Hearing Excellence launches the industry first Noise Management Program to tackle the challenges associated with ever increasing noise. We live in a noisy world. The global phenomenon of ever-increasing environmental noise affects everyday lives and is one of the factors impacting general wellbeing. Noise has been diagnosed as a major cause of hearing loss, insomnia, increased stress levels and other health related problems.

When the Hearing Excellence team was discussing the concept of creating the Noise Clinic. We understood that excessive noise in the workplace can lead to miscommunication, sleep interference and elevated blood pressure. It can cause serious, irreversible damage to the inner ear, leading to long-term issues with hearing as well as cognitive functioning. Fortunately, noise prevention protocols are well defined in workplaces. There is a reasonable level of awareness among the workforce and technology has evolved to allow us to protect our ears from occupational noise by using hearing protection, such as ear plugs.

However, it became evident that, people are caught off guard when it comes to everyday noise. Our awareness levels are low, and we have no definite protocols to follow. The use of hearing protection devices in everyday life is extremely slow. Exposure to everyday noise is also a major cause of insomnia, elevated stress, and other health-related problems. Once the hearing pathway is damaged, there is no way to fix it. The only way we can stop this is through community awareness, noise management counselling, thorough diagnostics, accurate product prescription and solution validation.

To tackle the universal noise problem, a our team of Audiologists worked on creating a world class Noise Management Protocol” says Sharad Ojha, the President of Hearing Excellence.

Noise pollution around us is ever growing. Often, we don’t realize that permanent hearing damage can develop after exposure to just one incidence of extreme noise or after listening to loud sounds over time. Sound is measured in decibels (dB). We typically converse at around 60 dB, and that is a safe level of sound. But while watching a game in a stadium or while enjoying a rock concert, we are potentially exposed to noise levels in the range of 100- 180 dB. These are dangerous levels of noise, and it only takes a minute to 30 minutes of exposure to cause permanent damage to our hearing.

Our lifestyle also forces us to be exposed to excess noise for example being in heavy traffic, listening to loud music, riding a motorcycle, passing subway car, standing on the GO station, frequenting noisy bars, mowing our lawns. All these situations are associated with noise levels that could impact our health. There are ranges of sounds we probably didn’t know, create havoc in our ears. In short, not only extreme loud noises but repeated exposure to higher decibels begins to destroy the nerve endings in inner ear permanently and cause multiple health issues.

Recent studies show that loud music plus music blasted directly into the ears via earphones, have resulted in an alarming increase of hearing damage and tinnitus (ringing in the ears) in teenagers. All this is preventable if we don’t overload our ears.