Healthy Hearing

March 12, 2013

Well I (Mike) have been away part of last week and beginning of this week taking a Industrial Audiometric Technician course! Anyhow, I thought it would be a run of the mill course, however, I seemed to pick up some tid bits that I’d like to share!

As many of you know, hearing is one of the five major senses, and is arguably of the most important.  It enables us to localize sounds, dipict emotions through tone, etc.

Here are some fun facts:

1. It’s not a good idea to remove all wax from the ears, it helps protect against infections and bateria build up

2. The highest class of hearing protection is not always what may suit you for your job or play.

3. Our frequency range at birth is 20Hz – 20,000 Hz (pitch)

Okay so you’re wondering why I am talking about hearing health.  Well let me share a personal decision that has permanently cost me part of my hearing.  One day, while laying on my couch, these birds were driving me crazy.  I grabbed my shotgun, loaded some shells and blasted shots off in succession.  For the next few days, I had what I thought to be temperary hearing loss.  I have now found out that I have damaged my hearing starting in the high frequencies.  I was always wondering why I couldn’t hear the baby at night, however, the dog woke me up in the night when he barked.  The reason, I found out, is that babies cry at a higher frequency, and therefore my hearing cannot detect higher frequencies at a lower intensity, but my hearing at lower frequencies and inensities is still good.

I regret not grabbing my ear muffs out the door.  And this part goes out to my fellow hunters.  Hearing protection may look dorky sometimes, but it will enable you to do this enjoyable hobby for a longtime.  I have been doing a lot of research on good hearing protection and still being able to hunt.  A non-linear protection muff that can enhance your ambient noise suceptibility and reduce any noise above 82dB.  For example, a rifle shot is average 160dB peak.  These muffs will reduce that peak to 82dB into your ear.  This significantly reduces any noise induced hearing loss and does not reduce lower or higher frequency sounds below that level.  These muffs vary in price but I highly recommend them! I hope you’ve enjoyed this very educational oriented blog post!

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