Imagine you’re sitting at the beach, relaxing in the summer breeze and reading under the sun… when someone lying on a towel nearby starts talking on the phone. Loudly. Suddenly, your picturesque moment is ruined because you can’t seem to tune out the noise of this person on the phone.
When we hear noises in busy environments—whether it’s the beach on a sunny day, people chattering in restaurants at the table next to yours, or other noises we’re not accustomed to—it can be exceedingly difficult to focus on what’s important in the moment. That emotional response of “Oh, this loud noise is disturbing my peace” can lead to feelings of annoyance and frustration, especially if it becomes hard to ignore.
Hearing loss, even if it’s a mild level, causes a disconnection between the brain and the ears. We use our ears to hear—but that sound needs to be processed by the brain for us to understand the noise itself. Hearing loss interrupts that signal and causes a cognitive load; the brain is overworking itself, trying to fill in the gaps of what your ears cannot quite hear.
With the help of advanced hearing aid technology, you can help reduce the cognitive load on your brain by assisting your hearing, allowing your ears to hear the sounds you were previously missing, so your brain isn’t working overtime to fill in the gaps.
However, as you introduce sounds to your brain, you might find that the person on the towel nearby comes back—that annoying background noise rears its head again!
Hearing vs. Listening
Hearing is involuntary; even as we sleep, our ears are working through the night to keep us safe. However, listening is more active, and we must make a conscious effort to understand the sound that reaches our brains.
When we struggle with hearing loss and correct it with hearing aids, our brains are newly aware of the distractions that feel like they’re taking up all of our attention. What we need to do is find a way to redirect our brains away from the distracting background noise, and back toward the subject at hand, whether it be a movie we’re watching, a book we’re reading, or a conversation we’re listening to.
Redirecting your attention to the subject at hand can work, but it takes practice to properly shift your focus from the background noise to the person you’re with or the book you’re reading, especially if the background noise is annoying.
It’s about hearing the background noise—but listening to the company you’re with, instead. This can be stressful in high-traffic places like restaurants, where distracting conversation from nearby tables can run rampant. For those with hearing loss challenges, restaurants are a whole different beast; where there are people, there is noise, and that can be overwhelming and upsetting for those who can’t shift their focus from the background noise.
The cognitive load of paying attention to your loved ones in a busy restaurant, while simultaneously ignoring the background noise and filling in gaps where you missed parts of the conversation, can leave anyone feeling overwhelmed at the end of what was meant to be a fun night out.
How to Ignore the Background Noise
Practice makes perfect: hearing aids are a tool that you need to learn how to use properly, including retraining your brain and ears to ignore that background noise and focus on the conversation in front of you… not behind you.
With multiple makes and models of hearing aids available to help your hearing loss challenge, there are constant improvements to hearing aid tech to help your ears for longer and better than ever.
Hearing aids are not the only helpful boost. A program called LACE Auditory Training can also help you retrain your brain to ignore the background noise, or you can enlist the help of your loved ones to mimic background noise with the TV on while they talk at you so you can practice focusing on their conversation instead.
If you’re curious about how to help your hearing loss challenge or that of a loved one, please don’t hesitate to request a callback and we’ll get in touch with more information about hearing aids and professional hearing care.
Don’t want to wait? Find your closest clinic and contact us in:
Hamden: (475) 227-0842
Norwalk: (475) 227-0842
Branford: (203) 291-2929
