In conversation with friends, you want to be polite. You want your customers, co-workers, and supervisor to see that you’re fully involved when you’re at work. With family, you might find it less difficult to just tune out the conversation and ask the person next to you to fill in what you missed, just a bit louder, please.
On conference calls you lean in closer. You pay attention to body language and facial clues and listen for verbal inflections. You read lips. And if everything else fails – you fake it.
Don’t fool yourself. You’re struggling to keep up because you missed most of what was said. Life at home and projects at work have become unnecessarily overwhelming and you are feeling frustrated and isolated due to years of cumulative hearing loss.
Some research shows that situational factors including environmental acoustics, background noise, contending signals, and situational awareness have a strong influence on the way we hear. These factors are always in play, but they can be a lot more severe for individuals who are suffering from hearing loss.
Some hearing loss behaviors to look out for
There are certain tell-tale behaviors that will alert you to whether you’re in denial about how your hearing loss is impacting your social and professional life:
- Unable to hear people talking from behind you
- Missing important parts of phone conversations
- Requesting that repeat themselves again and again… and again
- Asking others what was said after pretending you heard what they were saying
- Leaning in during conversations and unconsciously cupping your hand over your ear
- Feeling as if people are mumbling and not talking clearly
Hearing loss probably didn’t happen overnight even though it could feel that way. Acknowledging and seeking out help for hearing impairment is something that takes most people at least 7 years.
So if you’re noticing symptoms of hearing loss, you can be sure that it’s been going on for some time unnoticed. Hearing loss is no joke so stop fooling yourself and schedule an appointment right away.