In conversation with friends, you like to be polite. You want your clients, co-workers, and manager to see that you’re completely involved when you’re at work. You often find yourself needing family to repeat themselves because it was easier to tune out parts of the discussion that you weren’t able to hear very well.
On conference calls you lean in closer. You look for facial hints, listen for inflection, and tune in to body language. You read lips. And if none of that works, you nod as if you heard everything.
Don’t fool yourself. You’re struggling to keep up because you missed most of the conversation. Life at home and projects at work have become unjustifiably overwhelming and you are feeling aggravated and cut off due to years of progressive hearing loss.
The ability for a person to hear is influenced by situational variables like background sound, contending signals, room acoustics, and how acquainted they are with their surroundings, according to studies. These factors are always in play, but they can be a lot more severe for individuals who have hearing loss.
Some hearing loss behaviors to watch out for
Here are some behaviors to help you determine whether you are, in truth, convincing yourself that your hearing impairment is not impacting your social and professional relationships, or whether it’s just the acoustics in the environment:
- Requesting that repeat themselves over and over again
- Having a difficult time hearing what people behind you are saying
- Finding it more difficult to hear over the phone
- Pretending to understand, only to follow up with others to get what you missed
- Cupping your hands over your ear or leaning in close to the person who is speaking without realizing it
- Thinking people aren’t speaking clearly when all you can hear is mumbling
Hearing loss probably didn’t take place overnight even though it might feel that way. Most people wait an average of 7 years before accepting the issue and seeking help.
This means that if your hearing loss is an issue now, it has probably been going unaddressed and untreated for some time. Hearing loss is no joke so stop kidding yourself and make an appointment right away.