Listening and Hearing Better

We all interact with our environment through our senses. Sound is a potentially powerful, but under appreciated component of our lives. Our brains think with words and we listen and obtain much of what we know through listening and hearing well.

Truth be told, our world is getting louder, with noise being an unwanted sound. We’ve all encountered restaurant noise. The roar makes the place vibrate with energy because of all the hard surfaces with nothing to absorb the sound like carpeting or curtains. “I’m sorry,” “what’s that”, and “huh” are part of the table chatter.

Recently we have seen news articles broach the topic of hearing loss. Advice columnists hear from caring husbands or wives who complain their partner doesn’t listen or the TV is too loud. In one case, the husband went and got a hearing assessment and found out he had a high frequency hearing loss (he could hear low pitch sounds) but couldn’t hear women’s or children’s voices. To his family, this made sense when he received his new hearing aids. It was a life changing event for everyone.

In another column, a wife wrote in that her husband has the TV really loud and according to him everybody mumbles. The wife asked her husband to get his hearing aid checked, but he wouldn’t. She was worried if she fell or needed help, he wouldn’t hear her. To the wife, it had become not only a social issue but a health and safety issue for her and him. This columnist told her to ask her husband to write down each time he says “what” or thinks someone is mumbling over the course of a week. She said it would demonstrate to him how much he was missing due to a correctable problem. This columnist commented “Hearing aids are no longer bulky implements we remember from our youth. He should be brave enough to give it a try.”

Wise advice indeed.

Dale & Lyndi Hofstra