How Hearing Loss Impacts Your Life
Many people believe that their hearing loss is only affected them and forget all the people around them that it may also be affecting. Hearing loss not only affects the person suffering, but it also has many negative impacts on everyone surrounding those affected by hearing loss.
Hearing loss is preventable, manageable and treatable but only if those with hearing loss want to improve their quality of life and relationships. The hardest part is taking the necessary steps in order to do so.
Approximately 1 in 5 people that would benefit from a hearing aid actually wears one. The other 4 find excuses for why they don’t want or need a hearing aid. They usually don’t know this, but they are causing even more harm by refusing to take action and unknowingly allowing other areas in their life to suffer.
So, what areas of one’s life can be directly affected by hearing loss?
- Child / Parent Relationships
Whether it’s not being able to hear your crying baby, impacting your child’s life by them thinking you’re not interested or don’t care about what they’re telling you, or the emotional strain on adult children who have continuously encouraged you to have your hearing checked. All of these can have an impact on your relationship with your children.
- Romantic Relationships
Romantic relationships are dependent on emotional, verbal and physical connections. Hearing loss can create a major barrier to all of these things.
If you suffer from hearing loss, you may be much more withdrawn from conversations with your spouse because of the effort it takes to have those conversations. It may be difficult to understand everything your spouse says, making it much more difficult to stay engaged in conversations. Your spouse may take this as a sign of you being uninterested and begin to withdraw from you, too.
Communication is the foundation of a great relationship and if there is a divide in that communication, that can be reversed, neither you nor your spouse are doing yourselves or your relationship any favours for simply ignoring the root of the problem.
- Social Interaction
If you have a hearing loss, you might lose touch with friends, feel isolated or left out of conversations in social settings or people may feel you’re a poor listener if they do not know about your hearing loss.
Isolation is a HUGE issue many people with hearing loss experience. Whether they are aware of their hearing loss as the cause or not, people around them will usually notice the change in behaviour first. Not wanting to attend social events or separating one’s self at events are key indicators someone may be experiencing isolation due to a hearing loss.
- Work-Life
Communication is the heart of all business and working with others. If your communication skills are weakened by a hearing loss,m you may miss out on important details, not hear important times and dates, or become difficult for others to work with because others view you as uncollaborative or standoffish.
Everyone has a choice when it comes to improving the areas of their life mentioned above. If your hearing loss is impacting one, some or all of the areas listed above or any other area and you think hearing loss may be to blame – have your hearing tested. At least once you have your hearing tested, you will know whether or not it is the cause and believe me, you’re family, friends and co-workers will be much more relieved it’s hearing loss and not just your grumpy old age!
Contact Innovative Hearing Solutions
https://www.hearingservices.ca/contact-us/
Read related content here:
Impact Of Hearing Loss On Relationships:
https://www.healthyhearing.com/report/52619-The-impact-of-hearing-loss-on-relationships