In conversation with friends, you want to be polite. At work, you want to look involved, even enthralled with what your manager/co-worker/customers are talking about. You frequently find yourself asking family to repeat themselves because it was easier to tune out parts of the discussion that you couldn’t hear very well.
You need to move in a little closer when you’re on zoom calls. You watch for facial cues, listen for inflection, and 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 you’re in denial. You missed a lot of the conversation, and you’re struggling to keep up. Life at home and projects at work have become unjustifiably difficult and you are feeling frustrated and cut off due to years of cumulative hearing loss.
The ability for a person to hear is influenced by situational factors like background noise, competing signals, room acoustics, and how comfortable they are with their environment, according to studies. But for individuals who have hearing loss, these factors are made even more challenging.
Some hearing loss behaviors to watch out for
There are some tell-tale habits that will raise your awareness of whether you’re in denial about how your hearing loss is affecting your social and professional life:
- Leaning in When people are talking and instinctively cupping your ear with your hand
- Finding it harder to hear phone conversations
- Feeling as if people are mumbling and not talking clearly
- Repeatedly having to ask people to repeat themselves
- Not able to hear people talking behind you
- Asking others what you missed after pretending you heard what they were saying
Hearing loss most likely didn’t take place overnight even though it may feel that way. Most people wait 7 years on average before accepting the problem and seeking help.
That means that if your hearing loss is an issue now, it has probably been going unaddressed and untreated for some time. Hearing loss is no joke so stop fooling yourself and schedule an appointment right away.