Music has become a huge part of our lives today. We wake up and listen to music as we get ready. We drive to work with the stereo blasting. We sit at work with our headphones in. We come home and jam so more. We even go to bed with our headphones in. Don’t get me wrong, I’m guilty of more than one of these things (especially the getting ready one), but when I was sitting on a bus the other day next to someone with their headphones so loud the whole bus could hear the words, I got a little freaked out. For lack of a better term, it was a wake up call.

Let’s think about it for a second. First of all, listening to music itself is not at all a problem. The problem comes from when we use head phones that literally blast music directly into our ear canal at such a high volume that we can’t hear anything else. There is an enormous amount of research being done to show just how severe of an impact listening to loud music via headphones has on our hearing. The findings are shocking. 15% of kids ages 16-19 have some degree of hearing loss. Now, this may not seem like that big of a number, but let’s do some comparison. Children in the same 16-19 age group have an obesity rate of 13.9%. Teens ages 12-17 have a depression rate of 11.4%. And kids ages 8-18 use technology for on average for a total of 9 hours a day. How is it that we can point to all of these issues: childhood obesity, depression, and technology use and say they are important enough for us to help mediate, but do nothing when it comes to hearing loss?

The answer to that question comes from us teenagers and young adults being too stubborn to admit there is a problem that needs help. When asked if kids ages 16-19 thought hearing loss was a significant problem, only 8% of those who responded stated that yes, they did feel hearing loss was a problem. Should I go back through the other statistics that we call problems? I think they suggest that hearing problems needs to a more prevalent issue. So here are 5 ways in which you can help lower your risk of potential hearing problems:

1. Protect your ears. Sounds like a no-brainer but take care of your ears. If you feel a ringing sensation, turn down the volume. If your ears hurt, take out your headphones. You only have two ears for the rest of your life, make them last!
2. Turn down your music! Notice I didn’t say turn it off, just turn it down. For the sake of your ears (and mine, because I don’t really want to listen to your music), dial it down a notch - or ten.
3. Lose the headphones. When you’re at home alone, what is the point of wearing headphones? Just listen to music on an open speaker. I don’t think our ears like being invaded by bass, so give them a break every once and awhile.
4. Take in the surround sound. Instead of listening to music, listen to nature!
5. Try new music. I know we all love our bass drops and really high pitched dog-whistle like sounds, but smooth jazz is also great sometimes.