5 Ways You Can Damage Your Hearing

Hearing is an important means to communicate with others. When you can’t hear, you can have a difficult time listening to various sounds and so communicating can be a struggle. Loss of hearing can take a toll on your social, emotional, physical and psychological health.

There are many things that can affect one’s hearing. While noise is one of the most common cause of hearing loss, there are other means that can happen to you, too.

1. Your Occupation

Your work could affect your hearing. While work is not the real cause of hearing loss, the noise involved or heat during working hours can lead to it. For instance, people who are exposed to sounds more than 85 decibels can damage your hearing permanently. According to statistics, ten million people in the United States are now suffering from irreversible hearing damage from noise and about thirty million are exposed to hazardous or dangerous noise levels each day.

2. Music

Your music can contribute to ear damage and hearing loss. The use of personal audio devices like earphones and headphones plus frequent exposure to loud entertainment venues may predispose a person to hearing loss. Listening to music or sounds more than 100 decibels could lead to hearing loss, particularly if it’s done for prolonged periods.

3. Smoking

Smoking will not only affect your lungs but your hearing, too. Smoking can increase your blood pressure, constricting the blood vessels in the body.

When this happens, it could lead to the narrowing of the blood passages, obstructing the flow of blood to important parts of the body, including the ears which, as you probably guessed, could lead to hearing loss.

4. Medicines

Some medicines could lead to hearing loss and ear damage. The common drugs involved are antibiotics, cancer drugs, high doses of aspirin or ibuprofen, some diuretics, and heart failure drugs.

5. Car or bike

Lastly, did you know that you might be damaging your ears by driving? The traffic can put an amount of noise and stress on your ears. This is particularly worse in people who drive in convertibles.

Are you doing these things? If yes, you should limit the amount of noise or sounds you’re listening to or you can seek the advice of an audiologist.