We’ve been looking forward to summer fun all year: swimming in the pool, visiting the beach, and some activities that might injure your hearing. That’s right, summer holds a lot of unseen risks to your hearing, either from loud sounds or the environmental situations you could find yourself in. Any noises above 80 decibels could lead to harm to your hearing, while swimming in pools or other bodies of water can cause irreversible loss of hearing. To keep your ears safeguarded this summer, you need to be mindful of your environment and take preventative measures. Here are six of the summer’s concealed hearing hazards.
Use Ear Protection at Concerts
Summer is concert time, but even if you go to a venue, you still need to protect your ears. 90 decibels is in the danger zone for ear damage and live music reaches this volume even at outdoor shows. That’s the reason it’s always a smart plan to use earplugs whether you’re seeing a show indoors or outdoors. You can still hear the music with earplugs it’s just dampened slightly. If you’re going to a show with young children, consider getting them a heavy duty pair of earmuffs since their ears are much more vulnerable than those of adults.
Fireworks Are More Than Just Loud
Honestly, there are a lot of reasons to avoid fireworks in the summer. We’re not talking about the professional 4th of July fireworks show, we mean the backyard fireworks that lead to many of accidents during the summertime. As well as causing hand injuries, loss of vision, and home fires, personal fireworks can also result in serious damage to your ears since they’re known to achieve decibel levels of 155. This 4th of July, leave the fireworks to the pros and enjoy the display from a protected and sound distance.
Hearing Loss Can be Brought About by Lawnmowers
If you’re serious about your yard, chances are you’re out there every week on your mower, using your edger, and trimming your bushes. But this muffled feeling in your ears is a signal that your hearing has taken damage. That’s because the constant noise from your lawn tools have a slow and steady impact on your hearing. You’ve probably noticed lawn professionals wearing some type of hearing protection, next time you work on your yard with noisy power equipment, you need to take a cue from them and wear earmuffs or earplugs.
How to Safeguard Your Ears at Poole And Beaches
Huge numbers of people suffer from swimmer’s ear each summer, which occurs when bacteria-loaded water gets stuck inside your ear canal. Painful earaches and swelling are the result when the bacteria infects the ear. It’s not only rivers and lakes that have these bacteria, they can also be found in pools and hot tubs if they are not cleaned and treated properly. But if you have your ears treated by a hearing expert you will probably be ok, and no irreversible hearing loss will happen. To counter swimmer’s ear, though, you will want to wear specialized swimming earplugs in the pool and have your pool water tested to be certain the chemical balance is safe.
Boats and Other Water Sports
Summertime is a breath of freedom for the people who enjoy being in a boat on the water, smelling the salt air from the ocean or the fresh breeze from the lake. But, boat and jet ski engines can be noisy,we’re talking more than 100 decibels. Lasting hearing injury can happen after around 15 minutes of exposure to that much noise. Once more, it’s really a smart choice to use a set of throw away, foam earplugs when you’re out on the water to make certain you don’t unwittingly damage your ears.
Car Races Can Harm Your Hearing
It doesn’t make a difference what kind of auto racing you like, motorcycle, midget, Formula 1, drag racing or stock cars. If you go to many auto-races this year, they all present a peril. It’s calculated that sound levels can exceed 120 decibels at certain races, which is definitely inside the danger zone for hearing damage. As pointed out earlier, your children should wear muffs whereas you should wear earplugs at the very least. Because you might not be able to appreciate the sounds of any races in the future if you don’t.