Being hearing impaired can impact every aspect of your life. You may find it challenging to communicate with friends, family and co-workers. Additionally, being in public can become uncomfortable or even embarrassing for some people. Fortunately, options are available to help people with various forms of hearing loss. In the U.S., about 15% of adults have hearing loss. About two to three children out of 100 have detectable hearing loss at birth. If you fall into this 15% of adults, you may be able to improve your hearing.

Improve Your Hearing Loss Knowledge

Hearing loss refers generally to various conditions that affect your ability to hear sounds. There are several basic types of common hearing loss:

• Conductive hearing loss: Something interferes with sound getting through the middle or outer ear.
• Auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder: The ear picks up sound normally, but the person has damage to the inner ear or hearing nerve that causes the brain to hear disorganized sound.
• Sensorineural hearing loss: This occurs when someone has a hearing nerve or inner ear problem.
• Mixed hearing loss: Mixed hearing loss involves two types of hearing loss

There are various degrees of hearing loss as well. Someone may have mild to moderate or severe to profound hearing loss. In mild hearing loss, you may struggle with making out soft sounds, whereas moderate loss results in hearing no speech at a normal volume level. People with severe hearing loss may not be able to hear anything but loud sounds and yelling, whereas profound hearing loss cannot hear any speech. 

5 Simple Ways To Improve Your Hearing

If you have symptoms of hearing loss, learning mitigation techniques can be a game changer. Understanding your symptoms can also help physicians diagnose your hearing loss and help fit you with appropriate hearing instruments.

1. Find the Right Hearing Aid

The most important way to improve hearing is to have a suitable device fitted for your ears. Measurements of your ears can help you choose the correct size of hearing aid. Likewise, it can help you verify the amplification levels. Poorly fit hearing aids can leave sore spots on your ears or cause you to hear a constant whistling sound. The wrong hearing aid could worsen your hearing if you aren't careful. The Atom Pro has many features to improve your hearing and protect you from outside noise. These aids come in the smallest sizes available, so you don't have to worry about the discomfort of too-large hearing aids. They also have enhanced feedback cancelation to control what you hear in public. The Atom Pro has a portable charging case you can take anywhere.

2. Practice Active Listening

Active listening can help you focus on speech. If you have hearing loss, you know what it's like to miss parts of a conversation. Problems with listening can occur because of mental health problems and processing disorders as well as physical hearing loss. During a conversation, try not to let your thoughts be diverted from the conversation at hand. Instead, paraphrase the discussion in your head while you are listening. This activity can help you to pay attention to others' speech. To practice active listening, you can also use audiobooks. Listen to an audiobook while reading along with a hard copy. By reading along, you are practicing active listening. The more you practice, the more you develop this habit, so you may find it easier to focus on a conversation even with background noise.

3. Use Protection for Ears

If you have hearing loss, turning up the volume on your stereo or headphones might seem to make sense. Unfortunately, loud music and noises can make your hearing worse. The vibrations damage various components of your ear. To improve your hearing, protect your ears from loud noises. The best way to stay protected is to limit your exposure. Determine where you are more likely to be exposed to loud sounds. For example, you may not want to go to noisy clubs or concerts without a pair of earplugs. If you go to a county fair, race or fireworks show, make sure to have earplugs or noise-canceling headphones on hand. You don't need earplugs only for special events, either. Carry earplugs on you at all times in case you end up in a situation where loud noises could bother you. When listening to music, never turn it up more than 60% of the maximum volume for no more than 60 minutes daily. Whenever you listen to loud music or have headphones on, give yourself breaks so your ears can recover.

4. Go for Regular Walks

How often do you focus on your cardiovascular health? When you think of countering hearing loss, you probably don't think about regular exercise. However, if you walk at least two hours a week, you have a lower risk of developing hearing loss or worsening existing loss. If blood flow cannot reach the hair cells within your ears, then your ears cannot correctly translate sound into electrical impulses for you to process. Exercise increases your blood flow, improving your hearing health.

5. Play More Games

There are games specifically designed to help improve your hearing skills. Computer games to help individuals with their hearing feature subtle sound changes to guide the player to solve a puzzle. The player must practice listening carefully to win. In addition, your hearing ability is directly tied to your brain function. You can play puzzle games to sharpen your mind and computer games to improve your ability to focus and follow a conversation. Give your mind regular workouts by doing word searches, Sudoku or crossword puzzles.

Improve Your Hearing With Better Hearing Aids

Strengthening your ability to hear can change your quality of life. You can do simple activities every day to reduce hearing loss or help you focus on speech so you can communicate better with others. Finding the right hearing aids is another vital way to combat hearing loss. Check out our various rechargeable devices to improve your hearing ability.

https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/hearingloss/types.html

https://areahearingandspeech.com/2020/03/04/five-ways-to-improve-your-hearing/

https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/statistics/quick-statistics-hearing

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-hearing-brain-training/brain-training-games-may-help-older-adults-with-hearing-loss-idUSKBN1D22OZ