You want to be courteous when you’re talking with friends. At work, you want to look engaged, even enthralled with what your supervisor/co-worker/clients are talking about. You regularly find yourself asking family to repeat themselves because it was less difficult to tune out parts of the conversation that you weren’t able to hear very well.
You have to move in a little closer when you’re on conference calls. You watch for facial hints, listen for inflection, pay close attention to body language. You read lips. And if that doesn’t work, you nod in understanding as if you heard everything.
Maybe your in denial. Your straining to catch up because you missed most of what was said. You might not recognize it, but years of cumulative hearing loss can have you feeling cut off and frustrated, making projects at work and life at home needlessly difficult.
The ability for a person to hear is impacted by situational variables including background noise, contending signals, room acoustics, and how acquainted they are with their setting, according to studies. These factors are relevant, but it can be far worse for individuals who have hearing loss.
Here are a few habits to help you determine whether you are, in truth, fooling yourself into thinking hearing impairment is not impacting your professional and social relationships, or whether it’s simply the acoustics in their environment:
- Asking people to repeat themselves again and again… and again
- Cupping your hands over your ear or leaning in close to the person who is speaking without realizing it
- Missing what people are saying when on phone conversations
- Pretending to understand, only to later ask others what you missed
- Unable to hear others talking behind you
- Thinking people aren’t speaking clearly when all you seem to hear is mumbling
Hearing loss most likely didn’t take place overnight even though it might feel that way. Acknowledging and seeking out help for hearing impairment is something that takes most people 7 years or more.
So if you’re noticing symptoms of hearing loss, you can be sure that it’s been occurring for some time undetected. Hearing loss is no joke so stop kidding yourself and schedule an appointment now.