reach are dangerous. If you expose your ears to them too often, then you can end up suffering from hearing loss. Not only that, but you can easily rupture an eardrum and end up in lots of pain. Always wear protection for your ears when you use loud equipment and power tools!

Cleaning your ears with a cotton bud

Who here does this almost all the time? We all do - how else can we clean the wax from our ears?! Funnily enough, audiologists and hearing health professionals have a rule for people to follow; don’t put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear. Basically, don’t insert anything into your ear canal, even if you think you’re cleaning it. The problem is that cleaning your ears with cotton buds is potentially harmful. You’re pushing the wax deeper into your ear canal, closer to the eardrum. This can cause infections and perforations, which may cause long-lasting damage to your hearing. Most earwax cleans itself, but if you have lots of hard stuff built-up, then see a professional for proper ear cleaning.


How many of you are guilty of doing all three of these things? We pretty much all are! In turn, we’re harming our hearing health without even knowing it. Stop doing these things and start improving your hearing health.

| FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA |