How to Protect Your Ears While Still Enjoying Music

Listening to music is meant to be an enjoyable, not damaging, experience. The 60/60 rule offers a simple guideline: keep the device’s volume at 60% or lower and take breaks after every 60 minutes of listening. This prevents overexposure and oversaturation, and gives the ears ample time to recover.

Noise-canceling headphones can also help maintain safe listening levels. Regular headphones don’t block out external noise, and listeners often increase the volume on their device to compensate. Noise cancellation technology removes background noise, making it easier to hear clearly without turning the volume up too high, especially in loud environments.

Open-back headphones are another good choice. Their design allows air and sound to pass through the ear cups, reducing sound pressure inside the ear. This creates a more natural listening experience and encourages users to keep the volume within safe limits.

Many users switch to bone-conduction headphones in the belief that their technology is less damaging to the ears, but this isn’t supported by evidence. While bone-conduction does bypass the eardrum, it nevertheless still causes the cilia in the cochlea to vibrate, and can be just as damaging as other earphone technologies.