In conversation with friends, you like to be polite. At work, you want to look involved, even enthralled with what your boss/peers/clients are talking about. With family, you may find it easier to just tune out the conversation and ask the person near you to repeat 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 try to read people’s lips. And if everything else fails – you fake it.
Maybe your in denial. You missed lots of the conversation, and you’re straining to keep up. You might not recognize it, but years of progressive hearing loss can have you feeling isolated and frustrated, making tasks at work and life at home needlessly difficult.
The ability for someone to hear is influenced by situational variables like background noise, contending signals, room acoustics, and how acquainted they are with their setting, according to research. But for individuals who suffer from hearing loss these factors are made even more challenging.
Here are a few behaviors to help you identify whether you are, in truth, fooling yourself into thinking hearing impairment isn’t impacting your social and professional interactions, or whether it’s simply the acoustics in their environment:
- Thinking people aren’t speaking clearly when all you seem to hear is mumbling
- Leaning in during conversations and unintentionally cupping your hand over your ear
- Asking others what you missed after pretending to hear what someone was saying
- Finding it more difficult to hear over the phone
- Having a difficult time hearing what others behind you are saying
- Asking people to repeat themselves over and over again
Hearing loss most likely didn’t occur overnight even though it could feel that way. The majority of people wait 7 years on average before accepting the issue and seeking help.
This means if your hearing loss is an issue now, it has probably been going un-addressed and neglected for some time. Hearing loss is no joke so stop kidding yourself and make an appointment now.