What hinders your hearing protection from working correctly? Here are 3 things to watch for.
Despite your best efforts, you can sometimes run into things that can hinder your hearing protection, both at home and at work. That’s hard to cope with. You’re attempting to do the right thing after all. When you go to a show, you use your earplugs; At work, you use earmuffs every day; and you do your best to steer clear of Uncle Joe who is constantly shouting in your ear.
Here’s the point, when you’re doing everything right but you’re still having problems, it can be discouraging. Luckily, you can take some steps to protect yourself once you understand what types of things can impede the performance of your ear protection. And this will keep your ear protection working effectively even when you’re having a bit of difficulty.
1. Using The Wrong Kind of Hearing Protection
Hearing protection is available in two basic kinds: earmuffs and earplugs. As the names may suggest, earplugs are compact and can be inserted directly into the ear canal. Earmuffs look like a pair of 70’s headphones, but instead of tunes, they offer protection for your hearing by muting outside sound.
- Earplugs are recommended when you’re in a place where the sound is comparatively continuous.
- When loud sounds are more sporadic, earmuffs are recommended.
The reasons for that are fairly simple: you’ll want to remove your hearing protection when it isn’t noisy, and that’s less difficult to do with earmuffs than earplugs. Earplugs are very easy to lose (especially if they’re cheap and disposable anyway), so you don’t want to be in a position where you take out an earplug, misplace it, and then need it later.
You will be fine if you wear the correct protection in the right scenario.
2. Your Hearing Protection Can be Affected by Your Anatomy
Human anatomy is incredibly diverse. That’s why your vocal cords are more normal sized compared to old Uncle Joe’s larger vocal cords. That’s also why you might have a smaller than normal ear canal.
And that can interfere with your hearing protection. Disposable hearing protection is often a one size fits all mindset, or at best, a small, medium, large situation. And so if you have especially tiny ear canals, you might have a difficult time getting those earplugs to fit, causing you to give up completely and in frustration, throw them away..
If you find yourself in this scenario, you might forsake the hearing protection you were trying to give yourself, leaving you in danger of hearing damage. Another instance of this is individuals with large ears who frequently have a difficult time getting earmuffs to fit comfortably. If you spend a lot of time in noisy environments, it might be worth investing in custom ear protection personalized to your ears.
3. Check if There’s Any Wear And Tear on Your Hearing Protection
You should be commended if you manage to use your hearing protection regularly. But that also means you need to keep close track of the wear and tear your hearing protection is experiencing.
- Wash your hearing protection. Earwax serves a practical purpose in your body but it can also build up on your hearing protection. Make sure you wash your hearing protection thoroughly by taking them apart before you cleanse them. If you’re washing earplugs, don’t drop them down the drain.
- Examine the band on earmuff protection. When the elastic is worn out and the band is no longer holding the earmuffs snug, it’s time to switch out the band.
- When they lose their pliability, replace the cushions on your earmuffs.
Ensuring you do routine maintenance on your hearing protection is vital if you want to continue benefiting from that protection. It’s important that you have a consultation with us if you have any questions on how to care for your hearing protection or want to learn more about the things that can impede their performance.
You need your hearing. Taking the time to protect it right is essential.
