- 10almonds
- Posts
- Dealing With Hearing Loss
Dealing With Hearing Loss
Plus: how & why deep rest works (and what activities trigger this state)
The 10almonds Team
November 24, 2024
Today’s almonds have been activated by:
People often think of skinn health as superficial, but in reality it’s often reflective of systemic health (i.e., the health of other organs in your body).
The good news is that this means we can improve it by things other than creams and lotions, and heal it from the inside out—by nourishing it properly (with your diet!) and avoiding inflammatory foods/drinks/practices.
In A Rush?
Today’s 30-Second Summary
If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:
Hearing is important, not only for convenience, but also for cognitive health—as an inability to participate in what for most people is an important part of social life, has been shown to accelerate cognitive decline.
Today’s main feature looks at what to do if your hearing is bad, isn’t going to get any better, might get worse, and you want to keep your cognitive health anyway.
Wish you had a doctor who takes your menopause symptoms seriously?
Today’s sponsor Winona’s board-certified physicians are offering personalized, bioidentical HRT tailored to your needs and delivered to your door.
Today’s featured book is about managing grief of the kind that doesn’t go away, and perhaps you do not even have a desire to “move on”.
Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive
A Word To The Wise
Watch and Learn
How & Why Deep Rest Works (And What Activities Trigger This State)
Some common pastimes trigger the same state as yoga nidra (and others, while enjoyable and typically done for recreation, don’t). Here’s how to know which will work and which won’t:
Prefer text? The above video will take you to a 10almonds page with a text-overview, as well as the video!
Saturday Life Hacks
Dealing With Hearing Loss
Hearing is important, not only for convenience, but also for cognitive health—as an inability to participate in what for most people is an important part of social life, has been shown to accelerate cognitive decline:
14 Powerful Strategies To Prevent Dementia ← one of them is looking after your hearing
To this end, we’ve written before about ways to retain (or at least slow the loss of) your hearing, here:
But, what if, despite our best efforts, your hearing is declining regardless, or is already impaired in some way?
Working with the hand we’ve been dealt
So, your hearing is bad and/or deteriorating. Assuming you’ve ruled out possibilities of fixing it, the next step is how to manage this new state of affairs.
One thing to seriously consider, sooner than you think you need to, is using hearing aids. This is because they will not only help you in the obvious practical way, but also, they will slow the associated decline of the parts of your brain that process the language you hear:
…and here’s the paper itself:
Furthermore, hearing aid use can significantly reduce all-cause mortality:
Your ears are not the only organs
Remember, today’s about dealing with hearing loss, not preventing it (for preventing it, see the second link we dropped up top).
With this in mind: do not underestimate the usefulness of learning to lipread.
Lipreading is not a panacea; it has its limitations:
You can’t lipread an audio-only phonecall, or a podcast, or the radio
You can’t lipread a video call if the video quality is poor
You can’t lipread if someone is wearing a mask (as in many healthcare settings)
You can’t lipread multiple people at once; you have to choose whose mouth to watch (or at least, you will miss the first word(s) each time while switching)
You can’t lipread during sex if your/their face is somewhere else (may seem like a silly example, but actually communication can be important in sex, and the number of times this writer has had to say “Say again?” in intimate moments is ridiculous)
However, it can also make a huge difference the rest of the time, and can even be a superpower in times/places when other people’s hearing is nullified, such as a noisy environment, or a video call in which someone’s mic isn’t working.
The good news is, it’s really very easy to learn to lipread. There are many valid ways (often involving consciously memorizing mouth-shapes from charts, and then putting them together one by one to build a vocabulary), but this writer recommends a more organic, less effort-intensive approach:
Choose a video of someone who speaks clearly, and for which video you already know what is being said (such as by using subtitles first, or a transcript, or perhaps the person is delivering a famous speech or reciting a poem that you know well, or it’s your favorite movie that you’ve watched many times).
Now watch it with the sound off (assuming you do normally have some hearing; if you don’t, then you’re probably ahead of the game here) and just pay close attention to the lips. Do this on repeat; soon you’ll be able to “hear” the sounds as you see them made.
Now choose a video of someone who speaks clearly, for which video you do not already know what is being said. You’ll probably only get parts of it at first; that’s ok.
Now learn the rest of what they said in that video (by reading a transcript or such), and use it like you used the first video.
Now repeat steps 3 and 4 until you are lipreading most people easily unless there is some clear obfuscation preventing you.
This process should not take long, as there are only about 44 phonemes (distinct sounds) in English, and once you’ve learned them, you’re set. If you speak more languages, those same 44 phonemes should cover most of most of them, but if not, just repeat the above process with the next language.
Remember, if you have at least some hearing, then most of the time your lipreading and your hearing are going to be working together, and neither will be as strong without the other—but if necessary, well-practised lipreading can indeed often stand in for hearing when hearing isn’t available.
A note on sign language:
Sign language is great, and cool, and useful. However, it’s only as useful as the people who know it, which means that it’s top-tier in the Deaf community (where people will dodge hearing-related cognitive decline entirely, because their social interaction is predominantly signed rather than spoken), and can be useful with close friends or family members who learn it (or at least learn some), but isn’t as useful in most of the wider world when people don’t know it. But if you do want to learn it, don’t let that hold you back—be the change you want to see!
Most of our readers are American, so here’s a good starting place for American Sign Language ← this is a list of mostly-free resources
Enjoy!
Our Sponsors Make This Publication Possible
Searching for a doctor who takes your menopause symptoms seriously?
Winona believes every woman deserves to feel their best. Their board-certified doctors provide customized hormone therapy to address your unique needs, with free shipping and ongoing support:
Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free
This Or That?
Vote on Which is Healthier
Yesterday we asked you to choose between fennel and onion—we picked the fennel (click here to read about why), as did 36% of you!
Now for today’s choice:
 |  |
Click on whichever you think is better for you!
Bonus (Sponsored) Recommendation
Learn how to make AI work for you.
AI won’t take your job, but a person using AI might. That’s why 700,000+ professionals read The Rundown – the free newsletter that keeps you updated on the latest AI news and teaches you how to apply it in just 5 minutes a day.
One-Minute Book Review
It's OK That You're Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand – by Megan Devine
Firstly, be aware: this is not a cheerful book. If you’re looking for something to life your mood after a loss, it will not be this.
What, then, will you find? A reminder that grief is also the final translation of love, and not necessarily something to be put aside as quickly as possible—or even ever, if we don’t want to.
Too often, society (and even therapists) will correctly note that no two instances of grief are the same (after all, no two people are, so definitely no two relationships are, so how could two instances of grief be?), but will still expect that if most people can move on quickly from most losses, that you should too, and that if you don’t then there is something pathological at hand that needs fixing.
Part one of the book covers this (and more) in a lot of detail; critics have called it a diatribe against the current status quo in the field of grief.
Part two of the book is about “what to do with your grief”, and addresses the reality of grief, how (and why) to stay alive when not doing so feels like a compelling option, dealing with grief’s physical side effects, and calming your mind in ways that actually work (without trying to sweep your grief under a rug).
Parts three and four are more about community—how to navigate the likely unhelpful efforts a lot of people may make in the early days, and when it comes to those people who can and will actually be a support, how to help them to help you.
In the category of criticism, she also plugs her own (paid, subscription-based) online community, which feels a little mercenary, especially as while community definitely can indeed help, the prospect of being promptly exiled from it if you stop paying, doesn’t.
Bottom line: if you have experienced grief and felt like moving on was the right thing to do, then this book isn’t the one for you. If, on the other hand, your grief feels more like something you will carry just as you carry the love you feel for them, then you’ll find a lot about that here.
Penny For Your Thoughts?
What did you think of today's newsletter?We always love to hear from you, whether you leave us a comment or even just a click in the poll if you're speeding by! |
Wishing you a healthy and relaxing weekend,
The 10almonds Team
