In conversation with friends, you like to be courteous. You want your customers, co-workers, and boss to see that you’re fully engaged when you’re at work. You frequently find yourself needing family to repeat themselves because it was easier to tune out parts of the discussion that you weren’t able to hear very well.
On conference calls you lean in closer. You pay attention to body language and facial clues and listen for verbal inflections. You attempt to read people’s lips. And if none of that works, you nod in understanding as if you heard everything.
Maybe your in denial. Your straining to catch up because you missed most of what was said. You might not recognize it, but years of cumulative hearing loss can have you feeling isolated and frustrated, making projects at work and life at home needlessly overwhelming.
According to some studies, situational factors like room acoustics, background noise, contending signals, and situational awareness have a major influence on the way we hear. These factors are always in play, but it can be much more severe for people who suffer from hearing loss.
Here are a few behaviors to help you determine whether you are, in fact, fooling yourself into thinking hearing loss is not affecting your professional and social relationships, or whether it’s just the acoustics in their environment:
- Leaning in When people are talking and unconsciously cupping your ear with your hand
- Thinking others aren’t talking clearly when all you seem to hear is mumbling
- Constantly needing to ask people to repeat themselves
- Having a difficult time hearing what others behind you are saying
- Pretending to comprehend, only to follow up with others to get about what was said
- Missing what people are saying when on phone conversations
Hearing loss probably didn’t happen overnight even though it might feel that way. Acknowledging and getting help for hearing impairment is something that takes most individuals 7 years or more.
So if you’re detecting symptoms of hearing loss, you can be sure that it’s been occurring for some time unnoticed. Hearing loss is no joke so stop fooling yourself and schedule an appointment now.