How To Protect Your Hearing In The Workplace

Protecting your hearing is something that is crucial but not everyone recognizes the importance of ear health. Our ears are in fact, extremely sensitive and so to abuse them with loud noises and poor ear hygiene is likely going to cause some hearing loss in the future.

If you’re looking for ways to help protect your hearing in the workplace, here are five ways to help resolve those hearing issues to keep them safe. This way, you can hopefully avoid permanent hearing loss.

Wear ear defenders if required

Ear defenders are a great way to help protect the ears and if you’re working in an environment where there’s lots of loud noise and loud equipment being used, it should be supplied as standard. If it’s not, then it’s worth communicating your concerns with your manager or the HR department within your company.

It’s an employee’s duty to make sure the environment that staff work in is safe and when ear defenders are not available, that’s a breach of that duty of care. For those environments where you’re responsible for your own ear protection, make sure to get hearing protection ahead of time.

Avoid turning up the volume on the electronics

When it comes to your electronics like the television or the headphones you listen to music on, these can both cause issues with ear health. Often many have a habit of turning up the volume too high and as a result, it can cause some serious and permanent damage. 

With that being said, pay close attention when you’re answering the telephone or using your headphones to do work on the computer. These high volumes could do some damage to your hearing over time which is irreversible in some cases.

Give your ears a break every so often

It’s always good to give your ears a break every so often, especially when it comes to loud noises and those who work in a noisy environment. If that sounds like you, then think about taking yourself away from the space and having some time throughout the day to take yourself away from the area to relax the ears.

This is a good practice to put in place, even if it’s 10 minutes every hour or so.

Walk away from any loud noises

When it comes to loud noises, don’t stick around for any longer than you need to. This is especially so when it comes to noises where ear defenders aren’t being worn. Try to walk away from any loud noises to help prevent any permanent damage from being caused.

Loud noises could mean that you’ve got to wear hearing aids later on in life and if you can prevent that from happening, then it’s wise to do.

Do you need hearing aids?

Do you need otc hearing aids or hearing aids in general? The above protective measures might be too little too late and it’s better to get hearing aids to help reduce any further damage to the ears in the future.

With that being said, make sure to look after your ears and get help for your ears, should you need them.

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