By: Mary Ann Gilbert, Au.D., CCC-A, FAAA
Doctor of Audiology
Whittier Hearing Center, Inc.
13121 E. Philadelphia St.
Whittier, CA 90601
(562) 698-0581
www.whittierhearing.com
Everyone can be helped to hear better by using 3 simple secrets to better hearing. This is true if you have normal hearing, a mild hearing loss that doesn’t require hearing aids or a more significant loss that does require them. In this article I will discuss how you hear; disclose the 3 simple secrets to better hearing; and show you how to apply them in difficult situations such as restaurants, parties, and family gatherings. I will also give you some important tips to improve family communication at home.
Hearing Happens In Your Brain, NOT your Ears!
Before we start, the first thing you must understand is that hearing happens in your brain, not in your ears! The ears send the message to your brain, where the information is combined with what you see and what you expect to hear. After the brain puts it all together we say that “we hear and understand what is said”. Some of the listening tips are going to deal with your ears, some with your eyes, and still others with your brain. We hear best when all three of these are working together and helping each other.
Secret #1: Reduce the Background Noise
The quieter it is, the better you are going to hear. So, reduce the noise! This is actually easier than you think. You can turn the TV down or off or choose to have conversations during the commercials and use the mute button. You can turn the faucet off. Water is a great masker of speech. Everyone has trouble hearing and understanding over the sound of running water. You can go into a quieter area or another room to get away from the noise. You can also move out of the center of a room and get near the wall. In large rooms the center is the noisiest area and the closer you are to the walls the quieter it gets.
Secret #2: Watch the Person Speaking
Your eyes and ears work together to give your brain the information it needs to “hear and understand”. Use your eyes to help you ear better. You can move in front of the person who is speaking so you have a clear view of their face. This helps you lip read as well as watch for facial expressions which add so much to our understanding of speech. You can ask the speaker to look at you and if necessary to move their hand away from their face. If they turn and start to walk away while they are still talking, ask them to come back and finish the conversation face to face.
Secret #3: Pay Attention
This is the brain part. Hearing happens in your brain and most of us cannot actively listen and understand speech while we are doing other things. So please, give the conversation your full attention by muting the TV, putting down the book you were reading, looking up from the newspaper, and stop knitting. If you give the conversation 100% of your attention you will hear much better.
Special Situations: Here are some ways that you can apply these secrets to special situations. By using the 3 secrets correctly you can maximize your understanding of speech even in very noisy places!
CARS: Cars are one of the most frequent difficult situations that you need to deal with. There is the car, traffic and wind noise. You also need to be watching the road and concentrating on your driving so it is hard to concentrate on listening. Here are some things you can do that will make life a little easier:
1. If you wear hearing aids you can try turning the one that is against the window down or off. This will reduce the noise of the car and the traffic. If you have hearing aids in both ears you may want to turn the one that is to the center of the car up a little to help you hear the radio and the conversation more easily. Try different combinations and see what works best for you.
2. When giving, or receiving directions, wait until a stop sign or a red light. While the car is stopped you can look at the person speaking and give your full attention to the conversation.
3. Drive with your windows rolled up. Wind noise is very hard to hear over. You can try keeping a back window cracked slightly to help you hear sirens and other warning sounds.
4. If you need to really converse with people in the car the best seat is the front passenger’s seat. This allows you to rotate your body slightly so your right ear is not up against the window, and your left ear is rotated slightly toward the back seats. If you are the driver, please forget trying to have a conversation while you are driving. Remind your passengers that their safety is your most important concern. Ask them to talk to you only while the car is stopped and then only about really important matters. You can save the long conversations for when you get to your destination.
RESTAURANTS: This is probably the place where older people have the most trouble. Almost everyone over the age of 55 years complains of not being able to hear well in this type of noise. Unfortunately, in restaurants there are many factors you cannot control such as how loud or fast the server speaks or how noisy the table next to you is. There are some things that are in your control and you want to be sure to use these to help you hear better.
1. Always ask for a table near the wall. Never sit in the middle of the room where noise is coming at you for all around. The noise will drown out what is happening at your table. So choose your table wisely!
2. If you do not wear hearing aids then you should try to sit with your back near or against the wall. This will reduce the noise coming from behind you and also make the voices of your guests across from you a little louder and easier to hear. (This can make as much as a 70% improvement in your understanding of speech in restaurants. Try it!)
3. If you wear hearing aids with dual or directional microphones sit looking at the wall. This will allow your hearing aids to do the best job of reducing noise. If you are not sure about your hearing aids ask your fitter what type you have. Using your directional hearing aids correctly can make a significant difference in how much you hear and understand in this type of difficult situation.
4. Try to get a table in the quietest part of the restaurant. Quiet areas are usually found along the wall, in corners, and away from the front door and kitchen access doors or work stations. If you are not familiar with the restaurant take a walk through and listen for the quieter areas. Then ask your hostess to seat you in that area. An extra 10 minute wait to be seated is well worth it if you can now enjoy visiting with your party.
PARTIES: Parties are a lot like restaurants. Being in control of the situation is key to successful hearing and understanding.
1. Do NOT stand in the middle of the room. You will get noise from all around you and will have the most trouble trying to hear and talk in the locations.
2. Move toward the wall area. If you wear directional or dual microphone hearing aids, put your friends with their backs against the wall and you can stand with your back to the room and looking at the wall. If you do not wear hearing aids then stand with your own back to the wall and put your friends in a group around you looking toward you and the wall.
3. Try to keep the groups you are visiting with small. You will do best when the group is no more than 4 people at a time. You will enjoy your event much more when you speak with several groups of 3-5 people rather than one large groups of 10+. (Don’t forget to position yourself correctly relative to the wall as discussed in #2 above.)
AT HOME: This is where we live and where we spend the most time each and every day. By applying the 3 secrets of reducing noise, paying attention, and using our eyes you can really improve home communication. Several of our patients have told us that using these simple tricks at home really reduced communication stress and improved their marriages! So they are worth a try.
1. Reduce Noise: Put the TV on mute; turning the water off; closing the front door can all reduce noise and make conversing easier. Look around and find your noise sources and then figure out how you can turn them down or off when you really want to communicate with your spouse or family.
2. Move closer to the person who is speaking. The closer we are the better we hear. Don’t try to talk from room to room. Sound waves are not that smart and they really do not travel well. So go into the room where the speaker is, or have them come to you.
3. Look at the person who is speaking. This means you need to be in the same room and close enough that you can see them. It also means that the speaker cannot turn around and walk out of the room while they are still talking. We need face-to-face conversation to be able to hear and understand speech clearly!
4. Get the listener’s attention BEFORE you try to talk to them. Your voice can easily blend into the TV or you may be too far away for them to even hear you. Simply call their name and wait for a reply. Once they say “what?” or “OK” that is your signal to start talking. If they do not answer when their name is called then don’t waste your breathe trying to tell them something. Instead, move closer or go find them, or wait until later to speak to them.
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