Most people don’t think about hearing loss unless they experience enough of it for life to become challenging, or if they have tinnitus—a very common condition causing ringing in the ear that is very disruptive to focus and sleep.
On the Huberman Lab episode out now, I talk to the Chair of Otolaryngology at Stanford School of Medicine, Konstantina Stankovic, about how to protect your hearing. Kids and adults nowadays are experiencing progressive hearing loss and most people are not aware of it. There’s also a strong correlation between progressive hearing loss and cognitive challenges later in life.
This does not mean you can’t go to concerts, etc.! It’s just a matter of taking the correct precautions, including earplugs, magnesium supplementation before and after a particularly loud event, etc.
Also, if you can hear the sound coming out of someone else’s headphones, they are going to experience hearing loss to some degree. That means it’s too loud. (That’s a tough one for me, given that I love to listen to music loud, but such is biology!)
