The holidays are a time to eat lots of tasty food, drink hot chocolate and catch up with relatives you haven’t seen in a while. If you’re among the 20% of people with hearing loss, however, all that festive coversation might feel hard to grasp.
Luckily, combining the advanced technology of hearing aids with some effective communication tips can help you stay in the loop and in good cheer this holiday season.
How Can Hearing Aids Help?
There are a couple of ways hearing aids can improve your holiday conversations:
- Amplifying speech. Hearing aids identify and amplify speech sounds to help you catch more words in a conversation. Some devices employ directional microphones and advanced AI processing to minimize distracting background sounds, allowing you to focus on the things you want to hear.
- Reduced cognitive load. When you have hearing loss, your brain must work overtime to fill in the gaps of what you’re not hearing. You may not notice the effort at first, but the mental fatigue after a long conversation can be a giveaway. Hearing aids help carry that burden, allowing your brain to conserve energy for the enjoyable parts of the holiday season.
- Minimizing stress. Feeling like you’re always missing something can take a toll on your confidence and turn what should be fun holiday gatherings into stressful ones. Hearing aids help restore some of your communication confidence, allowing you to join the conversation without worry.
Before your next event, make sure your hearing aids are fully charged and clean so they perform at their best. If it’s been a while since your last service appointment, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We’ll give them a professional cleaning and check the programming for you!
Effective Communication Strategies
When you combine the power of your devices with effective communication strategies, you strengthen holiday connection even further. Try the following for easier conversations:
- Practice active listening. Active listening means fully focusing on and understanding what someone else is saying. When you’re living with hearing loss, this skill is essential. Try to stay present when you’re having a conversation and avoid the urge to let your mind wander or plan your next response too soon.
- Ask for rephrasing. Because hearing loss affects specific frequencies, repetition alone may not help you understand something you missed. If you don’t hear something clearly, ask the speaker to rephrase themselves or add context.
- Talk face-to-face. Body language and facial expressions are crucial components in understanding speech. Make it a habit to look at the person you’re speaking to and avoid talking to each other from different rooms.
- Minimize background noise. Music, TV audio, clattering dishes and background conversations can make it challenging to separate and understand the speech you’re trying to hear. You can lower the music, ask people to talk at a quieter volume or give young children plastic dishware to create a better listening environment.
- Pick a good seat. Sitting at a centrally located position will allow you to hear the greatest number of people at once. Try to sit in the middle or close to the people you think you’ll talk to the most often.
Hearing loss doesn’t need to hold you back from the festive bonding the holidays bring. For more information on managing your hearing loss or to schedule a hearing aid service & repair appointment, contact Allergy & ENT Associates today.