For most people, your hearing gradually deteriorates with age, and about half of the time it’s caused by genetics that are out of your control.
But years of regularly attending room-rumbling concerts, for instance, can exacerbate hearing loss, and you might find yourself straining to hear movies or struggling to follow group conversations.
“When we’re young, we think nothing can ever threaten us,” said Dr. Howard W. Francis, a professor of otolaryngology at the Duke University School of Medicine. But 55 percent of U.S. adults have disabling hearing loss when they’re 75 and older. And if hearing loss goes untreated, it can raise your risk of developing conditions like dementia and depression.
Fortunately, there are steps you can take to protect your ears. Here’s what experts suggest you do — and what you should avoid.
Do: Be mindful of loud sounds
Other than aging, exposure to loud noises is the most common cause of hearing loss. And the longer you’re exposed, the more likely it is that your hearing will be damaged, said Dr. Dunia Abdul-Aziz, a board-certified otolaryngologist at Harvard Medical School.
Hearing an extremely loud sound, such as an explosion, even once can cause permanent hearing damage. But hearing loss is more often the result of “cumulative exposure that you’ll notice later on in life,” Dr. Abdul-Aziz added.
Concerts are an obvious culprit, but you can also lose hearing after years of watching fireworks, operating loud machinery, attending music-blasting exercise classes or using your headphones at full volume.
Repeated exposure to sounds around 85 decibels (like the sound of a power tool) can potentially damage your hearing, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Loud sounds can damage the tiny hair cells in the inner ear that translate sound into electrical signals the brain can understand. Once those hairs are damaged, they won’t grow back, experts said.
It can be difficult to tell whether your environment is noisy enough to cause damage, but there are signs to watch for: If you need to shout to speak to someone a few feet away, your hearing is probably at risk, according to O.S.H.A. Many smartphones and watches can also alert you if your surroundings reach potentially harmful volumes, said Patricia Gaffney, president of the American Academy of Audiology. The same goes for the volume of music in your headphones.
If noisy environments contribute to the ambience of a space, you don’t necessarily need to avoid them altogether. Instead, wear earplugs, Dr. Abdul-Aziz said.
“It’s the best thing you can do” to protect yourself, said Dr. Nandini Govil, a pediatric otolaryngologist at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Emory University.
Don’t: Use Q-Tips
You may be tempted to use Q-Tips to scratch an itch or remove earwax. But resist the urge.
Skin cells in the ear are “almost like a conveyor belt,” Dr. Francis said; when new skin cells grow, dead cells migrate outward and carry earwax with them, he said. So cleaning your ears yourself usually isn’t necessary, and using a cotton swab comes with risks.
These small wads of cotton can push wax into the ear and cause buildup, Dr. Francis said. If a swab goes too far into your ear, it can puncture the eardrum and cause hearing loss, Dr. Govil said. And in rare cases, the force from pushing the swab inside your ear can dislocate the tiny bones behind the eardrum that help transmit sound through the ear, Dr. Abdul-Aziz said.
Pieces of cotton can also get stuck inside the ear and obstruct hearing, Dr. Govil added.
If you still want to clean your ears, consider rubbing a warm washcloth along the outside without entering your ear canal, said Dr. Frank Lin, a professor of otolaryngology at Johns Hopkins University. If you have buildup in your canal and don’t have other ear problems, you can purchase over-the-counter earwax softener drops and flush the ear with warm water using a rubber bulb syringe, Dr. Francis added.
Do: Test your hearing
Just as you might get your blood pressure checked annually, consider testing your hearing at home or with a doctor regularly, too, Dr. Lin said.
It’s easy to feel blasé about your hearing when it’s a “black box” you don’t know anything about, he explained. But hearing tests give you a score. And when you crystallize your hearing into a number, “it’s very truth-telling,” he said. “Numbers don’t lie.”
The World Health Organization recommends adults ages 50 and older test every five years until they turn 64. Then, testing can increase to every one to three years.
Don’t: Brush off hearing changes
If you experience sudden hearing loss in one or both ears, treat it as a medical emergency and visit an otolaryngologist or audiologist within 72 hours, Dr. Gaffney said.
Sudden hearing loss is often treated by administering “a bunch of steroids,” she explained, but the longer you wait, the less effective they’ll be.
“Some people think when they have a sudden hearing loss, ‘Oh, I’ll just wait it out and see if it gets better,’” Dr. Gaffney said. But “you’re under a time clock.”
Katie Mogg is a reporter covering health and wellness and a member of the 2024-25 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
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