What Does Constant Headphone Use Mean For Our Hearing?
Many of us where headphones for most of our waking hours. Whether you use Beats, Air Pods, or alternative headphones that do not double as status symbols, there’s a very real question about what long term headphone use means for hearing loss. As one hearing study, among many, suggests that it’s really not much of a question at all: chronic headphone use is associated with hearing loss.
Of course, individual results tend to vary. No two people use headphones exactly the same way, and headphone behavior has a great deal to do with how much hearing loss will manifest in a person’s life. Here are some of the most important factors when determining how much or little your headphone use will make a difference in your hearing down the road.
Time Matters - If you wear headphones all day, you have a greater likelihood of damaging your hearing than someone who wears headphones only occasionally. In the study linked above, it’s shown that teenagers who used headphones for listening sessions of 3 hours or more (at least when long sessions like these were common practice) were more likely to have tinnitus (ringing in the ears) than those who listened through headphones for shorter durations.
Frequency Matters - Not only does the length of a session matter, the frequency of these sessions is also a factor. 2 hours of headbanging to Crowbar with earphones once a month probably won’t make a big difference, but doing this every single day almost certainly will. Even for those who do not listen to loud music, frequency of headphone listening sessions should be an important consideration. Give your ears breaks.
Volume Matters - Obviously, volume is the single biggest contributor to hearing loss than any other, with likelihood of hearing damage increasing with duration and decibel. Those who listen at more than 85 dB LAeq, FF show the biggest change in hearing threshold. If you don’t happen to have a decibel reader app on your phone, or carry a unit in your pocket, just be very conscious of the volume at which you are listening to your music with headphones.
There are other interesting factors at play in hearing loss. Women tend to report subjective hearing loss more frequently and pessimistically than men, but men actually suffer worse hearing loss overall. This could be due to factors other than headphone use, but men also report greater time spent with personal listening devices, and also report listening to music at higher volumes.
What most studies fail to take into account is the style of audio consumed with headphones. Is the person who listens to podcasts all day at the office going to suffer the same hearing loss as the person blasting Meshuggah on headphones in their cubicle? Science may not have made a firm statement on this, but common sense says “no.” The spoken word found in podcasts usually does not have the same frequency range as popular music, nor are these frequencies compressed to provide maximum subjective “loudness” in a mix. Finally, podcast listeners tend not to need high volumes to get the most out of Ira Glass, though music fans do tend to like loud listening sessions.
Be careful with your ears. Once hearing is lost, there’s no easy fix to bring it back. Tinnitus is a chronic condition once you’ve got it. It may be possible that by the time we’re old, some solution for hearing loss has come along, like laser eye surgery with poor vision. But as this solution has not yet materialized, take care of the ears you have. They might have to last you for the rest of your life.
Everybody needs sleep, but not all of us find it very easy to get. While some people seem to be able to nod off any and everywhere, others are afflicted with insomnia, which is the inability to fall asleep despite being tired or exhausted.
So what’s the difference? Why do some find it so easy to sleep while others don’t? It turns out, like so many common problems people face, there is no one answer to this problem. However, there are some common factors which many people will recognize.
First of all, if you find yourself nodding off during the day, this may actually be a problem. Perhaps you aren’t sleeping fully at night (this is a common symptom of undiagnosed sleep apnea). You may have some other form of narcolepsy, which can be dangerous if you find yourself falling asleep behind the wheel. For other people, being tired during the day is simply a sign of being an adult. You work hard, the family is demanding, and you want to nap during the day.
However, if the root of your problem is poor sleep at night, this is a problem you should solve. Sleep is important, and going without it can have all kinds of mental and physical consequences, especially if you are chronically sleep-deprived for long periods of time. For people like this, ashwagandha from the Standard Process brand may offer some natural relief, but let’s take a look at other causes and solutions for sleep deprivation as well.
You Might Be A Night Owl - Some sleep studies indicate that there are honest-to-goodness sleep styles hardwired into individual physiology. You might be what’s called a “morning lark” - someone who wakes early in the day feeling rested and happy. You might also be a “night owl” - someone with a body that naturally wishes to sleep only late at night, long after the larks are cozily nested away. This can be a challenging conundrum for students, office workers, and other people with lives that require them to be up early every single morning.
Chemical Sleep Problems. Chemicals like alcohol, drugs, and all kinds of prescription medications can alter sleep, preventing us from getting the Zzzs we need. If you regularly consume drugs legal or illegal (and we’re counting alcohol), seriously consider whether or not it is having a negative impact on your sleep, and whether your chemical of choice is worth this deleterious effect. You may have no alternative, as with a lifesaving drug, or you may want to reduce that amount you drink, if only to get the rest you so badly need.
There are numerous sleep aides that can help, as can vigorous exercise. In most cases, if you’re really and truly tired, your body will sleep. Avoid naps for a day, even if you had terrible sleep the night before, and go to bed early. Wake up with an early alarm, and don’t hit snooze. Rinse and repeat for several days, and you’ll likely have a new natural bedtime. However, if you like going to bed late and you don’t have any reason to wake up early, consider just going with the flow.
If none of these points seem to relate to your specific problem and experience, perhaps it’s time to go to a sleep specialist. Sleep doctors know more about sleep than you do, and they may be able to identify fixable problems that you’d never stumble upon yourself. If that sounds like a lot of work, please no that sleep should be a priority. Sleep does such important work in the body and mind that, even when we feel willing to sacrifice it, we literally can’t do without it.
