Wearing Earphones for Long Hours? Here’s How It Affects Your Hearing and Ear Health

Using earphones for long hours can damage your hearing. Learn about tinnitus, ear infections, safe listening tips, and how to protect your ears.

Earphones are a must-have for our daily lives, whether we’re listening to music, making calls, taking online classes, or listening to podcasts. But what happens if you wear them for a long time at a high volume? Doctors say that using too much of it might cause hearing loss, tinnitus, and other ear problems. In this post, we’ll talk about how long-term use of earphones might hurt your ears and provide you some useful tips on how to protect them.

🔊 How Earphones affect Your Hearing

When sound goes straight into the ear canal for a long time, it puts stress on the small hair cells in the cochlea, which is in the inner ear. These cells send sound to your brain. They don’t grow back after being hurt, which means lifelong hearing loss.

Main Risks:

• Noise-Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL): Being around sounds louder than 85 dB for a long time might cause permanent harm.
• Tinnitus: A sound that keeps ringing, buzzing, or hissing in your ears.
• Muffled Hearing: It’s difficult to follow discussions.
• Ear Infections: Earbuds hold onto moisture and bacteria, which makes infections more likely.
• Too much earwax: Using it too much will push wax deeper into the ear canal.

Volume vs Safe Listening Time

👉 Every 3 dB rise cuts the safe listening time in half.

⚠️ Signs that you’re using your earphones too much

• Ringing that won’t go away (tinnitus)
• Telling folks to say it again
• It’s difficult to hear in places with a lot of noise.
• Pain, inflammation, or infections in the ears
• A sense of “fullness” in the ear

If you experience any of these symptoms, please consult an ENT doctor promptly.

How to Safely Use Earphones

• Follow the 60/60 Rule: Don’t listen to music at more than 60% of its volume for more than 60 minutes at a time.
• Take breaks: Let your ears rest every hour.
• Choose noise-canceling headphones so you don’t have to turn up the volume when it’s loud.
• Clean Your Earphones: To keep from getting sick, clean your earbuds often.
• Pick Over-Ear Headphones: They’re safer for long listening than in-ear ones.
• Don’t sleep with headphones on. Wearing headphones while sleeping increases the likelihood of getting sick and can cause discomfort.

Advice from a professional

Doctors say that people who wear headphones every day should get their hearing checked once a year. Preventive therapy is the best way to go because hearing loss is typically permanent.

❓ FAQs on Earphones and Hearing

Q1: Would it be possible to get hearing back after using earphones?
👉No, once cells in the inner ear are injured, they can’t grow back. It’s critical to prevent that from happening.

Q2: Are headphones safer than earphones?
👉Yes, over-ear headphones are usually safer because they don’t push sound directly into the ear canal.

Q3: What level of volume is safest?
👉 Keep the volume below 60% of the maximum, and if possible, below 80 dB.

Q4: Is it safe for kids to wear headphones?
👉 Kids’ ears are more sensitive, so keep the level low and the time short.

Q5: What is tinnitus?
👉 A ringing or buzzing sound in the ears, which is commonly induced by being around loud noise too long.

📝 Last Thoughts

Earphones are excellent for making things easier, but using them for lengthy periods of time at excessive levels might permanently damage your hearing. You can safeguard your ears while enjoying your music by following safe listening rules, including the 60/60 rule, taking breaks, and keeping the volume down.

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