Health & Fitness
To Save Your Hearing, Turn Down the Sound
The World Health Organization says to turn down the volume to save your hearing.
The World Health Organization says it may be time to replace your headphones with earplugs because of an increasing exposure to unsafe sound levels from personal devices.
The organization released a report titled “Make Listening Safe,” which outlined the dangers of people’s listening habits, particularly teens and young adults. According to the report, nearly 50 percent of people between the ages of 12 and 35 listen with their headphones’ output at unsafe levels.
“The culture right now is that louder is better,” said Andrea Vambutas, MD, chairman of the Cochlear Implant Center of Otolaryngology and Communicative Disorders at LIJ Medical Center in New Hyde Park. “Louder gives you a better experience of the music. …The problem is some people don’t realize that this results in irreversible hearing loss.”
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Just how loud is that music pumping through peoples’ headphones? The WHO reported that most people listen at between 75 – 105 decibels, the unit used to measure loudness. To compare, 75db is the equivalent of a vacuum, while 105db is like piping the sounds of a bulldozer directly into the ear. This constant exposure can lead to damaging, long-term effects.
“Loud noise can cause a ‘temporary threshold shift,’ or a noticeable and measurable decrease in hearing, which can last from seconds to minutes,” said Maja Svrakic, MD, otolaryngologist at LIJ Medical Center. “At this time, the ear is vulnerable to further noise insults and that temporary shift can quickly become permanent, resulting in noise-induced hearing loss….Once hearing loss occurs, it usually doesn’t come back.”
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Dr. Svrakic’s advice for avoiding hearing loss is to pay attention to when your ears are ringing, a phenomena known as tinnitus.
“Buzzing in the ear is a warning signal for hearing loss, and most people who have hearing loss first notice the ringing,” she said. “I frequently see patients whose only complaint is tinnitus and they are surprised to find out that they do have hearing loss on an audiological test.”
If the ringing continues after a certain amount of time, she suggests you visit your doctor.
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