How to Clean and Protect Your Ears From Hearing Damage

Updated on February 10, 2023

Protect | Diet | Exercise | Cleaning | Accessorise | Action

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Learn how to clean and protect your ears from hearing damage with our comprehensive guide. Discover the impact of diet, exercise, and ear cleaning techniques on ear health, and find out how to accessorize for ear protection. Keep your ears healthy and prevent tinnitus symptoms.

Protect Your Ears from Hearing Damage🦻

Listen if your daily environment is peaceful or repetitive and loud, including for your work, if it is wear ear protection such as ear plugs which are easy to carry everywhere or noise-cancelling headphones. Move away from loud noises and keep your environment as peaceful as possible.

If your environment is noisy and you are trying to focus while studying or working try soundproofing your room with sound panels and wear ear plugs or noise-cancelling headphones, playing low-volume concentration music.

During winter wear ear muffs or a beanie to protect your ears from the cold.

Hearing loss

Hearing loss can be categorised in 3 ways sensorineural, conductive and mixed.

Sensorineural is when the inner ear structures are damaged and is the more common cause of hearing loss (Xu & Yang, 2021).

Conductive hearing loss is when sound can’t pass through your outer and middle ear to the inner ear caused by obstruction or disease. (Cunningham & Tucci, 2017).

Mixed hearing loss has both sensorineural and conducive components (Cunningham & Tucci, 2017).

The WHO states that nearly 1.1 billion youth are currently at risk of noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) the sad part is that it is all preventable (Pienkowski, 2021).

Once inner ear hair cells are damaged or dead they can’t regenerate (Xu & Yang, 2021).

Decibels

Anything above 80 – 85 decibels is considered damaging to the ear’s inner hair. The risk of hearing loss can be minimised if noise is reduced to below 80 decibels (Le et al., 2017).

For Reference, 75 decibels is as loud as a vacuum cleaner, 85 is heavy city traffic and 95 is a car horn.

The higher the decibel levels the less time it takes to damage your hearing.

A sudden burst of loud decibels can physically perforate the eardrum while consistent exposure to high decibels causes long-term irreversible damage to the sensitive inner ear hair cells.

Apple watch has a noise threshold limit for each decibel level. The noise app measures the ambient noise levels of your current environment in real-time and if it reaches a certain decibel limit over 3 minutes it sends you a notification. With this, you can always be aware of if your environment is safe for your ears at all times.

• 80 decibels: Limit is 5 hours 30min/day
• 85 decibels: Limit is 1 hour 45 min/day
• 90 decibels: Limit is 30 min/day
• 95 decibels: Limit is 10 min/day
• 100 decibels: Limit is 3 min/day

If you have an iPhone and AirPods, you can measure your current environment’s decibel level and the music you are playing decibel level. Go to Settings > Control Center > Hearing. Connect your air pods and click on the Ear icon from the control centre and look at the decibel level, you can also check your current ambient decibel level by pressing live listen.

iPhone also has a headphone safety feature to access it go to Settings > Sound & Haptics > Headphone Safety. Toggle on both Headphone Notifications and Reduce Loud Sounds to 75 decibels to be on the safe side.

Music/ watching videos

Minimise the use of headphones, especially earphones when listening to music or watching videos/movies instead listen to speakers at a lower volume as it is less focused. Limit to 1 hour or less of headphone use a day.

Speakers are the safest next is headphones and lastly earphones.

When playing music in your room from speakers or your laptop/computer install a decibel meter app like Decibel X with this you can know what is safe volume levels to play.

Most personal listening devices such as the iPhone have a max volume range of 100 – 115 decibels, turning your volume down to below 50% is safe for your ears.

Turn the volume down to the lowest setting at which you can hear it.

Give your ears a break instead of listening to music or watching videos all the time, sit in silence and listen to outside sounds and just focus on your work.

People who listen to music every day with a PMD (personal music device) generally tend to report more hearing problems (Widen et al., 2017).

80% of 13 – 18 years old listen to music using headphones for 1-3 hours a day. If you use headphones often you may have a poorer hearing threshold. In essence, long-term use of headphones has a negative effect on hearing. It will likely impair hearing function and the prevalence of hearing loss will increase with years of use (Widen et al., 2017).

Trying to drown out background noise, such as in a gym or train by turning your personal listening device (PLD) higher increase your risk of hearing loss instead try to use noise-cancelling headphones in noisy environments so you don’t have to turn up the volume higher (Portnuff, 2016).

Sports

Sports like boxing, wrestling and martial arts are all at risk of developing puffed-up ears, also called boxers’ ears or cauliflower ears. It is caused by blunt trauma to the ear. This change is permanent if cartilage death occurs. To minimise this risk wear headgear if your sports allow it (Bakshi, 2019).

Guns

Gunfire noise can have decibels levels ranging from 140 to 175 decibels (Finan et al., 2017).

Wear dual ear protection, such as a custom-fit ear plug and electronic ear muffs if you are a hunter or you do shooting as a hobby for the best possible protection. Suppressors help reduce noise (Finan et al., 2017).

For reference to how damaging gunfire can be firing 1000 rounds is equivalent to 3 years of allowable noise exposure (Finan et al., 2017).

If you join the military, wear ear protection at all times and most times it is mandatory.

Concerts, gigs, clubbing and raves

Be careful at loud concerts, gigs, and raves as they are all an environment with constant loud music and noise, may be sure to not stay in the front for too long as many hours without break is an easy way to get tinnitus. To minimise damage, limit going to noise-heavy events no more than once a year, stay around the back and not stay too long in one place, and take regular breaks.

Concerts have noise levels constantly above 100 decibels for hours. Remember the limit for 100-decibel sounds is only 3 minutes. Going to a concert once a month can increase your risk for chronic hearing problems such as tinnitus by 5 times (Pienkowski, 2021).

Clubs can also have very high decibel sounds averaging above 95 decibels (Pienkowski, 2021).

Swimming

When swimming keep your ears dry and healthy by wearing swimming ear plugs and or a bathing cap to stop water from entering the ear canal and prevent infections like swimmers ear (Otitis externa) (Hui, 2013).

If water does get in dry gently with a towel and pull on each ear lobe lightly and tilt your head. You can also use a hair dryer on its lowest setting (Hui, 2013).

Smoking

Nicotine found in a lot of smoke products such as vapes, shisha, cigars, and cigarettes can cause tinnitus (ear ringing). Nicotine has an ototoxicity effect, it damages cochlea hair cells by increasing carbon monoxide and reducing cochlear blood flow. it has a direct ototoxic effect on ear hair cell function. Smoking increases your risk of hearing loss. Avoid second-hand smoke (Li et al., 2020; Veile et al., 2018).

Medication

Some mediation may interfere with your hearing and may have a side effect of hearing loss, ask your doctor about any risks or side effects before taking any new medication.

Common examples are loop diuretics (treats high blood pressure), antivirals for HCV infection, erectile dysfunction drugs, and anti-cancer drugs or chemotherapy (Tanaka et al., 2019).

Stress/ anxiety

Stress can cause tinnitus and along with anxiety can worsen it (Ciminelli et al., 2018; Moon et al., 2018).

Check-ups

If you are over 50 go for regular hearing checkups, a frequency of once a year provides you and your doctor information to compare your hearing as you age. Hearing loss affects 30% of people over 55 (Zazove et al., 2020).

Hearing loss happens gradually with age and your lifestyle you may not notice it creeping up.

Hearing aids/Cognitive Decline

If you have been prescribed hearing aids wear them as recommended, not wearing them or not getting treated for hearing loss can increase the effect of auditory deprivation in the brain resulting in increased cognitive decline and brain atrophy (decreases in size) which makes it even harder to hear and increases your risk of dementia.

It makes communication harder, increases your anger and has an association with falls, increases anxiety and depression, declines your physical functioning and increases the likely hood of social isolation affecting your quality of life. You are also more likely to further damage your hearing by increasing the volume and shouting to be heard (Bisogno et al., 2021; Fortunato et al., 2016).

Sleep

Poor sleep can trigger tinnitus and make it worse (Lu et al., 2020). You need 8 hours of uninterrupted high-quality sleep a day.

Don’t listen to music as you sleep as this will just increase your exposure time and not allow your ears to rest it also may pose a risk to future noise-induced hearing problems (Widen et al., 2017).

The Connection Between Diet and Ear Health 😋

Diabetes and hypertension (high blood pressure) increase your risk of hearing loss (Al-Rubeaan et al., 2021; Toyama & Mogi, 2021). People with diabetes are also at higher risk of ear infections (otitis externa) (Yang et al., 2020).

Have a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, eat nuts and seeds, lean meats like chicken and fatty fish and use olive oil for cooking.

Foods that help with hearing health include

Garlic

Garlic is a heart-healthy food it can help increase blood circulation, by increasing resting tissue blood flow which means increased blood flow to the ears (Anim-Nyame et al., 2004).

Green tea polyphenols

Green tea polyphenols can reduce noise-induced hearing loss and hair cell injury (Li et al., 2017).

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Magnesium

Magnesium has neuroprotective and vasodilatory effects and can prevent and limit hearing loss. It can increase cochlear blood flow and also acts as an antioxidant protecting your cells against free radical damage. Magnesium deficiency increases susceptibility to noise-induced hearing loss (Sendowski et al., 2011).

Omega 3 fatty acids

Omega 3 fatty acids can lower your chance of hearing loss by maintaining adequate circulation to the cochlea, decreasing blood pressure, reducing inflammation and improving endothelial (thin membrane that lines heart and blood vessels) function. It can have a protective effect on cochlear metabolism (Curhan et al., 2014; Fiorini et al., 2016)

Potassium

A high-potassium diet can reduce your risk of hearing loss (Jung et al., 2019).

Vitamin B9 (Folate)

Deficiency in Vitamin B9 (folate) can impair cochlear metabolism, and along with oxidative imbalance lead to premature hearing loss (Martínez‐Vega et al., 2014).

Vitamin B12 (Cobalamin)

Vitamin B12 (cobalamin) can help reduce tinnitus, its deficiency can cause demyelination (damage to the myelin sheath) of neurons in the cochlear nerve which results in hearing loss (Singh et al., 2016).

Vitamin D

Vitamin D can prevent ear diseases such as otosclerosis (abnormal bone growth in the ear)(Brookes, 1985). There are 3 tiny bones connected to the ear drum and they help amplify sound waves by vibrating. When one of them is unable to vibrate freely it causes otosclerosis. These tiny bones are necessary to conduct the sound signals from the outer ear to the inner ear.

Vitamin D deficiency is also related to many inner ear diseases such as tinnitus. It can act as an antioxidant to prevent tinnitus and has a neuroprotective effect on tinnitus patients. It also helps increase magnesium absorption (Nowaczewska et al., 2021).

Low vitamin D status can increase your risk of age-related hearing loss (Szeto et al., 2020).

Zinc 

Zinc can help reduce symptoms of tinnitus (Yeh et al., 2019)

Exercise for Healthy Ears 👟

Any form of exercise increases blood flow to the ears which helps maintain the health of inner ear hair cells. Regular long-term exercise can slow down Age-related hearing loss and cochlear degeneration (Han et al., 2016).

Go for a walk early morning or evening, when there are no cars or people about, go to a place where you can be alone and listen to the birds chirping or listen to the sound of the waves crashing this will help you be closer to nature a have a more peaceful setting, instead of man-made sounds focus on what you hear and just be present, practising mindfulness.

Watch the sunrise or sunset. Reading a book here might be also very enjoyable. If you can, try doing it solo, to really focus and maybe in the evening, you can go with your family and pets. Other benefits of going early morning are that there are fewer people and the sun’s UV rays aren’t as harsh.

When working out in a gym, wear noise-cancelling headphones. Don’t blast your headphones to drown out other noise, you can also change to a quieter gym or just work out at a quieter time. Don’t have it on for more than 1 hour.

Mental exercises

Sound location is focusing on sounds from nature and trying to locate them. It is one way to train your ears and brain and is a form of mental exercise which can improve your hearing as you age. Doing focused mental exercise such as locating sounds keeps the part of the brain that process auditory information healthy and sharp.

Keeping our brain healthy as we age is vital to ensure our hearing and cognitive ability last. Do exercises that help improve the brain’s cognitive function. Installing a brain app like Lumosity or Elevate and doing it daily while also reading books and learning new things daily can keep our brain and hearing less likely to decline as we age (Bonnechère et al., 2021).

This is important as dementia and hearing loss is linked. The auditory part of the brain plays a key role between hearing loss and dementia. Degeneration of central auditory processing mechanisms will amplify deafness. (Johnson et al., 2020).

Mediation/ Yoga

Taking deep fast breaths increases blood flow to the brain (Bellissimo et al., 2020).

Yoga and meditation can help reduce symptoms of tinnitus by decreasing stress/anxiety and severity (Gunjawate & Ravi, 2021).

Proper Ear Cleaning Techniques 🤔

Don’t stick anything into your ears to try to clean them, this includes your fingers and cotton buds and any other sharps and foreign objects. The main reason being even if you manage to get tiny bits of wax out the bulk of it will be pushed further in and you may also permanently damage your hearing by damaging the delicate lining of the ear canal or ear drum.

Excessive cleaning increases humidity and softens the ear canal lining, which can result in an increased risk of infection and irritation (Khan et al., 2017).

To clean your ears and to avoid any visible wax being seen by other people, each morning after showering, with clean hands, wash your ears gently with warm water.

Use your fingers gently to remove any wax that is near the end of your ears. Don’t stick your fingers in, just enough to gently rub your ears and remove the visible wax.

Don’t pour the water inside as it will leave you with an annoying sensation for a while until the water comes out.

Prolonged ear canal wetness can impair the ear canal’s defence mechanisms and so lead to ear infections so make sure to keep your ears dry by gently drying them after every shower (Hui, 2013).

Earwax

You may experience temporary hearing loss from a build-up of earwax (impaction) (NGC, 2018).

The reason our ears produce wax is to trap bacteria and dirt.

It is a natural cleaning agent our body produces that slowly moves along the ear canal that lubricates and protects our ears from infection.

The ears are self-cleaning letting wax fall out naturally is best unless there is a blockage or a build of wax and it affects your hearing, in which case a visit to the doctor might help (Khan et al., 2017).

Your ear wax can also tell a lot, dark brown or black indicates very old ear wax and light brown, orange or yellow is normal healthy ear wax. If it is tinged with red it may be a sign of a bleeding injury.

Adults are more likely to have a harder and darker shade of ear wax such as dark brown while children have a softer and lighter colour like orange or yellow.

Depending on your ethnicity, the texture also may be different Africans and Caucasians more likely to have wet ear wax, whereas Asians may have drier ear wax.

Trimming

Use an ear trimmer to trim the outer ear, sometimes you can see tiny hairs in sunlight, don’t use it for your inner ear, as it will damage your hearing as the tiny inner ear hairs are irreplaceable and cannot be regenerated (Xu & Yang, 2021). Trim once a week.

Use a pair of scissors to trim hair falling over your ears, do this once a week to maintain a sharp look.

Trimmer

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• Lithium ion AA battery for long lasting performance

Accessorise Your Ears 💎

You only live once so if you ever thought of getting piercings, go try it. It doesn’t have to be permanent, as long as the piercings don’t change the shape of your ears it will be hardly noticeable when taken off.

Action to take ✍️

• Get good quality sleep.
• Wear hearing aids if prescribed.
• Go for regular checkups if you are over 50.
• Lower your stress and anxiety.
• Be aware of the side effects of some medications.
• Avoiding all forms of smoking including nicotine products like vapes, and hookah.
• Drying your ears off well after swimming.
• Reducing going to noise-heavy events such as concerts, gigs, raves and clubs.
• Wear dual hearing protection when shooting a gun.
• Wear headgear when doing boxing, wrestling or martial arts.
• Minimise the use of headphones and earphones.
• Turn down the volume to the lowest setting you can hear at.
• Enable the safety hearing features on your iPhone.
• Install a decibel meter app.
• Wear hearing protection such as ear plugs and noise-cancelling headphones.
• Use sound panels, and move away from noise.
• Have a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, lean meats like chicken and fatty fish, nuts and seeds and use olive oil for cooking.
• Focus on green tea polyphenols, magnesium, omega 3 fatty acids, potassium, vitamin B9 (folate), vitamin B12 (cobalamin), vitamin d, zinc and garlic.
• Go for regular exercise long term, along with practising yoga and meditation regularly.
• Practice sound location.
• Play cognitive games regularly.
• Don’t stick your finger or cotton buds into your ears.
• Wash the outside of the ears gently with warm water during your shower. Dry off properly afterwards.
• If you suspect a wax build-up and have trouble hearing, go to the doctor to remove it professionally.
• Trim your outer ears hairs once a week.
• Use scissors to cut any hair falling over your ears once a week.
• Get piercings to change your look.

References 🤓

Al-Rubeaan, K., AlMomani, M., AlGethami, A. K., Darandari, J., Alsalhi, A., AlNaqeeb, D., Almogbel, E., Almasaari, F. H., & Youssef, A. M. (2021). Hearing loss among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: a cross-sectional study. Annals of Saudi Medicine, 41(3), 171–178. https://doi.org/10.5144/0256-4947.2021.171

Anim-Nyame, N., Sooranna, S. R., Johnson, M. R., Gamble, J., & Steer, P. J. (2004). Garlic supplementation increases peripheral blood flow: a role for interleukin-6? The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, 15(1), 30–36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnutbio.2003.09.008

Bakshi, S. S. (2019). Image Diagnosis: Boxers Ear. The Permanente Journal, 23(3). https://doi.org/10.7812/tpp/18-132

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