Being able to clearly hear the world around you is a great and valuable thing. It will deepen your appreciation of music, it’ll allow you to hear oncoming trucks before you step off the sidewalk, and it’ll allow you to more fully interact with other people, even well into old age.
When it comes to hearing deterioration, prevention is better than cure. By taking care of your ears, you’ll be able to enjoy them for much longer. But what exactly does this mean? Let’s take a look at five steps to take for optimal ear-health.
Stop using cotton swabs
The build-up of earwax doesn’t actually diminish your hearing (though it might look unpleasant). It’s there to protect the skin, protect the helpful microbes that live inside your ear, and to generally clean the place up. After all, your body wouldn’t create a substance that was harmful to you. By jamming a cotton swab in there to clean things up, you risk acting against your body’s natural defences. You also risk perforating your eardrum, which can require surgery to fix.
Protect your ears around loud noises
Your hearing isn’t adapted to deal with excessive volume over a long period of time. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors, after all, didn’t have to contend with building sites or factories or nightclubs. If you’re frequently attending heavy metal concerts (or any concerts at all, really) then wearing earplugs will help.
Turn the volume down
When you’re wearing headphones, it can be tempting to crank up the volume. You want to be able to hear everything, after all! But doing this in the long-term will reliably damage your hearing. It’s for this reason that most modern phones will warn you when you’re pushing the volume up past what’s sensible.
Dry your ears out
If you listen to headphones when you’ve got wet ears, then you’re putting them under greater strain, as the intricate machinery of your inner ear doesn’t work quite as well when it’s wet. Wait until your ears are fully dried before you expose them to loud noises.
Get your Hearing Checked Regularly
By having a medical professional take a look at your ears, you’ll be able to notice any deterioration before it becomes seriously problematic. Moreover, you’ll be able to take advantage of any preventative measures to mitigate hearing loss while they still have a chance at being effective! You can take hearing tests online now, meaning that you won’t need to wait for an appointment or take much time out of your day.