Tips For Maintaining Good Hearing Health

Maintaining good hearing health is crucial to preserving your ability to hear throughout your lifetime. Some simple steps that you can take to maintain good hearing health include avoiding exposure to loud noises whenever possible, wearing hearing protection in noisy environments, and keeping your ears clean. Regular hearing check-ups with an audiologist can help identify any potential issues early on and allow for prompt treatment. Additionally, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, including regular exercise and a well-balanced diet, can also contribute to good hearing health.

Stop Smoking

Quitting smoking is a good idea for your overall health, of course, but studies have shown there is a definite correlation between smoking and hearing loss, and therefore, if you want to maintain good hearing health, you need to stop smoking. When you smoke, the nicotine and carbon monoxide in the cigarettes causes problems with your circulation. Since healthy blood flow ensures enough oxygen gets to all parts of the body, and since good blood flow and oxygen is essential for keeping your inner ear cells healthy, you can see how a problem here would potentially cause hearing loss.

The good news is that if you quit smoking, it won’t take long for your body to repair itself and for the cells in your ear to become healthy again. This will improve your hearing, so the sooner you stop smoking, the better.

Lower the Volume

If you consistently listen to music or are around noise that is higher than 85 decibels, your hearing will be at risk. Ideally, you should move away from anything that is causing this kind of noise, but if you can’t, perhaps because you are at work or you’re choosing to listen to music through earbuds (or similar), you should turn the volume down.

This is, of course, easily achieved if you are in control of that volume, as you will be if you’re listening to music through your own device or watching TV, for example. But what if you are not in control and you can’t move away from the noisy problem? In that case, you need to wear ear protection. You can choose from ear defenders or earplugs, and by wearing these, you can lower the volume of the noise happening around you. In fact, if you work in a noisy environment, these should be given to you as part of your equipment; if they’re not, you need to speak to someone in charge about this, as your job should not cause you harm.

Exercise Every Day

Much like quitting smoking, exercising regularly (and ideally every day for around twenty to thirty minutes) is great for every aspect of your health. Yet perhaps unusually, it’s also specifically good for your hearing, so if you want to protect your hearing health, exercise is the way to go.

The reason that good exercise is great for maintaining good hearing health is that it gets your blood flowing and improves your circulation. We’ve mentioned that the cells in your ear need to be healthy to work as they should, otherwise hearing loss can occur, and when there is good blood flow, this ensures they do stay healthy.

Exercise doesn’t have to mean running or playing sports, or even going to the gym. A brisk walk can be enough, as can chores around the house like vacuuming, decluttering, or gardening. So even if exercise isn’t something you particularly enjoy, there are still a number of ways you can get fitter and take care of your hearing at the same time.

Book a Hearing Test

One of the best things you can do if you want to keep your hearing working well and maintain your hearing health is to book a hearing test with a qualified audiologist. This is a great thing to do whether you feel you have hearing loss or not – it’s just like seeing your dentist on a regular basis or having your eyesight tested regularly.

When you have your hearing tested, you can be sure that all is well, or you can find out if there are any issues that can be dealt with efficiently and before they become too serious. You can also find out plenty of advice about how to take care of your hearing.

If you already have hearing loss, then it’s just as important to keep up with your audiologist appointments. The experts will be able to determine any progression in your hearing loss and will offer information about what might be done to help you, such as whether weaning hearing aids is a good step to take. To book an appointment with a friendly audiologist at Quality Hearing Aid Center, give us a call today at (248) 430-8791.