Is Hearing Loss Avoidable?

Instead, I am going to write about what you can do to avoid the second-leading cause of hearing loss — noise-induced hearing loss.

Did you know that one in four U.S. adults have noise-induced hearing loss? That’s a lot of people (at least 40 million)! The good news is that you can protect your hearing in most situations. And if you practice good hearing protection, not only do you increase your chances of avoiding noise-induced hearing loss, it will go a long way toward helping you avoid age-related hearing loss, which is the number one cause of hearing loss.

Here are a few ways to protect your hearing (and help avoid hearing loss):

Minimize Your Exposure to Loud Noises

This is the best way to avoid hearing loss. How do you know what’s too loud? Environments where you have to raise your voice to talk to other people, where you can’t hear what people nearby are saying, where the noise hurts your ears or, really, where any noise exceeds 85 decibels are too loud.

Wear Hearing Protection

There are times when you are put into loud situations or environments and you simply can’t avoid them. These include certain work environments, sporting events, concerts, bars/clubs, mowing your lawn, etc. In those situations, you should use hearing protection.

Hearing protection comes in a variety of different styles including ear plugs, custom plugs, “earmuffs” and more.