Workout for my ears

September 15, 2006 9:49 AM

What can I do to increase my hearing ability?

Are your ears like your muscles? Can you work them out? What kind of exercises can I do to increase my hearing ability?

posted by MeetMegan to health (8 comments total)

There's the 'biological' ability of your ears, and the 'perception' your brain has of what your ears relay. The perception is a lot easier to improve.. with interval training, learning how to produce music, etc. Your question hints, however, at the ability to improve your ears biologically..

Your biological hearing ability is more like your ability to control your bowels. If your pipes are blocked, unblocking them will help.. but ultimately it's going to get worse over time, and if you try to drive too much through, you're going to wear the system out prematurely. As with your bowels, treat your ears with respect (test your hearing ability to regularly to get a feel for it), don't throw too much into them (volume wise) and you'll maintain better hearing over time.
posted by wackybrit at 9:59 AM on September 15, 2006

The herb ginko biloba stimulates blood flow to the head .
posted by hortense at 10:55 AM on September 15, 2006

I once watched a programme when I was a kid -- might have been, 'The Man From Uncle', though I'm sure it was, 'Mission Impossible -- where one of the main characters was tested on his sense of hearing.

He sat in a room, whilst another character moved about in another room. The testee could hear what was going on in the other room via a microphone and loudspeaker. He had to describe what the other character was doing; opening a drawer, turning on a light, placing a rolex watch on a dressing table...

I suppose the moral of the story is, good hearing may be fine but knowing what you are hearing is better. Just in the same way astronomers have to learn to 'see'.

You could make a game of it.
posted by popcassady at 11:10 AM on September 15, 2006

I have a hearing "condition" in my right hear that a number of audiologists (some leading ones in the field, in fact) have generally termed "hyperacusis."

Most of audiology deals with hearing problems - ie. loss / lack of hearing. Hearing to well (hyper-acusis, or hyper-hearing) - is apparently the exception. I wrote about it, here.

Long story short, my ear can't handle loud situations, becuase the nerve has overdeveloped and can hear too accutely. To combat this, I have had to regularly carry an ear plug with me since I was a kid, for wearing in movie theaters, loud subway cars, bars, concerts, what have you. As one doctor recently pointed out, my overall hearing at all levels has increased in my right ear, likely due in part to the fact that I protect it (for comfort's sake) from loud situations. My left ear, on the other hand, has rather normal hearing capabilities.

My suggestion: wear earplugs in any potentially loud situation. It will likely take you years of doing this to notice any change, and potentially your hearing won't get "better" so much as stay the same, but its worth a shot.
posted by allkindsoftime at 11:29 AM on September 15, 2006 [1 favorite]

that's fascinating, allkindsoftime.

I have nothing to offer, though, other than that I seem to remember at one point seeing some sort of audio-book type of thing that had exercises to increase your perceptive hearing....
posted by Espoo2 at 11:35 AM on September 15, 2006

I developed better hearing from waiting tables. I basically did exercises, where I would "pick up" conversations as I walked by. So before I would have to be facing someone fairly close in a busy section to hear them. I can be halfway across the room, listening/ talking to someone else. I hear them shake their ice around, or off handedly mention coffee and I am right there to give them what they want.
posted by stormygrey at 11:38 AM on September 15, 2006

First thing to do is to make sure your ears are clean. Q-tips just push the wax further back into your ear, so go down to the drug store and pickup an ear syringe (a bulbous thing, not a needle). Fill a basin with warm water and squirt the water in your ear until junk stops coming out (you'll be surprised at how much stuff is in there). Make sure you're using warm water or you'll get dizzy or nauseous. After doing this it seems like everything is a bit louder, or more detailed.

Secondly you'll want to practice listening. I like to listen to music and try to listen to the background instruments. Listen to the rhythm guitar while the lead is taking center stage, or the cymbols while the vocalist is singing. You can also try going to the park and closing your eyes and just listening. Try to pick out faint or far away sounds and identify them.
posted by hamhed at 1:19 PM on September 15, 2006

I think perhaps improving at listening is more to the point than improving at hearing. A few suggestions for exercises:

- Lie on your bed and listen to the world. Normally you subconsciously filter out much of the sound around you, make it a game to hear what you are missing. Try to listen to all the little sounds in your room, in the street, the rest of the house, first one by one, then all together.

- Watch TV with the sound really low. I've had occasion to do this when not wanting to wake people up, and found my perception somehow adjusts fairly quickly.

- Spend some time in the countryside, outside your normal environment (or if you live in a forest, try a city I guess). The stimulation of the uncountable number of unusual and intriguing sounds can be very compelling, and in the case of a forest, will usually be something your ears will want to listen to.

- Try to pick out conversations when in crowed places - bars, trains, so forth. Have fun trying to switching between conversations, following more than one.
posted by MetaMonkey at 5:00 PM on September 15, 2006