Simple tips to hear better in upcoming holiday seasons
- Koorosh Nejad
- Nov 23, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Sep 23
We are approaching the holiday season, so I thought a quick reminder to my beloved hearing aid club members might help them hear better and enjoy this holiday season more. These tips might also be useful to people with mild hearing loss who do not use hearing aids.
Here is my best advice for impaired hearing and hearing aid users to hear speech better in the upcoming holiday season.
1 - Smart sitting arrangements can improve speech intelligibility in noisy environments
This is a smart yet easy trick. When you are in a noisy environment, you can hear the speaker's speech in front of you better if you leave the noise behind you. So if you and your partner sit in a noisy restaurant, you can offer her the seat facing the restaurant floor and pick the seat facing a wall or a window. Similarly, if you are attending end-of-year corporate functions and trying to conduct a conversation with a friend or colleague, you could let them face the music band or the crowd. This way, the noise will be left behind you. He or she will be hearing your voice along with the noise of the band or crowd located behind you, but you'll be hearing his/her voice with much less noise and disturbance.
2 - Earwax cleaning can help you hear better
You may be a regular earwax cleaner, or you just noticed that one or both ears started going muffled on and off. If this is not an issue of the Eustachian tube (our article on ETD here), then you may want to check your ears before flying out on a vacation or getting closer to the busy holiday season. Even a 50% blockage of the ear canal by earwax can trap the water and cause an ear infection, something you don't want to experience while on holiday. If you are in London, you can book an earwax microsuction appointment here.
3 - A hearing aid tune-up can help you hear better
When was the last time you did a hearing test, and when was the last time you tuned up your hearing aids? See it as part of the preparation for the holidays. You may be fine with hearing the TV or speech in a one-to-one conversation in a quiet room, but if you struggled holding a conversation in a noisy environment recently, that means that you'll be struggling with hearing speech again in the 2025 holiday season. I advise contacting your audiologist for a hearing test and check-up, especially if it has been more than a year since you visited your audiologist.
In addition to the hearing test, you may want to visit your audiologist for a tune-up. As part of the visit, you can cover:
Tuning up your hearing aids for the latest hearing test
Discuss hearing aid fitting if they don't feel comfortable
Discuss any malfunctioning of the hearing aids if your hearing aids are not working properly
Please see this article, which leads to how-to videos of different hearing aid manufacturers.
4 - Familiarise yourself with the features of your hearing aids
Most of the premium hearing aids are smart enough to adapt to different landscapes, so you can hear better in challenging listening environments such as a busy restaurant. Despite that, some hearing aids have additional features that can help people hear better in a noisy environment. I'd suggest familiarising yourself with these features before you head off to a holiday break. Some of these features are (these features may or may not be available with your hearing aid, depending on the model and the tech level of the hearing aid).
Spheric mode - The Spheric mode in your Phonak Infinio Sphere triggers automatically in a loud noise environment. I set up a manual setting for my patients to have access to the mode through myPhokan app when and if they feel they need a bit of help with noise control. Also, your audiologist can set the level of the noise that triggers the Spheric mode. Call your audiologist if you feel your Phonak Infinio Sphere is not meeting your expectations.
Edge mode - Starkey Edge, Starkey Genesis and Starkey Evolve have an Edge mode that can be triggered through the Starkey mobile app or by double-tapping on the hearing aid. The Edge mode brings in a higher resolution of the artificial intelligence to the sound processing, resulting in a better hearing experience in challenging listening environments. I like activating the Edge mode through the Starkey app as it scans the soundscape and offers 3 settings that you can choose from.
Beamfocus - Signia Pure Charge and Go, Rexton Reach and biCore, and Widex Moment, SmartRIC, and Allure hearing aids have a Beamfocus mode that allows the control of the directionality of the hearing aid to the user. This mode can be set for challenging listening environments through the Signia app, Rexton app and Widex app.
5 - Take some disposables with you
Now and then, I receive a call from a traveller to London who has forgotten to bring the hearing aid charger or extra wax guard with them. If travelling, make sure that you take essentials such as the hearing aid charger, its power cord, some wax guard/filter packs and some domes in case you need them on the trip.
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