You want to be polite when you’re talking with friends. You want your clients, co-workers, and manager to see that you’re completely involved when you’re at work. With family, you might find it less difficult to simply tune out the conversation and ask the person near you to fill in what you missed, just a bit louder, please.
You have to move in a little closer when you’re on conference calls. You watch for facial cues, listen for inflection, and tune in to body language. You attempt to read people’s lips. And if that doesn’t work, you nod as if you heard everything.
Maybe you’re in denial. You missed lots of what was said, and you’re struggling to keep up. You may not know it, but years of progressive hearing loss can have you feeling isolated and frustrated, making tasks at work and life at home needlessly overwhelming.
The ability for someone to hear is influenced by situational factors such as background noise, competing signals, room acoustics, and how comfortable they are with their surroundings, according to studies. But for individuals who have hearing loss, these factors are made even more challenging.
Some hearing loss behaviors to watch out for
Here are some habits to help you figure out whether you are, in truth, fooling yourself into thinking hearing impairment isn’t affecting your professional and social interactions, or whether it’s just the acoustics in the environment:
- Pretending to understand, only to later ask others what you missed
- Leaning in during conversations and unconsciously cupping your hand over your ear
- Having a difficult time hearing what others behind you are saying
- Feeling as if people are mumbling and not speaking clearly
- Asking people to repeat themselves over and over again
- Finding it harder to hear phone conversations
Hearing loss most likely didn’t take place overnight even though it may feel as if it did. Acknowledging and seeking out help for hearing impairment is something that takes most people 7 years or more.
So if you’re detecting symptoms of hearing loss, you can bet that it’s been occurring for some time undetected. Hearing loss is no joke so stop fooling yourself and schedule an appointment now.