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To be a good listener, you've got to be interested in what the speaker is saying. And you need to hear well. If your sense of hearing is weakening, you're likely to first notice it during conversations. Why?
"Because sometimes the speaker will use slight nuances of speech, their tone of voice, or minimally raise or lower their voice, to give what they're saying a particular meaning," says audiologist Eberhard Schmidt.
If you don't pick up these nuances and overtones, you won't know, for example, whether the speaker expects an immediate reaction from you or wants to complete their train of thought first.
Having to concentrate hard when you're listening to someone may be a sign of hearing loss. In some cases, listening can become so strenuous that it tires you out as the day goes on, doctors say. Another possible sign is waning attentiveness during conversations.
Listening is even more strenuous in a noisy environment: music playing, dishes clattering, other conversations nearby. This requires the ability to selectively focus on the conversation you're having, known as the "cocktail party effect." To have it, you need good hearing in both ears.
Your ears work closely together with your brain to filter the voice of your interlocutor out of multiple other sources of sound. "The sound waves that enter both ears are 'translated' into information and classified," Schmidt says.
If you're hard of hearing, your selective attention is impaired. The words of your interlocutor are then largely drowned out by background noise, sentences getting through only in fragments or muffled, explains Schmidt.
There are other signs of possible hearing loss, including constant ringing or buzzing in the ears - known as tinnitus - dizziness, impaired balance and headaches. Another is often being asked to turn down the volume of the TV or radio.
While no one likes to admit trouble hearing - for many a source of embarrassment or shame - a gradual decline in the functioning of the tiny hairs in the inner ear that turn sound waves into electrical signals, and the auditory nerve that transmits them to the brain, is a normal part of ageing.
Reluctant though you may be, you should get a hearing test from an ENT specialist or audiologist if you have hearing problems. Left untreated, hearing loss can lead to social withdrawal and is also linked to increased risk of falling - the vestibular system, responsible for balance, is located in the inner ear.
For mild hearing loss, a hearing aid is often unnecessary. Minor lifestyle adjustments can help to manage it, a very common one being to sit in a front row at speaking events (but not at loud events such as rock concerts!).
"If you sit way in back at church, for instance, you'll experience the reverberations especially strongly, which makes listening and understanding much more difficult," remarks Schmidt, also president of Germany's Federal Guild of Hearing Aid Professionals (biha).
In cases of moderate to severe hearing loss, however, a hearing aid is advisable. "It will detect and suppress disruptive sounds during conversations, enabling you to understand them," Schmidt says. "When it recognizes speech, it automatically turns down background noise."
New hearing aid wearers shouldn't expect things to sound as before though, since your auditory system and brain have to get used to the device. So experts will generally recommend wearing it in fairly quiet environments first, and only later where there's more background noise - say, from a TV or radio - and when you're on the phone.- dpa
