Maintaining Good Hearing Health: Lifestyle Practices for Prevention

For many people, their hearing often takes a backseat to other areas of their health until later in life. This is mainly because hearing issues generally concur as you get older. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything before your older years to help you ensure your hearing is in good health and you are doing everything you can to preserve your hearing levels.

While not all hearing loss can be prevented, sometimes hearing loss can be hereditary and many lifestyle factors can affect your hearing. This post looks at what these are and what you can do to eliminate or minimize your risk of hearing loss in these situations.

Avoid Loud Noises

Loud noises are one of the most common ways people develop hearing loss. Sustained ongoing sounds over 80 decibels can harm your hearing and lead to hearing loss, as can being near extremely loud noises exceeding this level just once, for example being around explosions. To help you avoid hearing loss from noisy environments, wear ear protectors such as earplugs or noise-canceling headphones to help you reduce or minimize the noise if you cannot prevent it.

Stay in Good Health

Did you know your blood pressure and heart health can directly impact your hearing? If you have high blood pressure or heart disease, your blood will be pumping harder and this increased pressure can damage the tiny blood vessels in your ears and contribute to hearing loss. Have your blood pressure checked regularly and take steps to improve your heart health to help you avoid this lifestyle problem. Diabetes also impacts your hearing, and research has shown that people with diabetes are twice as likely to experience hearing loss than those who aren’t.

Clean Your Ears Correctly

Many people feel the wax build-up in their ears and want to remove it quickly. In doing so, they use cotton swabs, which can worsen the issue and the swab can push the wax further down into the ear. Ears are self-cleaning and will dispel any wax naturally, but you can use a saline solution, olive oil or a damp towel to help you clean your ears if you need to. Your hearing health professional will show you how to clean your ears properly.

Eat a Healthy Diet

Food rich in B12, potassium and magnesium are proven beneficial to hearing health. Including food with high levels of these vitamins and minerals in a well-balanced diet can help preserve your hearing loss.

Get a Checkup

One of the easiest ways to ascertain your hearing level and avoid damage is to have regular checkups. Your hearing health professional will help you to understand your hearing better and work with you to ensure you aren’t doing anything that can damage your hearing. If you have hearing loss, they can discuss the suitable treatment options for you, whether removing earwax build-up or being fitted for a hearing aid; going to your hearing health professional regularly helps you improve your hearing levels.