What hinders your hearing protection from working properly? Look out for these three things.
Whether you’re at work or at home, sometimes you run into something that can impede the effectiveness of your hearing protection. That’s hard to cope with. After all, you’re trying to do what you’re supposed to do! When you go to a concert, you use your earplugs; At work, you use earmuffs every day; and you do your best to steer clear of Uncle Joe who is always shouting in your ear.
Here’s the point, when you’re doing everything right but you’re still having difficulty, it can be frustrating. The nice thing is that once you understand a few of these simple issues that can mess with your hearing protection, you can better prepare yourself. And this will keep your ear protection in a state of efficiency even when you’re having a little difficulty.
1. Using The Wrong Type of Ear Protection
Hearing protection comes in two practical kinds: earmuffs and earplugs. As the names might imply, earplugs are small and can be pushed directly into the ear canal. Earmuffs are like big headphones with no music (instead, they, you know, safeguard your ears).
- When you’re in a setting where noise is fairly constant, earplugs are suggested.
- When loud sounds are more sporadic, earmuffs are recommended.
The reasons for that are relatively simple: you’ll want to remove your hearing protection when it’s quiet, and that’s easier to do with earmuffs than earplugs. Earplugs take a little more work to put in and are easy to lose track of so you could find yourself needing to replace lost plugs when you need them most.
You will be fine if you use the correct protection in the right situation.
2. Your Anatomy Can Affect Your Ear Protection
Human anatomy is amazingly varied. That’s why your vocal cords are average sized compared to old Uncle Joe who has larger vocal cords. That’s also why you may have a smaller than average ear canal.
And that can interfere with your ear protection. Disposable earplugs, for example, are made with a clothing mindset: small, medium, and large (if not one-size-fits-all). And so if you have especially tiny ear canals, you may have a hard time getting those earplugs to fit, causing you to give up entirely and in frustration, throw them away..
This can leave you exposed to risk, undercutting the hearing protection you were trying to give yourself. Another example of this is individuals with large ears who often have a hard time getting earmuffs to fit comfortably. If you spend a lot of time in noisy environments, it may be worth investing in custom hearing protection personalized to your ears.
3. Check if There’s Any Wear And Tear on Your Hearing Protection
If you’re using your hearing protection daily, you should give yourself a gold star. But that also means you need to monitor the wear and tear your hearing protection is experiencing.
- Examine the band on earmuff protection. The band will need to be replaced if the elastic is worn out and doesn’t hold the earmuffs tight.
- Your hearing protection needs to be kept clean. Ears aren’t really the cleanest part of your body (ear wax serves a practical purpose and all, but it’s still kind of… yucky). Make certain you clean your hearing protection completely by taking them apart before you cleanse them. Be mindful not to drop your earplugs into the drain.
- Replace cushions on earmuffs from time to time (typically, when those cushions are no longer pliable, they’re ready for the heave-ho).
Making sure you perform regular maintenance on your hearing protection is imperative 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 take care of your hearing protection or want to know more about the things that can impede their performance.
Your hearing is important. It’s worth taking the time to protect it properly.
