How to Protect Our Hearing

To protect our ears, let’s follow “a sound diet”: turning it down when we can, being aware of our daily sound dose, taking quiet breaks to rest our ears, and carrying and using earplugs when we need to.

There are three factors affecting how and when noise will affect hearing, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.

We can remember them as the “3 D’s”:

Decibels: how loud or intense the sound is

Duration: how long we are exposed to the sound

Distance: how close we are to the sound

When using personal listening devices, aim for 50 to 60 percent of the maximum volume for 60 minutes at a time. Let’s rest our ears and periodically remove headphones or earbuds, or be in quiet after a concert, just like we rest our eyes from looking at screens or our muscles after a workout.

The goal isn’t to avoid loud events entirely, but to live a balanced hearing life to benefit our overall well-being.

In addition to the music we listen to, we’re also exposed to everyday sounds that can be dangerously loud. The New York Times recently summarized the harm to our overall health from environmental noise.

For noise that we can address, such as the neighbor’s gas-powered equipment, we can stop, block, and walk away, while also keeping our own volume that we can control within safe limits.

Hearing conservation is a healthy habit for every stage of life because once it’s gone, it’s gone. So if it sounds too loud, it is too loud.

We want you to keep listening, safely.

Source: https://hearinghealthfoundation.org/keeplistening/protect