Beginning Something New is Never Easy
During the adjustment period, the multitude of new sounds you experience can be tiring. Take your time to get used to your hearing aids. Your positive attitude and determination to hear and understand better are crucial for your success.
Easy Hearing Step By Step
Don’t wear your hearing aids to a noisy restaurant or a concert right away. Be patient – your hearing needs to gain necessary experience first in quieter environments such as your home.
Practice Every Day
You will feel it: Every day you will enjoy life more. In the beginning, wear your hearing aids for only a few hours per day. Increase the duration of our practice time gradually every day. Please familiarize yourself with the exercises listed here.
Exercise 1: Listen
On the first day, start by reading something aloud to yourself. Your own voice may sound strange at first. This impression will go away after a short time. Listen to the sounds of your steps and your breath. Deliberately make soft noises, such as rustling paper, flipping a light switch, jingling your keys, etc. Write down all sounds you can hear in the house. Describe these sounds with adjectives (e.g. clear, dark, clinking..) and judge them (pleasant, strange, funny, familiar…).
Exercise 2: Follow a conversation
Make a brief phone call to a friend or have a conversation in a relatively calm or quiet surrounding. Finally, watch a TV show or listen to a radio program in a quiet room.
Exercise 3: Learn to tolerate loud noises
Please note that this exercise is recommended only after you have completed the first two successfully.
Have a conversation in a loud environment. You can turn on the TV in the background or go to a moderately busy restaurant. The first rule for such a difficult hearing situation is: Be patient! Your success will come. It may take a few days or maybe a few weeks. Just keep practicing.
To increase the challenge from here, have a conversation with several partners in a loud environment.
Exercise 4: Learn how to focus your hearing
Now that you are able to hear better with your hearing aids and can communicate well in many difficult situations, go to the next step and remain a focused and alert listener.
In loud hearing situations, even people without hearing loss need to make an effort in order to hear what they need to hear and learn to ignore the rest.
Practice focusing on sounds you want to hear and ignore unwanted or disruptive noises. Try to identify unfamiliar sounds in a loud environment and make a conscious effort to ignore unimportant noises. Soon you will be able to focus your attention from one sound to another.
Call Mid-Valley ENT & Allergy at (541) 967-0404 for more information or to schedule an appointment.
