How to Avoid Hearing Loss

Prevention of hearing loss is as important as protecting yourself from heart disease, diabetes, or a head injury. Your ears are precious and keep them protected from exposure to loud noises. For example, loud music played through headphones, loud vehicles, loud machines or even hunters gunshots are potentially harmful to your ears.

Which Sounds Are Harmful To Your Ears

Any sound that has a loudness level greater than 85 decibels is harmful to human ears. It can even be a cause of permanent hearing loss. Some of the examples of harmful noises are Industrial workplace noises, gunshots, loud music and many more. Check these decibel ratings and permissible exposure times provided by the Canadian Centre For Occupational Health and Safety(CCOHS)

Intensities of Common Sounds in Decibels

Sounds	Intensities	Permissible exposure time
City Traffic, inside the car	85 dB	8 hours
Bulldozer	88 dB	4 hours
Jazz Concert	91 dB	2 hours
Power Mower	94 dB	1 hour
Nightclub	97 dB	30 minutes
Ambulance Siren, inside driver window down	100 dB	15 minutes
Rock Concert, Leaf Blower	115 dB	30 seconds

For a complete listing of over 1500 noises and their corresponding decibel levels, check out this list of Exposure Time Guidelines from Dangerous Decibels.

Benjamin Franklin got it right when he said “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”