If you have found that you have had to ask people to repeat themselves more and more often, it may signal that you have a hearing loss. It’s easy to believe that these occurrences are of little consequence, however, undiagnosed and untreated hearing loss can make it difficult to communicate and cause tension in your personal and professional relationships. Ultimately these rifts can cause anxiety, sleeplessness and chronic depression. While hearing loss in most cases is irreversible, it can be treated effectively with hearing aids. These tiny devices offer so many benefits, once you become used to them, you will definitely wonder how you lived without them in the first place. Here are just a few ways that hearing aids can change your life.
Clearer Communication
While hearing loss occurs in the ear, it is communication that is primarily affected. Damage to the inner ear, due to exposure to loud noise, head impact, certain medications, infection or even old age can make it impossible for certain aspects of sound to reach the brain to be processed. As hearing loss progresses, this will become worse. It is often only certain parts of words, such as consonants or tones which are hard to hear, forcing the brain to work overtime to process what is being said with the existing hearing. Hearing aids amplify these sounds so it is easier to hear again. If you are feeling like speech is muffled, certain words are difficult to hear, you’ve been relying on lip-reading to hear or you have to move to a quieter room to hear people speak then hearing aids can help.
Boost Confidence
Not being able to hear can be exhausting. All the energy your brain has to use to hear with missing parts of speech can create what is known as listening fatigue. What may have been an easy conversation for someone with normal hearing can leave you completely feeling worn out. This makes the allure of social situations less appealing and it is all too common for people with untreated hearing loss to self-isolate.
However, hearing aids can change this cycle. You will not strain to hear when you commit to wearing your hearing aids daily. This means you’ll have extra energy that you didn’t have before which you can devote to social activities. You may find yourself feeling much more confident and going out more. Perhaps you will start pursuing hobbies or pastimes that you used to love but had put aside due to hearing issues. When you can communicate clearly, you can share your ideas and feelings with the people in your life. When you feel understood, it can boost your self-esteem and help to fight depression.
Improved Relationships
Not only will you be able to participate and follow in conversation but you can also begin to rebuild relationships that may have become strained from years of hearing loss that has been ignored or undiagnosed. Relationships suffer when you can’t communicate clearly and tensions can progress into resentment. As you start to get used to your new hearing aids you can start to heal those relationships. You will be able to not only hear your loved one’s clearly but rebuild intimacy.
Higher Earnings
Hearing loss not only affects your personal relationships but your relationships at work as well. As mistakes and misunderstanding at work pile up over the years due to untreated hearing loss, your co-workers and employers come to have less reliance on your performance. A recent poll reported that more than 31 million people in the US report some level of hearing loss and about 37 percent of them are within retirement age. This signals that 63 percent of those with hearing loss are still in the workforce.
However, of working people who could benefit from hearing aids, statistics show that only 23 percent wear them. Even more alarming is that one study found that households where the primary earner had untreated hearing loss, experienced a loss of around 2.25 thousand dollars for every decile of hearing loss. The good news is that households in which the primary earner wore hearing aids experienced a 50% increase in earnings in comparison to those who did not treat it. This means that hearing aids can help you stay desired and valued in the workplace and this translates into higher earnings.
Strengthen Overall Health
Not only do hearing aids help you stay connected but they help you stay healthy. Your total health is connected, so the emotional impact of untreated hearing loss can affect your habits and your health. Act today, schedule a hearing test and find out what hearing aids can do for you.