It is significant to create a balance between the time of headphone usage and the volume limit to not harm your ears and to keep enjoying a good audio experience.
Modern days call for modern needs. Headphones have become an important necessity in children, teenagers, and adults’ lives.
Just like every electronic gadget, headphones also have their pros and cons.
You don’t realize while attaching your phone and yourself with the headphones for the whole day that you are harming your ears.
Read the article to learn how can headphones be used without damaging the ears.
How To Use Headphones Without Damaging Ears?
Adequate Amount Of Use
During the pandemic, adults were doing their office work from home and students were attending classes online in which they were using headphones for almost 5 to 8 hours. Now it has become a basic necessity for them even after the pandemic has ended.
There is almost 1.7% of the world’s population that suffers from noise-induced hearing loss problems, and this can’t be neglected.
The recommended time for using headphones or earphones by doctors is 60 minutes and the volume of the audio should be 60% of the total volume limit on your devices.
The clinical Audiology service says, if you are using headphones with 80% volume on for 90 minutes, the time should not exceed or else it will turn harmful for you and damage your hearing ability.
Take a 10-minute break after every 60 minutes of using headphones and give rest to your ears so they can relieve and let the fresh air enter them. It will help in decreasing the temperature inside the ears and reduce the chance of bacteria growing.
A volume level of more than 60% of your device leads to severe damage to your eardrum which eventually becomes incurable and the ear becomes extremely sensitive to loud noises.
Understanding the importance of your organs after they get damaged won’t be of any help.
Therefore, if you want to exceed the usage time by more than 60 minutes, you can use headphones with a low volume. There is an inversely proportional relationship between the time and volume of the gadget.
When you increase the volume you should decrease the time of usage, or if you want to exceed the time limit for more than 60 minutes, you should keep the volume low.
If you can’t figure out how to maintain a low volume of headphones that is safe for your ears, you can ask people sitting beside you if they can hear the music you are listening to, then you should decrease the volume accordingly.
Clean your headphones
Headphones become dirty and catch germs when they are inside your ears for too long. They become sticky and can easily attach pathogens, and microorganisms like harmful bacteria to them.
For bacteria and viruses, a warm temperature is the best place to grow and by using headphones for a long period, you’re giving them a good medium to multiply.
You can clean your headphones with rubbing alcohol, hand sanitizers, screen cleaner, or by using a damp microfiber cloth.
The exact intact areas of earbuds can be cleaned with a soaked cotton bud in rubbing alcohol, and in the end, rub a clean dry cloth over your headphones. They are ready to be used again.
Sharing is not caring
Don’t share your earphones or headphones will anyone as you’re giving a chance to spread bacteria from you to another person, affecting them too or vice versa.
To escape from damaging your ears, keep your earphones or headphones clean or replace them with new ones.
Here are some tricks and techniques to clean your headphones, check out this video and see how it is done.
Clean your ears weekly
Just like your headphones and earbuds, your ears also need thorough cleaning because the ears’ skin releases oil for the protection of ears from microbes and dust which forms sebum and produces earwax, sweat, cerumen, and dirt.
Your ears too need to be cleaned regularly which will maintain good hygiene of your ears and you’ll never face any kind of pain or dizziness.
Drawbacks Of Using Headphones At A High Volume For A Long Period
Loud music can harm your eardrum and it can damage the hair cells in the ears which are responsible to carry messages from ear to brain. You can experience hearing noises from inside your body which never exists.
Headphones are made for the convenience of people, so they can experience quality audio while listening to music, lectures, podcasts, or watching movies or news.
If you don’t follow the standard recommendation of audiologists about wearing headphones, you can experience severe ear damage like:
- built-up earwax,
- ear soreness,
- fatigue,
- tinnitus,
- ear pain,
- hearing loss,
- watery pus,
- dizziness,
- noise-induced hearing loss.
It will also affect your brain emotionally and through anxiety. Loud music will steal the peace of your mind and cause a mental and emotional breakdown.
Inside your ears, fluid is present under the skin to maintain balance and is also responsible to sense the vibrations generated by sound. However, it might also start to shrink.
When you listen to loud music often, the hair of the ear will lose its sensitivity to vibration and will also change the shape of the cells of the ears and will start folding.
Poor-fit headphones are harmful to the outer part of your ears.
Earphones are present inside and are attached to your ears for a long time, if they are not your perfect size then they can cause severe infections, therefore you should prefer using headphones as they are at a specific distance from the eardrum.
Other than that, many people face sleeplessness after wearing headphones for a whole day listening to music at maximum volume.
The advantages and disadvantages of using headphones are listed below:
| ADVANTAGES | DISADVANTAGES |
| Lightweight | Hearing loss |
| Portable | Increase the risk of ear infections |
| Noise cancellation | Can cause hyperacusis |
| Can be Wireless | Increase Earwax |
| Improves sound quality | Swelling & pain |
Conclusion
- Overpowering and loud music will damage your hair cells and the auditory nerves of your ears.
- Use headphones rather than earbuds because earphones will sit inside your ears and damage auditory nerves but headphones are placed over your ears.
- It is an alarming situation for the world where 1.7% of our population is facing hearing loss due to earphones and we need to overcome this situation.
- People should purchase noise-canceling headphones which will increase the audio quality and restrict environmental noises as it has special foams attached to them which protect your ears from external noises.
- Headphones will cancel out the sound waves coming from outside. This will make your experience better.
- If you experience any discomfort related to your ears after wearing headphones, consult with an audiologist or an ENT specialist as soon as possible, they’ll give you a diagnosis and treatment and guide you about the time limit that suits your ears while using headphones.
- Clean your headphones thoroughly and keep them germ-free.
- Little by little try to reduce the time of using headphones per day.
- Avoid wearing headphones for too long as it will lead to hearing loss partially or sometimes completely.