When Should You Wear Hearing Protection?

According to a study by NIH, hearing loss is significantly more frequent than you might believe, affecting one out of every eight Americans. While a large portion of this amount is due to old age and conditions that affect hearing, another part is due to exposure to excessively loud noises. 

What’s important to note is that many cases of hearing loss can be avoided if people start to care for their hearing and protect their ears from loud noises. 

Here, we explore the reasons why it’s crucial to protect your hearing and in what situations you should opt for hearing protection. 

Why Hearing Protection is Important

The inner ear is a truly remarkable part of the body, but it is also exceedingly delicate. Just as many body systems start to deteriorate in performance when we grow older, our hearing will also begin to decline as we age; this is something everyone expects. However, if you damage your hearing when you are younger, you may find it difficult to hear at all as you get older and your hearing quality will start to decline sooner than you expected.

Unfortunately, symptoms of hearing loss are irreversible. Once you've damaged your hearing, there's no going back, which is why it's critical to take care of your ears and always to wear appropriate hearing protection when necessary.

When Should You Wear Hearing Protection?

If you’re not sure when exactly you need to wear hearing protection, consider the following:

• It's crucial to wear ear protection if you're exposed to loud noises or a busy working environment for most of the day, no matter the type of work you do. For example, you can be a sound technician for concerts or work on a construction site with loud noises everywhere; the important thing is to be cautious and always protect your ears. Hearing protection is also recommended when handling firearms or operating heavy machinery.
• If you're not sure whether your workplace is noisy enough to necessitate ear protection, ask your boss to take a sound measurement. If the noise level surpasses 85dB, you should wear ear protection at work. if your ears ring after daily activities such as work, hobbies or even when you return home from outdoors, then it could be because of the trauma from loud noises that you're exposed to. 

Indeed, some loud noises and situations can cause temporary hearing loss, taking minutes or hours to recover from.

More so, if you’ve ever felt that your ears hurt or are uncomfortable when performing your hobbies, working or simply walking around outside. It could be an ear infection or an early indicator of hearing loss and now is the time to take better care of your ears by investing in a set of earplugs. When you're exposed to loud noises and have to shout to be heard, it's a warning that the atmosphere is loud enough to impair your hearing permanently. Shouting is on the verge of becoming a dangerously high level of noise, so if you feel the need to shout at work to communicate, make sure you're wearing hearing protection.

If any of the points mentioned above sound familiar to you, then it might be time to schedule a visit to an audiologist that can assess your hearing and offer the best pair hearing protection that will suit you and your lifestyle. 

Remember that if you only wear your ear protection from time to time, or do not wear them correctly, then they can’t be efficient. It’s also important to note that music earbuds or headsets are not a substitute for hearing protection and should not be used in situations when hearing protection is necessary.