Did you know your earphones are making you deaf? Here's how.

Fact: Roughly 1.1 billion people worldwide within the age group of 12-35 have been found to be at an increased risk of developing hearing problems.

Listening to loud music on handheld devices using earphones has become a common trend among youngsters these days. You might find it very relaxing to plug in your earphones and escape into your own world of music, but you need to know that this can cause serious damage to your ears. The worst part: you won't realise your ears are being damaged until it's too late.

So, exactly how is loud music damaging your ears?

Continuous exposure to loud music from earphones or other sources results in a medical condition known as Noise-Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL), which can be associated with irreversible damage to the ears resulting in deafness.

When you hear loud music for a considerable amount of time every day it affects your hair cells (nerve cells responsible for sending sound signals to the brain) negatively, so that their ability to respond to sound decreases. If this keeps on happening for many months, eventually the hair cells are damaged beyond repair. These cells cannot be regenerated, making you permanently deaf.

How loud is too loud?

If your ears are exposed to sounds at 95, 100, 105, 110 and 115 dB (decibel, the unit used for measuring sound) for 4 hours, 2 hours, 1 hour, 30 minutes and 15 minutes each day respectively, your ears are at risk of getting severely damaged. Also, playing music at 120 dB or above can damage your ears instantly. You can have a realistic idea about the relation between decibels and sounds you commonly hear by referring to this list:

30 dB: soft whisper
75 dB: busy traffic
90 dB: noise of a motorcycle at 25 feet
100 dB: noise of a farm tractor
140 dB: jet plane taking off
Moreover, if you experience the following symptoms regularly, there's a high chance that you need to get your ears treated soon:

A ringing sound in your ears when you are at a quiet place, which vanishes after a few minutes
You need to raise the volume of TV or music to the fullest to hear it properly
You have difficulty in hearing people talking at a distance of just 3 feet
Tips For Safer Listening

Use earplugs: The louder the noise and the longer you're exposed to it, the greater the chance of damaging your hearing. Protect your ears with ear protectors   earplugs or earmuffs   and get away from the noise as quickly or as often as you can. 
Turn down the music: Don't listen to your personal music player at very high volumes and never to drown out background noise. If the music is uncomfortable for you to listen to, or you can t hear external sounds when you ve got your headphones on, then it's too loud. It's also too loud if the person next to you can hear the music from your headphones.
Use the 60:60 rule: To enjoy music from your MP3 player safely, listen to your music at 60% of the maximum volume for no more than 60 minutes a day. 
Wear headphones: When listening to your personal music player, choose noise-cancelling headphones, or go retro with older muff-type headphones. Ear-bud style headphones and in-the-ear headphones are less effective at drowning out background noise. 
Turn down the dial: Turn down the volume on your TV, radio or hi-fi a notch. Even a small reduction in volume can make a big difference to the risk of damage to your hearing. 
Use earplugs when you re listening to live music: They can reduce average sound levels by between 15 and 35 decibels. They re widely available at many live music venues and shouldn t spoil your enjoyment of the music.
Don't put up with work noise: If you re experiencing noise at work, talk to your human resources (HR) department or your manager and ask for advice on reducing the noise and getting hearing protection.
Wear ear protectors: Wear ear protectors (earplugs or earmuffs) if you are using noisy equipment such as power drills, saws, sanders or lawn mowers.
Be careful in the car: Listening to music in a confined space increases the risk of hearing damage. Don t listen to music too loud for too long.
Have a hearing detox: Give your ears time to recover after they ve been exposed to loud noise. According to Action on Hearing Loss, you need at least 16 hours of rest for your ears to recover after spending around two hours in 100dB sound, for example in a club. Reducing this recovery time increases the risk of permanent deafness.

Your Headphones Can Turn You Deaf!! 

While most noise is just in the background for us, loud noises, either in small spurts or prolonged exposure, can cause hearing loss. This has been happening more frequently as the levels of noise in an industrialized society go further up.

Noise induced hearing loss explained
Loud noises may damage the sensitive structure of your ear, which process the sound waves into information. They eventually become nonfunctional, resulting in a loss of hearing in that range. If exposure to loud noises continues, then this might extend to the entire range of hearing and may cause total hearing loss.

What may cause noise induced hearing loss?
Some of the scenarios which may cause noise induced hearing loss are as follows:
1. Listening to music on high volume: If you constantly listen to music or watch movies at your home on very loud levels, then it may result in noise induced hearing loss. In fact, listening to music or watching movies with headphones in your ears is one of the leading causes for hearing loss. Headphones have deceptively loud levels and may result in damaged hearing overtime.

2. Noise of household tools: Household tools such as drills, mixers, grinders, mowers, and saws can expose you to loud levels of noise. Even a quick exposure for a few seconds could temporarily damage your hearing. 

3. Occupational problems: Occupations such as construction, factory work and military that require the use of power tools on a constant basis can also cause hearing loss. The sound from the resulting friction might damage your hearing very quickly. Explosions and impacts are also causes of hearing loss in the military and law enforcement departments.

Prevention and treatment
Treatment: It is difficult to treat hearing loss as in most cases; it may be permanent, except sudden shocks, when your hearing might come back to normal. The only treatments for hearing loss are hearing aids or cochlear implants which can restore hearing partially.

Prevention: Prevention is the best method to avoid hearing loss and in most cases, you should wear ear protection such as mufflers or sound level reduction devices to protect your hearing. Also, practice listening to music, watching TV or movies at lower levels, especially if you are on the headphones. 

Induced Hearing Loss - Facts You Should Be Careful about It!

Your hearing is one of the most important function your body carries out and sometimes you realize that you are losing your sense of hearing, when it is too late to get it back. There are two main reasons for this. One of the reason is age  and the other is when the inner ear's hair cells break down and do not pick up sound well. Here are 7 ways to safeguard your hearing.

1. Try to avoid loud places
It is not advisable to go to places where you have to shout to be heard, such as in a street, a concert or a construction site.

2. Buy low noise rating equipment
The equipments in your house will make sound that you hear the most. Try to avoid these equipments by buying appliances with a low noise rating.

3. Wear hearing protection at loud places
However, it is true that it is not always possible to avoid loud noises. This is when you need to get hearing protection. Earplugs and earmuffs are two of the best ways to make sure that even when you are in a loud place, your hearing does not get affected. Earplugs and earmuffs generally reduce sound by 15 to 30 decibels, which may be crucial to make sure that later in your life, you do not lose your hearing.

4. Avoid smoke
Smoking raises your chance of hearing loss. Second hand smoke does the same thing. Therefore, try to avoid, both smoking and secondhand smoking. 

5. Remove earwax properly
Earwax cannot be removed properly using a cotton swab. Instead, you should use an irrigation kit. Remember this as otherwise; the earwax could muffle your hearing.

6. Avoid medications which reduce hearing
Certain medications increase hearing loss. Therefore, double check with your doctor to make sure your medicines will not make you lose your hearing.

7. Get your hearing tested
Finally, get your hearing tested as identifying the problem early on can help stop worsen the situation.

7 Tips to Safeguard Your Hearing

Hearing loss is not something limited to elderly men or elderly women only. This is something that can affect any adult at any stage of life. The good news is that it can be managed. Today, there are a number of hearing aids that can help improve hearing ability. These aids allow an individual who has lost part of his or her hearing to live a normal life. For best results, hearing loss should be arrested in its early stages.

Here are a few signs you should look out for.

Muffled Speech: When you hear people talk, their speech should be clearly identifiable. If you hear muffled noises that you have to interpret as words, it could be a sign of hearing loss.
Difficulty understanding words: The human ear has the ability to separate conversational sounds from ambient noise. However, in some cases where the inner ear is damaged, a person might find it difficult to separate the two. In such cases, the person might not be able to understand words clearly as they get confused with background noise. This is a sign that must never be taken lightly.
Feeling the need to ask people to repeat themselves: Once in a while if you find yourself asking another person to repeat what he or she said, there is nothing to worry. However, if this becomes a regular occurrence and happens with many people, then the fault lies in your hearing. Thus, if you notice yourself needing to ask people to repeat themselves or talk slowly, consult a hearing specialist.
Increasing the volume of the radio or television: As children, we are taught that playing music or watching TV at a very high volume can damage the ears. The radio, television and other such appliances should be played at a volume where the information being relayed is clearly audible and people can have a conversation alongside without needing to shout. If you find yourself having to increase the volume constantly, it could be a sign of hearing loss.
Withdrawing from conversations: As hearing loss is aggravated, people begin to feel conscious of having to ask others around them to repeat themselves or talk slowly. This can make them withdraw from a conversation and other social situations. In many cases, the simple reason for avoiding a party could be the discomfort of not being able to hear the other person clearly in a conversation.
 All hearing problems can be better handled by proper investigation, different test, sign and symptoms of the patient, which are carried by a specialist of hearing, called as AUDIOLOGIST, who can look your hearing problems, plan out treatment plan, rehabilitation pre and post etc. Audiologist will definitely help you hear again. 

Common Signs Of Hearing Problems In Adults!

Using a hearing aid presents a number of advantages to a hearing impaired person. First and foremost, you will hear a lot better. Hearing aids do not restore your hearing to normal but they improve it significantly. It becomes easier to hear what other people say. Sounds you have not heard for a long time such as birds singing, door bell ringing, the howling of the wind and water running may become audible to you.

Hearing aid usually improves the user s social, psychological and physical sense of well being.

Study as well as experience shows that hearing aid generally improve the quality of life and will help you:

Get a better relationship with your family
Feel better about yourself
Get better mental health
Improve your physical well being
To concentrate better
Feel more independent and secure
Feel less tired or exhausted
Be more able to participate in social gathering
Be able to increase your social contact
Be able to do better in your job  
Hearing aid will help you to reduce tinnitus
Hearing aid will help you to avoid dementia by helping you to hear and improve cognitive functioning
As you start hearing through hearing aid, you will start socializing yourself and indirectly improve your quality of life.
Why you need to wear two hearing Aids?

Better understanding of speech
Better understanding in group and even in noisy situation
Better ability to tell the direction of the sound (Localization)
Better sound quality
Greater listening comfort
Hearing is less tiring and more pleasant
Keeping both ears active preserves speech understanding in both ears
Effective tinnitus masking
Better understanding of listening to radio and television
Speech will be clear

Advantages Of A Hearing Aid!

Proper and sound hearing is essential for a healthy living. If you are suffering from lack or loss of hearing, chances are that you are missing out on life itself. Therefore, it is imperative that you undergo ayurvedic treatments in case you are suffering from any kind of hearing ailment.

Common Cause of Loss of Hearing
There are various reasons that contribute to the loss of hearing. Some of the common causes are:

Age
Increasing noise
Genetically inherited
Over the years various surgical and non-surgical methods have surfaced that can help repair loss of hearing and damage. Among the other branches of medicines, some home remedies, and ayurvedic treatment for hearing loss and deafness.

Ayurvedic Remedies Fo Hear Loss
Ayurveda is the most old and ancient method. It uses natural herbs in order to correct and treat hearing loss. This has proved to be extremely beneficial and potent and it cures hearing ailments with the help of a number of natural home methods. Some of them are:

Lukewarm mustard oil or sesame oil: If you are suffering from ache in ears or loss in hearing, try putting few drops of warm mustard oil and sesame oil in your ear and hold it with index fingers. At the same time store air in your mouth and let your cheeks contract and bulge for a minute or so. This ayurvedic tip considerably improves hearing and reduces ear pain.
Radish juice and sesame oil: If you are suffering from sores and hearing problems, a mixture of the two can be beneficial. In this ayurvedic method, a small quantity of Radish juice should be boiled with a small quantity of sesame oil, till the juice absorbs the oil. This mixture should be administered twice a day in order to experience the results.
Applewood oil: A variety of ingredients are required in order to create the resultant oil. Initially, cow's urine should be boiled and the applewood powder must be added to it. This mixture should then be filtered and further added with sesame and goat's milk. This concoction is then boiled and the resultant oil should be stored and applied with cotton daily. This improves hearing a great deal.
A mixture of neem and turmeric: In this natural home remedy, turmeric and neem leaves are boiled together. The steam should be taken as well as the water must be applied to the ears and surrounding areas. This has proved to be an extremely effective remedy in treating pus in the ears and consequent hearing loss.
A mixture of Radish juice, turmeric, sesame oil, and ajwain seeds: All these ingredients must be taken in selective quantities and boiled to get the resultant oil. This oil must be stored and used to treat loss of hearing and other ear diseases.

5 Ayurvedic Tips To Improve Hearing

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