A common question I hear is “Why do I need to wear my hearing aids if I am home alone with nothing to listen to?” Our brain is designed to focus in on any new sound, and even if there is no one talking to you, there are always sounds in our environment. It is important for our brain to be hearing these sounds, be it water running, paper rustling, the floor squeaking, so that we can learn to know what they are and not dwell on them. I liken it to moving in next to a train track. The first time a train passes, you stop everything you are doing and think that you will never get used to the sound. A month later, the train makes just as much noise, but you don’t even notice it. This results from your brain processing the sound, deciding that in this situation hearing a train is not important, so it doesn’t bring it to your conscious awareness. The bottom line is; the more you wear your hearing aids, even in quiet settings, the better your brain becomes at dealing with sounds, and the better you will ultimately hear when you really need your hearing aids.
The Real Impact Of Sensorineural Hearing Loss
It's More Than Just Not Hearing Sounds Unlike most of our blog posts about hearing loss, this specific one has been written with the family and...
