From the music through your headphones to the screech of steaming milk in Café Hey, the world can be a pretty noisy place sometimes. With approximately 5% of the world’s population living with noise-induced hearing loss,1 finding ways to minimize your exposure to sound levels that can harm your hearing is crucial.
How We Define Unsafe Sound Levels
There are three factors that go into deciding whether a noise is safe:
- Decibels: the volume of a sound measured in decibels (dB) or A-weighted decibels (dBA)
- Distance: how close you are to the source of the sound
- Duration: the length of noise exposure
For example, if you stand right next to a safety siren that’s generating noise at 120 dB, you’re at risk of immediate hearing damage. If you hear that same sound from a half mile away, your hearing is safe.
Minimizing Your Risk of Hearing Damage
Protecting your hearing is all about controlling the decibels, distance and duration. Take the following steps:
- Lower the volume on your phone. Listen to your music at 80 dB or less. You can set a decibel limit on your phone to avoid turning up the music too loud.
- Wear earplugs. Earplugs significantly lower the volume of the noise around you. Pop a pair in the next time you go to a concert or other loud event.
- Shorten your listening time. The louder you listen to your music, the shorter the amount of time you can safely listen. For example, if you set the volume at 70 dB or below, you’re not likely to damage your hearing, even with prolonged exposure. If you listen to your music at a volume above 85 dB, you should take regular breaks.
- Stand away from amps. If you go to a concert or throw a party, don’t stand near the speakers where sound is more likely to hit dangerous levels.
Controlling the volume, distance and duration of your noise exposure is the best way to safeguard your ears from a common but preventable source of hearing damage. For more information or to schedule a hearing test with one of our specialists, contact Kampsen Hearing today.
Sources
1 Natarajan, N., Batts, S., & Stankovic, K. M. (2023). Noise-Induced Hearing Loss. Journal of clinical medicine, 12(6), 2347. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm12062347