Numerous studies have verified that loss of hearing can have an impact on your brain. (Just look at some of our past blog posts.) Hearing Aids, luckily, have been proven to be capable of helping you recover some of that cognitive ability.
This is not to say that hearing aids are in some way going to make you smarter. But there’s some compelling research that suggests cognitive ability can be improved by wearing hearing aids lowering your risk for anxiety, depression, and dementia.
Your Brain is Responsible For a Significant Portion of Your Hearing
To recognize the link between cognition and your ears, it’s crucial to realize that a significant portion of your hearing actually takes place in your brain. It’s the brain’s job to convert sound vibrations into recognizable sound information. The parts of the brain that translate sound will suddenly have less to do when hearing starts to diminish.
Alterations in your brain (and hearing), coupled with other factors (including social solitude), can trigger the onset of mental health problems. Anxiety, depression, and dementia are far more obvious in people who have untreated hearing loss.
Your effectively “treating” your hearing loss when you’re using hearing aids. That means:
- You can stop your hearing from becoming worse by using hearing aids along with regular monitoring.
- The parts of your brain responsible for hearing will get a more consistent workout; the more your brain performs work, the healthier your brain will be.
- You’ll be less likely to isolate yourself socially. You will be more likely to engage with others if you’re able to hear and understand interactions.
Keeping You on Your Toes
Hearing aids can prevent depression, anxiety, and dementia because they enhance your brain and your social life.
- New technology: Hearing aids have started incorporating unique technology that can actually notify emergency contacts (or emergency services) when a person using the hearing aids experiences a fall. This might not stop the fall in the first place, but it can lessen long-lasting injuries or complications due to the fall.
- The health of your inner ear: Hearing loss by itself will not trigger inner ear injury. However, sometimes loss of hearing and inner ear issues have a common cause. In some cases, a hearing aid is a component of the treatment program for hearing loss which can also help inner ear injury.
- Growing awareness: Sometimes, you fall because you aren’t aware of your environment. Decreased ability to hear can drastically reduce your situational awareness. Figuring out what direction sound is coming from can be as difficult as hearing sound in general. Without treatment, this can wind up resulting in a fall or injury.
Inevitably, when you’re using a hearing aid, you’re more likely to steer clear of a fall to begin with. A hearing aid helps you stay more alert, more mindful, and more connected, strengthening cognitive capabilities and general health in the process.
Stop Ignoring Your Hearing Aid
None of this has even yet addressed the basic hearing benefits of hearing aids. So it seems like when you factor in all of the positive aspects associated with using hearing aids, it’s a no brainer. (not something you need to overthink).
The problem is that many people don’t know they have hearing loss. It can be challenging to identify loss of hearing when it develops gradually over time. That’s why it’s important to have your hearing tested on a regular basis. Without hearing aids, loss of hearing can worsen a number of of other health problems.
The ideal hearing aid can, in part, slow the beginning of despair and dementia, while decreasing the occurrences of some physical injuries. Besides helping your hearing, hearing aids offer a striking number of advantages.