Until there is an infection or noticeable hearing loss, you likely don’t pay much attention to your ears and how they function. In fact, in many cases, hearing loss becomes significant before most people schedule a hearing test and learn how hearing aids can improve their quality of life. In an effort to help you understand and even respect your ears and hearing a little more, we’ve put together this short list of three neat hearing facts you may not have heard before.
1. A Bad Hair Day Means Hearing Loss
Inside the inner ear or the cochlea, there are thousands of tiny hair cells topped with stereocilia that turn vibrations into electrical impulses that your brain converts to sound. Loud noises can damage the stereocilia and once that happens, the hair cell carrying it dies. Unlike your body hair, these little hairs do not re-grow once they wear out or become damaged and permanent hearing loss is the result. The loss can range from trouble hearing very high-pitched sounds, to losing full frequency ranges, depending on your exposure to loud sounds, or simply with age.
2. Heavy Sleepers Hear Everything!
Have you ever wondered how some people can be awoken by the lightest of sounds and others could seemingly sleep through a bomb drop? This anomaly doesn’t mean one person hears better than the other. In fact, your ears never shut off! Even in the deepest of sleeps, your ears continue their work and send information to your brain so it can process it into sound. However, some people’s brains are just better at ignoring the sounds while it’s trying to rest.
3. The Truth behind your Recorded Voice
If you have recorded yourself speaking or singing and were shocked by how different you sound compared to what you hear, you’re not alone. When you’re hearing your own voice, the sound is being processed from both inside and outside of your body at the same time! The vibration of your vocal chords travels through fine bones in your neck into your inner ear and the sound that comes out of your mouth is processed through your outer ears as normal. No one else ever hears your voice this way, since they only hear you from their own ears. When you hear yourself on a recording, you’re getting the same version of your voice that everyone else does.
Whether you’ve been exposed to plenty of loud music, heavy machinery at work or have simply never had your hearing tested before, now is the perfect time. A relatively quick, totally painless and very comprehensive hearing test at our hearing clinic will identify any problem areas and help ensure your hearing lasts you a lifetime.
