Training Your Ears

Everyday listening exercises promote better hearing

Did you know that you can train your ears and your hearing? With these simple everyday exercises, you can improve your hearing or at least slow down hearing loss—no matter your age.

What applies to all other parts of our body also applies to our ears: the more we exercise our ears, the better we hear. This is because new auditory experiences keep our hearing flexible and stimulate the auditory nerve. Exercising our hearing improves blood circulation and cognitive flexibility.

How does auditory training work?

Our ability to hear sounds isn’t just due to the ear. The brain also plays an important role in hearing. For example, by focusing on sounds, pinpointing their location, and interpreting their source, you can train your hearing. With regular hearing training like this, you consciously focus on hearing, strengthen your hearing ability, and can also detect early on whether you might already be experiencing hearing loss. After all, you should never simply accept hearing loss.

In addition, hearing training is beneficial for patients who are receiving a hearing aid for the first time—perhaps after a prolonged period of poor hearing. In such cases, targeted training helps them readjust to sounds and relearn how to hear. This learning process is supported, for example, by a hearing care professional or an audiotherapist (https://bdat.de). And people who have received a cochlear implant also receive appropriate hearing training after activation to ensure optimal hearing success.

Daily Listening Exercises (Part 1)

1. Visit Noisy Places and Practice Mindfulness

Go to noisy places, such as a shopping mall. Once there, try to focus on just one sound. Think about where the sound is coming from. Or, on public transportation or at a train station, pay close attention to the public address announcements. Can you understand which stops are being announced next or what information is being given to passengers?

Alternatively, you can challenge yourself with a puzzle to train your ears: What sounds do I hear, what causes them, and from which direction do they come?

2. Expose Yourself to Different Auditory Stimuli Every Day

An active lifestyle promotes health and trains your ears and other sensory organs. If you want to keep your hearing sharp as you age, make sure to use it every day and expose it to a wide variety of sounds. For long-term hearing health, it’s important to incorporate variety and challenges into your daily routine.

Daily Listening Exercises (Part 2)

1. Engage in Activities and Communicate Actively

Concerts, theater performances, and lectures provide a variety of auditory stimuli. Conversations and social activities in both small and large groups—whether at a sports club, with friends, or with family—also offer a range of acoustic stimuli that help train your hearing.

If you actively participate and communicate, you’ll keep your hearing in shape and will also be able to notice very quickly if your ability to understand speech gradually starts to decline.

2. Just Listen—Audiobooks and More

Simply have your favorite books read to you as audiobooks. Can you still understand everything effortlessly? If not, rewind and listen to the section again. Or have someone read something aloud to you. The reader can even move around the room while doing so. Close your eyes and listen carefully to determine which direction the words are coming from.

Listen to the radio more often. Can you understand the weather report easily even while driving? And can you still hold a conversation at home or in the car when the radio is playing in the background?

3. Outdoor listening practice – pay attention to sounds

Listen to the sound of cars driving by, birds chirping, the rustling of leaves, or the sound of splashing water when a bicycle rides through a puddle. Try to pinpoint exactly where these sounds are coming from. Sit on a park bench, close your eyes, and try to pick up on even the quietest sounds. This will train your subconscious to recognize different sounds, including quieter ones. It has a very positive effect on your hearing.

Short, daily listening exercises train the ears. This is because a varied range of acoustic stimuli helps maintain the interconnected neural pathways in the auditory center of the human brain. The broader and more diverse the range of acoustic signals, the more effective these neural connections remain. Conversely, these neural structures are lost when comparatively few or only monotonous signals are received. Therefore, it’s not advisable to let your listening habits become too routine.

Those who regularly train their hearing also pay attention to whether they can still hear everything clearly. If you notice that your hearing is declining and you’re having difficulty with everyday listening exercises, then it’s high time for a hearing test with an ENT specialist or hearing aid specialist.