You want to be polite when you are talking to friends. You want your customers, co-workers, and boss to recognize that you’re totally engaged when you’re at work. With family, you might find it less difficult to simply tune out the conversation and ask the person near you to fill in what you missed, just a little louder, please.
You have to move in a little closer when you’re on conference calls. You pay attention to body language and facial clues and listen for verbal inflections. You attempt to read people’s lips. And if all else fails – you fake it.
Don’t fool yourself. You’re struggling to keep up because you missed most of what was said. You might not recognize it, but years of cumulative hearing loss can have you feeling isolated and frustrated, making projects at work and life at home unnecessarily difficult.
The ability for someone to hear is impacted by situational factors including background noise, contending signals, room acoustics, and how comfortable they are with their setting, according to studies. But for people who suffer from hearing loss, these factors are made even more difficult.
Look out for these behaviors
There are some tell-tale behaviors that will raise your awareness of whether you’re in denial about how your hearing impairment is impacting your social and professional life:
- Unable to hear others talking from behind you
- Leaning in When people are talking and instinctively cupping your ear with your hand
- Pretending to comprehend, only to later ask others what you missed
- Missing what people are saying when on phone conversations
- Repeatedly having to ask people to repeat themselves
- Feeling as if people are mumbling and not speaking clearly
Hearing loss most likely didn’t occur overnight even though it might feel that way. Acknowledging and getting help for hearing loss is something that takes most individuals 7 years or more.
That means that if your hearing loss is an issue now, it has most likely been going unaddressed and untreated for some time. Hearing loss is no joke so stop fooling yourself and schedule an appointment now.