You’re supposed to wear your hearing aids every day. But before you recycle your milk containers, you’re supposed to wash them out too. Sometimes, we don’t do the things we’re supposed to. So yeah, you forget to take your hearing aids out of the nightstand drawer occasionally. You may even forget to use it for more than a day.
That’s not great. Because there are several things that happen (or continue to happen) when you don’t wear your hearing aids. And, honestly, the majority of them are rather negative.
Effects And Repercussions of Going Without Hearing Aids
Much of what happens when you don’t wear your hearing aids will affect both your hearing health and your social life, each with varying degrees of severity and intensity. The effects and repercussions of neglecting to wear your hearing aids could include the following.
Your Hearing Will Continue to Diminish
The technology of hearing aids is fairly remarkable. They increase your ability to hear and help keep your auditory complex (the region of the brain that interprets sound) running efficiently.
You could damage your hearing even more if, instead of wearing your hearing aids, you begin cranking the volume up on your devices even higher than they already are. Even if you’re keeping the volumes under control, problems with your brain can result from missing sensory stimuli. (It actually shrinks.) So you’ll most likely wind up needing more powerful hearing aids in the future if you fail to use your current pair because your hearing will keep getting worse.
It Will Become More Difficult to Interact Socially
You know those short interactions you have with the cashier as you’re cashing out at the grocery store? They’re enjoyable, we think. A nice little bit of humanity in a technology-driven world.
When you don’t use your hearing aids, these simple social interactions can quickly become a lot more challenging. You repeatedly miss parts of the conversation and have to ask people to repeat themselves. Again and again. And that’s when the conversation becomes really awkward. That may not sound serious but each time a scenario like this happens, you will tend to disengage socially more and more. And that can result in even more substantial problems.
Cognitive Decline And Hearing Aids
Your brain doesn’t get close to as much exercise when you isolate yourself. Think about how revitalized (or exhausted) you can feel after a good chat or a pleasant evening meal with your family. Certain cognitive functions can begin to decline or decline faster without this exercise. This could mean:
- Memory problems
- Depression
- Balance issues
- Declines in energy or productivity
But there’s more. Because hearing sound is vitally essential to certain parts of your brain and nervous system. Your auditory complex begins to atrophy when certain nerves begin to deteriorate from lack of stimulus. This can cause an even more rapid mental decline (or, even in the best-case scenario, make adjusting to your hearing aids even more challenging).
Your brain remains happy, stimulated, and active when you wear hearing aids.
Losing The Ability to be Independent
Needing a little more help, as you get older, is not uncommon. Perhaps you get a family member to go to the store for you or a neighbor to do some yard work. If you aren’t wearing your hearing aid, you could be speeding up the loss of independence that often comes with aging.
When you don’t use your hearing aids, it can quickly become more difficult to answer the phone or talk with your neighbor. You might miss important weather alerts. Perhaps you don’t hear your dog barking when there’s someone at the door or your cat meowing in the morning when he needs food.
What’s The Solution?
No matter how technologically sophisticated hearing aids get, they won’t solve all of life’s issues. But they will solve a lot of the problems associated with not using your hearing aids.
If you’re having issues with your hearing aids or if they’re not comfortable, that’s one thing (and you should talk to us about finding solutions to those particular problems).
It’s worth taking some time to consider what the repercussions will be if you avoid using your hearing aids and also what the advantages of wearing them may be.
References
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/otolaryngology/specialty_areas/hearing/faq.html
https://www.webmd.com/brain/news/20140128/hearing-loss-tied-to-faster-brain-shrinkage-with-age
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/05/ce-corner-isolation
