Hearing loss can creep up so gradually that many of us don’t notice we have a problem until we’re struggling to understand friends in a restaurant. Or even worse, when our spouses get angry that we’re constantly asking, “What? Pardon? Can you repeat that?”

If this sounds familiar, you could be suffering from a hearing problem, and you might benefit from the natural hearing remedies below. Even better, when you combine the following techniques with an affordable, high-quality hearing aid from MDHearing, you’ll be unstoppable! Let’s take a look:

1. Apps and Games That Train Your Brain to Hear Better

Most hearing loss patients have physical problems with their inner ears that prevent them from detecting the sounds around them. However, your brain is just as important for voice comprehension as your ears. Your brain is what distinguishes sounds and interprets their meanings.

While hearing loss is permanent in many  cases, patients may be able to improve hearing comprehension by exercising the brain with a smartphone app, such as EarGym. Here’s how the EarGym app works to improve your listening comprehension (paraphrased from their Website):

Most people struggle to hear clearly in noisy environments. When there are many competing sounds, it’s much harder to focus on a single conversation. Auditory training can help by improving the brain's ability to filter and focus on important sounds in front of you.

Using interactive games, auditory training targets key hearing and cognitive skills. The more you train, the more your hearing improves. In a recent research study, 20% of participants reported a 2dB improvement in speech intelligibility, 83% of participants reported improved hearing skills, and 68% improved their ability to hear in noisy places.

EarGym’s training adapts to your performance, offering personalized sessions that keep challenging your skills. The games target real-world listening abilities, like understanding speech and locating sounds, to ensure the training benefits are practical in everyday life.

In addition to the EarGym app, we recommend that you try some cognitive gaming apps—like those from HappyNeuron and Lumosity—to boost your overall brain capacity and listening comprehension. These apps are fun, healthy, and addictive!

2. Low-Tech Exercises That Improve Hearing Comprehension

Using a tech device is great, but hearing is all about socializing and connecting with the people around you. We recommend you work with a partner, family member, or friend to strengthen your ability to perceive and understand voices:

• Listen to someone reading aloud: Ask a friend or family member to read to you. Repeat each line you hear, and have your loved one point out the mistakes. As your comprehension improves, do the same exercise in a noisy environment, such as a restaurant, to deepen your skills.

• Practice sound directionality exercises: Close your eyes and have a family member move to different areas of the room while they talk to you. Guess which direction they’re coming from and how far away they are. This will improve your ability to perceive sound directionality, which helps understanding in group conversations and being aware of your environment.

• Have more conversations in noisy environments: Turn on the radio or television and try to have a conversation with your partner. Do the same in a noisy restaurant or bar. Intentionally practicing your listening comprehension in areas with a lot of ambient noise will strengthen your abilities.

3. Hearing Concentration Exercises to Do When You’re Alone

No matter your age, some people naturally find themselves more prone to distractions than others. However, it’s not uncommon to experience frequent bouts of getting distracted, losing focus, or zoning out as we get older. 

Since staying focused is key to following conversations—and can help prevent the frustration that comes with hearing loss—we recommend trying the following concentration-boosting techniques when you're alone:

• Sound isolation techniques: Have you ever tried isolating individual instruments, melodies, or sounds? Practicing this and other sound isolation techniques trains your brain to focus on important sounds during conversations. To practice, close your eyes and tune in to the layers of sound around you. Listen for specific elements—a guitar in a song, or ambient noises like birds, wind, or traffic—and focus on just one for as long as possible. This simple exercise can significantly strengthen your auditory concentration and enhance your listening abilities.

• Meditation techniques: Meditation is a powerful tool for building focus. Sit in a comfortable position and focus on the sound of your breath, and only the sound of your breath. It’s as simple as that. In the beginning, your mind will wander from the breath—just like it does in a conversation. That’s okay, just bring your focus back. In time, your concentration will be “strong like bull!”

4. Vitamins and Supplements to Improve Hearing

Practicing the above cognitive techniques will improve your listening comprehension skills—we can almost guarantee it. But what about improving your hearing through health? Scientific research shows that certain vitamins can help, prevent, or delay hearing loss:

• Fish oils: The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition says that consuming two servings of fish per week can lower the risk of hearing loss. One of the best ways to get the same health benefits of fish is by taking fish oil supplements.

• Magnesium: This mineral has been scientifically shown to protect against noise-induced hearing loss.

• Folic acid: A 2007 study found that consuming folic acid delayed age-related hearing loss in the lower frequency ranges.

• Vitamin A: The Journal of Nutrition, Health, and Aging published a study showing that higher levels of vitamin A supplementation coincided with reduced instances of hearing loss. According to the study: “Those in the highest quintile of dietary vitamin A intake had a 47% reduced risk of having moderate or greater hearing loss (>40 dB HL) compared to those in the lowest quintile of intake.”

We all know that vitamins are good for your health in general. But it’s always best to consult with your doctor before taking any vitamins or supplements to improve your hearing condition.

5. Get an Earwax Removal & Ear Cleaning

Earwax is healthy and natural. It protects the sensitive parts of our ears from bacteria, dust, and other debris. However, if too much wax accumulates in the ear, it will cause mild conductive hearing loss. Therefore, anyone with hearing loss should visit a medical professional to see if they need earwax removed and an ear cleaning.

Please don’t use a cotton swab or pin to remove ear wax yourself!  You could accidentally damage the most delicate parts of your ear. You should use an ear rinse kit or see a trained medical practitioner.

6. Quit Smoking (and Tell Your Partner to Quit Smoking Too)

A JAMA study showed that smoking increases your chances of hearing loss by 1.69 times. According to the study, nicotine consumption also leads to tinnitus (ringing in the ears), and second-hand smoke from your partner can cause hearing loss in you, even if you’ve never smoked a cigarette in your life.

Doctors believe that nicotine and carbon monoxide from smoking restricts blood flow to the ears, which causes the degradation of inner ear cells. They also suspect that smoking interrupts the neurotransmitters that deliver messages from the hearing nerve to the brain, and this can disrupt speech-language comprehension.

Here are the most important findings from the study:

After adjusting for other factors, current smokers were 1.69 times as likely to have a hearing loss as nonsmokers (95% confidence interval, 1.31-2.17). This relationship remained for those without a history of occupational noise exposure and in analyses excluding those with non–age-related hearing loss. There was weak evidence of a dose-response effect. Nonsmoking participants who lived with a smoker were more likely to have a hearing loss than those who were not exposed to a household member who smoked (odds ratio, 1.94; 95% confidence interval, 1.01-3.74).

MDHearing: Improve Your Hearing With High-Quality, Affordable Hearing Aids

We hope you can use these techniques to improve your hearing naturally and inexpensively. At the same time, it’s important to remember that the physical aspects of hearing damage are permanent. There’s only so much you can do to treat hearing loss without a hearing aid.

If you're looking for affordable hearing aids, MDHearing has you covered. We offer high quality, FDA-registered, over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids that are designed and tested by expert engineers and audiologists. Unlike the costly options you’ll find at clinics, MDHearing products are available for just a few hundred dollars. Plus, every purchase is backed by a 100% money-back guarantee, ensuring you can buy with confidence.

Interested in trying a set of hearing aids for yourself? Click below to learn more about our affordable, high-quality hearing aids.
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