Noise pollution is a very real problem, says the EPA, yet few people take the risks of hearing loss seriously.

We are still in the Dark Ages when it comes to understanding the risks of noise pollution for hearing loss and also its effects on general health.

Humans did not evolve in a loud, noisy environment.

The nerve cells in our ears are fragile and cannot be regenerated once they’re destroyed by the onslaught of loud sounds.

NIHL: Noise Induced Hearing Loss. What Makes You Think You’re Immune?

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Things to Think About

People will wear sunscreen at outdoor sporting events like football and baseball games, and auto racing, but won’t wear hearing protection.

They don’t want sun-induced skin cancer or wrinkles, but what about noise induced hearing loss from the roaring of fans or the sounds of engines?

All people should wear earplugs or noise cancelling headphones at sporting events for as much time as possible.

If you anticipate doing a lot of talking, then earplugs are the better option, as these can easily be loosened and tightened.

Custom made earplugs are virtually invisible. Unfortunately, not a whole lot of people encourage their teenagers to wear earplugs at live concerts. The adults themselves hardly ever do that.

If teens want to preserver their naturally good hearing, they need to use earplugs at concerts.

ALL loud volume can damage hearing, regardless of the nature of the sound — be it drums at a loud concert, aircraft flying low, a chainsaw, a motorcycle or even children screaming during play.

An audiologist addresses a fair question: Can hearing be damaged by screaming children?

I was inspired to interview an audiologist for this article because my sister has been diagnosed with bilateral moderate hearing loss.

She has three kids and two are particularly loud, the whoop-and-holler type. A game of Scrabble will get these teen girls quite loudly excited.

They also have a habit of yelling out to their mother when they want her attention.

By the time they were 17 and 15, my sister had been diagnosed with the hearing loss. That’s a lot of years to be exposed to loud kids.

Being that these girls were so loud as teenagers, I can imagine that when younger, they did a lot of screaming when playing or when excited.

After I told the expert source for this article that my sister has always worked in quiet environments, didn’t wear earbuds, blast her music, hang around loud machinery, shoot guns or participate in other loud activities, here is what my expert source stated:

“I suppose it is fair to conclude that repeated exposure to screaming children over a period of many years could have caused her moderate nerve type hearing loss,” says Rachel Raphael, M.A., CCC-A, an audiologist with ENT Baltimore.

“For those who worked in daycare or around loud children, we usually don’t consider that a risk factor for noise induced hearing loss, but I’m sure there are exceptions.

“Once again, not only the loudness/intensity of the sound, but individual susceptibility and length of exposure must be considered.”

Rachel A. Raphael specializes in clinical audiology and hearing aid dispensing. She helps in the diagnosis of hearing loss, tinnitus, dizziness and vestibular pathology in adults and children.

Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer. 

Anybody who’s health conscious will want to know the truth about hearing loss dangers from pounding music in group fitness classes.

Imagine you, the group fitness class enthusiast, are transported back in time about 60 years. Your mission is to spread the word that smoking damages the lungs.

Yeah, right. People will think you’re nuts. Cigarettes are offered to passengers on airplanes. Print ads for cigarettes say, “Just what the doctor ordered.” Ads for cigarettes are all over TV.

It took decades for the truth about smoking’s hazards to be taken seriously.

Unfortunately, this same denial continues to be playing out when it comes to the damage that thundering music in group fitness classes causes to hearing.

Attend enough fitness classes and you’ll get hearing loss.

“It is true that group fitness participants like their music loud to be motivated to move in their workouts,” says Rachel Raphael, M.A., CCC-A, an audiologist with ENT Baltimore. She’s also a certified group fitness instructor..

“The catchphrase of my popular Les Mills certifying agency (out of New Zealand) was ‘Turn It Up!’ which kind of makes me cringe knowing the potential danger in blasting our music.”

Vast Majority of Fitness Class Instructors in Denial about Hearing Loss Risk 

“As an audiologist, I have an obligation to limit the output of the music, and not ‘turn it up,’ so that I don’t cause hearing loss in the participants,” says Raphael.

“I believe there is a happy medium where the music can be loud enough without being dangerously loud.”

The music in fitness classes is louder today than it was in the 1970s, even ‘80s. It seems to be getting louder and louder. The excessive amplification of the group fitness class leader’s microphone makes the issue even worse.

Raphael says that she jokes to her class she’d be happy to fit them with hearing aids “in the near future if they insist on louder music!”

Group Fitness Classes Are Not Night Clubs or Rock Concerts

The music volume, says Raphael, “should never be in the category of rock concert loud (approximately 120 decibels), or to where people experience tinnitus (ringing in the ears; phantom ear noises) or fullness in the ears following the exposure (a sign of temporary threshold shift), like is often reported after rock concerts.”

Good hearing just as important as good cholesterol, good bone health and good muscle tone!

“Typically, the rule of thumb is sounds of 85 dB (average factory) or louder are potentially damaging to the fragile hair cells of the inner ear cochlea (length of exposure and individual susceptibility also play a big role), and people should limit their duration and/or use hearing protection in their presence.”

Performing complicated or grueling moves in a fitness class will not protect even the fittest person from hearing loss when the music is thundering.

Unlike coronary heart disease, hearing loss is NOT reversible.

Rachel A. Raphael specializes in clinical audiology and hearing aid dispensing. She helps in the diagnosis of hearing loss, tinnitus, dizziness and vestibular pathology in adults and children.

Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer. 

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Top image: Shutterstock/Lisa-S

It’s time for the big boys to admit it: Slamming and banging weights will likely damage hearing over time.

For this article on hearing loss resulting from weights being thrown, slammed and banged around at gyms, the expert source is Rachel Raphael, M.A., CCC-A, an audiologist with ENT Baltimore. 

An audiologist is an expert in hearing loss, measures people’s hearing and fits patients with hearing aids.

Raphael explains, “I never actually took a sound level meter to the smashing of weights in a weight room, but it is likely that even short durations of loud intense weights dropping, can have the same potential damage to hearing as a shotgun blast or an air bag deploying (both estimated at 140 dB).”

I’ve been lifting heavy weights for years and years, and I’ll admit, even the loudest sound of a 400 pound barbell crashing to the floor from an uncontrolled deadlift doesn’t seem as loud as a shotgun blast.

However, Raphael is pointing out that the banging and clanging of weights need not be as loud as a shotgun blast to cause hearing loss.

So how loud IS all the smashing and banging of weights at a gym?

Imagine when it really gets loud. This can be either from a number of men banging the metal plates together when loading barbells or other equipment, or from one solitary individual deliberately smashing plates or letting the weight stack on a machine slam down to get attention.

It’s NEVER an issue of exhaustion.

Some heavy lifters utilize control all the way to the end of a mammoth set, and besides, most of the exceedingly loud banging occurs when loading equipment.

Plus, many of the men who let weights crash down at the end of a set don’t even use that much weight.

Anyways, imagine the noise.

You know it’s intermittent rather than continuous like a chainsaw.

Now, imagine that it’s continuous. To me, it seems as though if continuous, the sound of banging metal upon metal weight plates, or letting very heavy barbells crash to the floor, would be at least as loud as a chainsaw only a few feet away, even louder – maybe almost as loud as firecrackers going off continuously.

With that said, Raphael further explains, “If in fact, the smashing weights are in this range for volume, it wouldn’t take much for the person at close range to suffer permanent damage, in the way of high frequency sensorineural hearing loss and/or tinnitus as a symptom secondary to the damage in the cochlea (inner ear).”

Few men who ripple with muscle and bench press 300 pounds will admit they might have hearing loss.

Now here’s a chilling fact:

When I speak to men in the gym to ask about equipment availability or have small-talk, they often ask me to repeat myself!

My speech is clear and articulate. Why aren’t they hearing me? Well, maybe because the gym is loud.

However, I can hear them just fine, even though they’re not talking particularly loud; their vocal volume is in a normal range.

Now get this: I’m able to hear them even though I have decibel-reduction ear muffs on at all times! The reduction is 29 dB, yet I can understand speech in a noisy gym.

Don’t take this as boasting. It’s my way of pointing out some very powerful anecdotal evidence that many men in gyms have hearing loss.

Perhaps for some of these men, the hearing loss stems from a loud factory job, frequent concert or ball game attendance or blasting music in their cars.

But let’s be more realistic:

Over a period of years, the amount of time that these men have spent in an environment replete with banging, clashing metal-upon-metal noise is SIGNIFICANT.

Exposure to recurring loud noise is hazardous to the nerve cells in the ears that transmit sound waves to the brain.

Repeated insults to these nerve cells will cause hearing loss. It’s a simple concept.

Ramming a 45 pound metal plate into another produces a VERY LOUD sound.

Multiply that out over the course of one workout—several times a week—52 weeks a year—over 10 years.

Banging Metal Plates at the Gym Is a Recipe for Hearing Loss

“The person who is more susceptible to damage (no way of knowing in advance) is all the more at risk, with even less intense exposures and shorter durations of exposure of any type,” says Raphael.

“I have no doubt (without any hard data to back me up) that the loud banging of metal plates against each other in the weight room falls into the category of dangerously loud.

“Most gyms and weight rooms discourage the banging or throwing of weights as a matter of good etiquette.

“When lifting weights, good ear safety is every bit as important as good technique to keep the workout safe!”

Rachel A. Raphael specializes in clinical audiology and hearing aid dispensing. She helps in the diagnosis of hearing loss, tinnitus, dizziness and vestibular pathology in adults and children.

Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer. 

I’m stunned that often, I see men without hearing protection working around wood chippers.

Wood chippers can be screaming loud, yet many workers continue to “chip” without protection for their ears. A typical wood chipper comes in at 110 decibels.

A decibel is a unit of sound volume. Working all day around 110 dBs, even if it’s not continuous, is asking for a lot of trouble.

For comparison, a chainsaw is 105 decibels. This data is from Cornell University’s Toolbox Safety Talk Hearing Conservation guidelines.

Rachel Raphael, M.A., CCC-A, an audiologist with ENT Baltimore, explains that she would “urge anyone using this or other loud construction tools, drills, saws, mowers, etc., to use hearing protection!”

SHALL IT BE THIS ?

OR THIS ?

Shutterstock/Andrey_Popov

Sometimes I DO see tree workers with industrial ear muffs while around the wood chipper.

And I’m sure there are those who wear custom-made ear plugs which an observer would not be able to see.

But many don’t think about damage to their ears from these machines and hence, go without protection.

“Young people think they’re not vulnerable to hearing loss (because young ears and hair cells usually bounce back initially from loud exposure), but over time, the temporary damage turns into permanent damage, and for now, scientists have not been able to regenerate hair cell growth in human cochleas (only in some lower forms of lab animals),” explains Raphael.

“I tell my patients to take care of the hearing they have control over, because soon enough, we will all ultimately suffer the effects of hearing loss that comes with old age.

“And although digital hearing aids are smaller and more sophisticated than ever, they will never be as good as our own healthy normal hearing ears.”

To guard against hearing loss when around a wood chipper, drug store earplugs may not be effective enough. You may be able to find a good pair from an online retailer, but you’ll need to try different kinds.

If you don’t succeed, you can always use the muffs or custom made earplugs.

Rachel A. Raphael specializes in clinical audiology and hearing aid dispensing. She helps in the diagnosis of hearing loss, tinnitus, dizziness and vestibular pathology in adults and children.

Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer. 

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Top image: Shutterstock/Roy Pedersen

Source: sp.ehs.cornell.edu/osh/occupational-health/hearing-conservation/Documents/Hearing%20Conservation%20toolbox%20talk.pdf