We often don’t appreciate how essential our sense of hearing is until it’s too late. Socially, mentally and physically, our lives are enhanced with good hearing. If you’re not safeguarding your hearing or disregarding your hearing loss, you are compromising your overall health in ways you may not have recognized. Here are just a few of the many advantages of healthy hearing:
Enhanced Physical Health
After getting hearing aids, 21 percent of individuals who responded to a Hear The World Foundation survey reported exercising more frequently. And at least once a week, 34 percent of participants reported engaging in some sporting activity.
Improved Mental Health
Clinical depression, as well as the development of dementia and Alzheimer’s have been connected to hearing impairment according to researchers at Johns Hopkins. Luckily, many of these issues can be prevented or even reversed by using hearing aids.
Stronger Relationships
When you’re in a relationship, nothing is more essential than the ability to communicate. This is particularly true with friends and family. Frustration, miscommunication, and ill will can result from hearing loss. By improving your hearing by using hearing aids, you will be better able to engage in conversations, especially in crowded rooms, public places, or other areas with lots of background sound.
Improved Mental Abilities
In people with hearing loss, a 2016 study showed that wearing hearing aids improves brain function. Cognition is disrupted by hearing loss as the brain makes use of additional resources trying to hear and understand.
Reduced Tinnitus Symptoms
Hearing aids allow people who have experienced hearing loss to hear sounds they couldn’t previously hear. By increasing the stimulus between the brain and auditory pathways, hearing aids can help mask and reduce tinnitus symptoms. Hearing aids also offer volume controls that allow the wearer to effectively drown out tinnitus sounds.
Reduced Fatigue
If you’re expending more energy than normal to listen to and understand everyday conversations, it can create anxiety, sleep disturbances, fatigue, and even exhaustion. In addition to helping you effectively communicate, hearing aids also help you use less energy attempting to hear.
Improved Safety
Better hearing means you will be able to react to important sounds and noises that occur in your day-to-day life. Using hearing aids ensures you can hear alarms, sirens, cell phones, doorbells, and car horns, as well as other traffic sounds that identify approaching vehicles.
Reduced Headaches
Headaches and even migraines commonly come with tinnitus which can, in turn, make the tinnitus symptoms even worse. Using hearing aids can decrease the symptoms of tinnitus, and thus reduce the frequency and intensity of headaches and migraines.
Clearer Speech
Young children who are still establishing early language skills need to have any hearing concerns treated as soon as possible. There may be fluid inside of the child’s inner middle ears canal which could need a tube to be surgically implanted for drainage. A hearing aid might be necessary for more serious conditions to ensure they’re learning to speak precisely and clearly.
Even adults enunciate and communicate better when they hear clearly.
Improved Workplace Confidence
Effective communication is crucial to accomplishing your daily work duties. Not being able to hear important conversations with your coworkers can lead to misunderstandings, missed deadlines, and tasks going unfinished. You will get more satisfaction and take greater pride in your career when you eliminate these issues by wearing hearing aids. Better workplace communication and increased production will also improve the attitude of your coworkers.
If you think you’re suffering from hearing impairment and are fed up with missing important conversations, you should contact a hearing professional in your area as soon as possible. These professionals can help determine your level of hearing impairment, as well as whether your hearing – and general health – would benefit from wearing hearing aids.
References
- https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/hearing_loss_accelerates_brain_function_decline_in_older_adults
- https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/in-the-journals-hearing-aids-may-help-improve-brain-function#:~:text=A%20study%20to%20be%20published,according%20to%20lead%20researcher%20Dr.