The Human Connection - Communication Hearing is one of the most precious and most overlooked senses.
Helen Keller once said that she would rather be blind than deaf because being deaf separates you from communicating with the world.
But, in order to have a conversation you must listen to what the other person is saying and you must be able to hear.
Unfortunately, the world in which we live is hazardous to your hearing.
The world is constantly assaulting the delicate organ of your inner ear and there really is no way to avoid it.
Sensorineural loss, or nerve deafness, happens in the inner ear.
Thousands of tiny hair cells take the sound that is sent in through the ear and pass it along to the brain.
Noise, aging, drugs, and other toxins can all harm these hair cells and cause you to have hearing loss.
The severity of yourloss is related to how much damage has happened to these hair cells.
The chances are good that if you don't have hearing loss now, you will have it someday.
Hearing Happens In the Brain.
Your ear, however, is the beginning of how you hear.
Hearing really does not happen in the ear, it happens in your brain.
The way your brain processes sound is different than another persons.
As we age, our brains begin to lose the ability to quickly process information.
So, the older we grow, the more important it becomes to stimulate our brain in order to help slow this process down.
When you have this type of loss, the brain is no longer being stimulated with sound like it was before.
Over time your brain forgets what things sounded like when you could hear well.
The longer you wait to get hearing help, the harder it will be to get accustomed to aids.
Often, people are not able to be helped because they waited too long to get help.
Unfortunately, because they waited, their brain can no longer understand speech.
Sound Overload When people first start wearing hearing aids they hear things they often haven't heard in many years.
The brain acts like an alarm and alerts you to these sounds, trying to identify them.
People often think their car is falling apart because they can suddenly hear their engine sounds again.
One man kept thinking his aids were whistling on and off only when he went outside.
He was actually listening to birds chirping for the first time in 20 years.
These sounds of life are full of information that stimulates your brain and helps it to be more aware of your surroundings.
They are important not only to keep your brain active, but also for your safety.
Not Too Late If you have been missing out on life's sounds or missing that vital part of communication, it is not too late.
Hearing Aids may be able to help.
Speak to an audiologist or professional near you and schedule a hearing evaluation.