4 Ways to Damage Your Hearing

Our ears may possibly be our most mistreated body part. We pierce them, subject them to deafening noise, shove cotton swabs inside them, and burn them with ear candling. Despite supplying us with one of our most critical senses, we rarely give our ears, or our hearing, much gratitude or consideration.

That is, up until there are problems. Then, we understand just how essential healthy hearing really is—and how we ought to have figured out proper ear care sooner. The secret is to recognize this before the harm is done.

If you desire to avoid issues and preserve your hearing, stay away from these 4 hazardous practices.

1. Ear Candling

Ear candling is a method of eliminating earwax, and also, as one researcher put it, “the triumph of ignorance over science.”

Here’s how ear candling is done. One end of a thin tube made of cotton and beeswax is inserted into the ear. The other end is set on fire, which supposedly creates a vacuum of negative pressure that sucks earwax up into the tube.

Except that it doesn’t, for two reasons.

First of all, the ear candle doesn’t create negative pressure. As explained by Lisa M.L. Dryer, MD, earwax is sticky, so even if negative pressure was created, the pressure called for to suck up earwax would end up rupturing the eardrum.

Second, while the wax and ash resemble earwax, no earwax is in fact found within the ear candle following the treatment. Clinical psychologist Philip Kaushall investigated this by burning some ear candles the customary way and burning other candles without inserting them into the ear. The residue was exactly the same for both groups.

Ear candling is also dangerous and is strongly opposed by both the FDA and the American Academy of Otolaryngology (physicians specializing in the ear, nose, and throat), if you require any other reasons not to do it.

2. Using cotton swabs to clean your ears

We’ve covered this in other posts, but inserting any foreign object into your ear only presses the earwax against the eardrum, creating an impaction and possibly a ruptured eardrum and hearing loss.

Your earwax consists of advantageous antibacterial and lubricating properties, and is organically expelled by the regular motions of the jaw (from talking and chewing). All that’s required from you is standard showering, or, if you do have issues with excessive earwax, a professional cleaning from your hearing practitioner.

But don’t take our word for it: just take a look at the back of the package of any pack of cotton swabs. You’ll find a warning from the producers themselves advising you to not enter the ear canal with their product.

3. Listening to exceedingly loud music

Our ears are simply not equipped to deal with the loud sounds we’ve learned how to create. In fact, any sound louder than 85 decibels has the potential to produce irreversible hearing loss.

How loud is 85 decibels?

An everyday conversation registers at about 60, while a rock concert registers at over 100. But here’s the thing about the decibel scale: it’s logarithmic, not linear. This means the jump from 60 to 100 decibels does not make the rock concert twice as loud, it makes it about 16 times as loud!

Similarly, many earbuds can generate a similar output of 100 decibels or higher—all from within the ear canal. It’s hardly surprising then that this can create permanent harm.

If you prefer to preserve your hearing, ensure that you wear earplugs to live shows (and on the job if necessary) and keep your portable music player volume at about 60 percent or less of its maximum volume (with a 60 minute listening time limit). It may not be cool to wear earplugs to your next concert, but premature hearing loss is not much cooler.

4. Dismissing the signs of hearing loss

Finally, we have the troubling fact that individuals commonly wait nearly 10 years from the beginning of symptoms before searching for help for their hearing loss.

That indicates two things: 1) people unnecessarily suffer the effects of hearing loss for 10 years, and 2) they render their hearing loss much harder to treat.

It’s true that hearing aids are not perfect, but it’s also true that with modern technology, hearing aids are exceptionally effective. The amount of hearing you get back will be based on on the extent of your hearing loss, and seeing that hearing loss has a tendency to get worse over time, it’s best to get tested and treated as soon as you notice any symptoms.