Earphones that allow you to enjoy music anytime, anywhere without worrying about anyone. It's one of the must-have items with your smartphone for those of us who want to be with the songs of our favorite musicians at all times.
But did you know that these earphones put a strain on your body?
Loud sounds can easily lead to deafness.
A loud volume that echoes throughout the body. I find the music I listen to at the live house especially fun. However, if you continue to listen to loud sounds, you may feel muffled or tinnitus may continue.
This is a symptom called acoustic deafness or acoustic trauma. The sound coming from the ear is transmitted to the brain by hair cells in a spiral organ called the cochlea, which is deeper in the eardrum, and converts the vibration of the sound into an electrical signal. If you do, these hair cells will be damaged. The same thing happens not only with the live house sound (100dB-110dB), but also when the earphones are turned up too high (95dB).
Do not turn up the volume of the earphones too much
In February 2019, WHO (World Health Organization) and ITU (International Telecommunication Union) published international standards to prevent hearing loss. According to the guidelines, at the sound pressure level in the front row of a live house, the time that an adult can listen to in a week is 10 minutes or less (!). It is up to 75 minutes even when the volume of the earphone is maximized.
Even if you hear a loud sound temporarily, hair cells will recover if you rest your ears. However, if you continue to listen to loud sounds, the hair cells themselves, which are important organs for listening to sounds, will be destroyed. It's too late if this happens. In fact, hair cells are cells that, once destroyed, do not spontaneously regenerate.
Moreover, the big bottleneck is that the hair cells that convert the high register near the entrance of the cochlea are easily damaged. Even if these hair cells are broken, it is difficult to notice the symptoms because you can hear the surrounding sounds normally, but when you talk to a person, it becomes difficult to hear the consonants of words, and the intention of conversation It becomes difficult to communicate with each other.
Listening for a long time even at low volume can cause deafness
Then should I turn down the volume and continue listening? No, even if the volume is low, if you continue listening for a long time, it will put a strain on your ears. Modest volume (80dB) is limited to 40 hours a week, and even volume (83dB) that seems to be less straining to the ears is limited to 20 hours a week.
If you listen to music with earphones only when you commute to work or school for about an hour each way, it is unlikely that you will have a problem. However, if you continue to listen to music with earphones during work, self-study, and private time after returning home, the risk of deafness increases.
Take care of your ears and get along with the music
Even if deafness due to aging is unavoidable, if you want to enjoy music for as long as possible, be aware of the following and try to reduce the strain on your ears as much as possible when listening.
・ Lower the volume
The higher the volume, the greater the burden on the hair cells in the cochlea. .. To put it the other way around, the lower the volume, the less burden you have. Suppress the desire to enjoy music with explosive sounds, and enjoy music with earphones at a volume as low as BGM.
・ Rest your ears
Sometimes you really want to listen to music at a loud volume. In such a case, limit the time for playing music. Keep only one or two songs a day and create a time when you don't listen to music.
・ Improve sound insulation
With earphones that allow you to hear ambient noise, you tend to turn up the volume because you feel that the music you are listening to is small. If so, use earpieces that are perfect for your ear hole size to improve sound insulation, or use noise canceling earphones that electrically cancel noise so that ambient noise is less likely to enter.
Let's use normal earphones and bone conduction earphones properly
In addition to the normal earphones that insert the earpiece into the ear canal, there are bone conduction earphones that can be worn by touching the bones of the temples and listening to the sound by the vibration transmitted from the bones.
This bone conduction earphone is an earphone that puts less strain on your ears. Instead, it has the feature that the bass can be heard quietly, but it is perfect when you want to listen to music for a long time or when you have a voice chat or video meeting. By properly using normal earphones and bone conduction earphones according to the situation, you will be able to care for your ears. Please try it.
