Tips to save our Hearing

Hearing loss occurs as a result of either noise damage or aging. Most of us in one point of our lives have had quite unpleasant experiences with our ears, encountering problems ranging from mild infection to temporary loss of hearing. Hearing tends to deteriorates as we grow older, and this is partly due to constant exposure to noise in the environment. Here are useful tips to save and protect our hearing:

• Be careful cleaning your ears. If you use cotton-tipped swabs, do not push them deeper than the opening of the ear canal to avoid packing earwax into the canal.
• Turn down the volume and don't use the stereo to drown out other loud noises. Some portable CD or MP3 players can crank out 126 decibels, which is comparable to a jackhammer or chainsaw and loud enough to damage your ears.
• If you expect to be exposed to loud noises, wear earplugs or earmuffs or both. Each can shave off 15 to 30 decibels. Earplugs muffle low-pitched noises; earmuffs are better for high pitched ones.
• Quit smoking and avoid second hand smoke. Some evidence from animal studies suggests smoking is toxic to the ear's hair cells. And while some studies have not found a connection, one study showed that current cigarette smokers were 70 percent more likely to have hearing loss than non smokers.
• If you are hearing impaired, get yearly hearing test.
• Wear a bathing cap when swimming, dry the ears thoroughly after bathing, showering, or swimming.
• To soften dry, hard earwax use special ear drops.

A constant ringing or buzzing in the ear is an indication of damage to the inner ear. This condition is called tinnitus. Noise induced hearing loss that has affected the ear is irreversible. So protect your ear often from loud noises, our ear doesn't care if the sound is melodic or noise as long as it is loud enough to affect our ear.