Hearing Health Influences your Lifestyle
We all want the best possible life for all of us. We often do this by earning more money, working hard, saving for rainy days, and taking care of our body. Rarely do we think that our hearing health also has an impact on the quality of our daily lives.
We need more than a big house and fancy gadgets to make our lives worthwhile. We also need to be able to actively engage with our environment so that we can make the most out of the world we live in. It is not possible to do this if we have hearing loss.
With hearing loss, our ability to communicate greatly diminishes. Our personal and professional relationships suffer, our work performance takes a nose dive, and we begin to withdraw socially. Hearing loss takes a toll on our mental and physical health, thereby directly impacting our standard of living.
Hearing loss is not like any other physical ailment, in that it also has an added negative impact: stigma! Many people are embarrassed to even admit that they have a hearing problem. People often become defensive when confronted with it, and may be in denial for years before finally seeking help.
Loss of hearing can make a person irritable and angry, as it increases stress in the body and mind. It can also be exhausting to constantly try to make out what everyone is saying with limited sound input. This can lead to anxiety and depression. Over time, people with hearing loss tend to withdraw from social activities to prevent feeling left out during conversations.
Our family relationships may suffer due to communication problems. Others may begin to avoid us and we may feel a sense of rejection and pessimism creeping in. We may even pose a threat to ourselves and our loved ones in the fact of danger if we are unable to detect threats in our environment due to the inability to hear.
Hearing loss also increases the chances of developing dementia and causes significant cognitive decline. Our memory functions may deteriorate and we may even lose our ability to communicate over time. We may even begin to become paranoid of our environment and those in it.
In the workplace, our hearing loss affects our ability to understand presentations and meetings. As a result, our effectiveness at work plummets. We may lose out on promotions and we suffer a major loss of income annually. Over time, we may even lose our job due to our inability to work effectively due to untreated hearing loss.
The average person waits anywhere between 5-10 years before they seek help for their hearing difficulty. By this time, they may already have suffered negative consequences in terms of their social, vocational, and personal life. We all want the best kind of life and we can start by taking good care of our auditory health. If you suspect that you have hearing loss, seek help today by getting your hearing tested by a hearing care professional.