An exciting day is right around the corner: World Hearing Day! The World Health Organization established this annual holiday to promote awareness and healthy practices about your hearing. This year’s theme for March 3rd’s World Hearing Day is “Check Your Hearing!” When it comes to getting a hearing test, some people feel resistant to the exam. The World Health Organization’s suggestion is the first step to assure better hearing health now and far into the future.
Why World Hearing Day?
Based in Geneva, the World Health Organization is an international organization tasked with health education and promoting healthy practices to make the world a better place. They take hearing health very seriously, knowing that hearing problems and deafness afflict so many across the globe. We know the value of hearing loss prevention which includes wearing protection in the workplace, noisy environments, and even on public transportation. The World Health Organization acknowledges that some people are unaware of the hearing loss they have already experienced, whether through exposure to damaging noise levels or from other reasons. With those facts in mind, they established World Hearing Day to point people around to the world toward healthy hearing practices. This year’s theme is specifically focused on the necessity of checking your hearing.
Why Check My Hearing?
Many people find ways to avoid treatment and make accommodations for hearing loss, without realizing how much damage this can do to their overall health and well-being. The World Health Organization recommends that everyone over the age of 50 should have a regular hearing check, along with anyone under the age of 50 who works in a noisy environment or is otherwise exposed to loud sounds. Even those who simply enjoy listening to music at loud volumes, either at live concerts or through headphones or earbuds, put themselves at risk of damage.
A hearing test is an excellent way to monitor your hearing abilities. When our hearing ability starts to diminish, we begin to work around gaps in our listening experience, both consciously and unconsciously. Consciously, you may avoid situations that will make hearing very difficult, such as a dinner with family or friends in a noisy restaurant. You may also find yourself hesitant to attend a party where voices will be difficult to make out in conversation. In addition to these conscious decisions, you may be doing things unconsciously to assist your own hearing. Some of these tactics include watching the mouth of a speaker to get extra help understanding what they have to say, reading between the lines in conversations by searching for context clues, and orienting your body in a way to maximize hearing ability.
Although these strategies and habits can be effective to a point, they do not provide the assistance needed to truly address hearing loss. The results of a hearing test give you a full picture of your hearing abilities and play a crucial role in treating hearing loss.
Treating Hearing Loss with Kenwood Hearing Centers
Hearing loss affects many different areas of your life, from your relationships to your physical and emotional health. Seeking treatment for hearing loss brings significant benefits beyond simply the ability to hear. Even if an annual hearing test finds that you do not have a hearing loss, establishing a baseline of your hearing ability is useful for monitoring your overall health and well-being. If a hearing loss is found, our team at Kenwood Hearing Centers will consult with you to review the details of your exam, and help you understand why certain environments and situations may make conversations difficult.
With this knowledge in hand, our team can make recommendations to allow you to be more confident in situations when listening is challenging. Often this recommendation will include the use of hearing aids, and the World Health Organization concurs that these should be made available to all with hearing loss around the world. Approximately 466 million people live with hearing loss around the world, and these measures can move many of these people from disability to recovered ability through assistance. This March, get on board with World Hearing Day, and schedule your test with us at Kenwood Hearing Centers!