Your hearing is connected with your whole body in terms of your health. This has been substantiated in numerous studies that have established a direct link between unhealthy habits such as smoking or loud noise exposure and negative cumulative effects on your ability to hear. As such, when you don’t treat your body right, your hearing suffers. Let’s take a look at some of the most common unhealthy habits that contribute to hearing loss and how you can cut down on your risk of developing hearing damage from them.

Smoking

Smoking — a top unhealthy habit that can harm your hearing – does damage to much more than just your lungs. Because they’re manufactured with certain chemicals that bring on significant damage to the vibration sensors in the ears, it becomes difficult for the ear to perceive small amounts of sound. This poses far-reaching impacts that go beyond affecting your breathing and lungs or even weight loss. Curb the smoking and your ears will be better off for it.

Not Visiting Your Doctor

If you’re the type to only visit the doctor during an emergency, your ears could suffer greatly. In fact, the longer you go without diagnosing a hearing loss of some kind, the harder it will be to treat or reverse it. See your doctor regularly to track any possible progressions and keep a baseline of your hearing risk assessment handy. Preventive maintenance is critical if you want early detection and treatment. At these visits, you can also ask your doctor what you can do to curb your risk of hearing loss through healthier activities.

Living a Sedentary Lifestyle

Obesity is becoming the most prevalent health crisis in this country and others. If you’re obese, you may have diabetes. If you have diabetes, you have poor blood flow circulation, which can have a negative impact on your hearing, as this condition has been conclusively linked to a higher risk for hearing damage. All is not lost, however. You can reduce your risk for hearing damage by losing weight through exercise and proper nutrition.

Using an MP3 Player

Popping in ear buds to listen to your own music is a popular way to escape. However, you may be doing serious damage to your ears when you blast the music and retreat into your own little world. Gradual hearing loss can result when you engage in this habit, because you are directing loud sounds right into your inner ear where the energy has nowhere else to filter besides crash against your ear drum.

Exposing Yourself to Loud Noises

Placing yourself at risk for very loud noises every day is something you may not think much about until your hearing is affected. Perhaps you blast the TV when you’re watching the football game or you turn up the volume to high when playing video games. Maybe you love to check out rock concerts and sit where the pulsing speakers are. These may all seem like fun but they pose a threat to your hearing due to all those high decibels of sound. Turn down the volume at home or sit further back at a concert to reduce your chance of hearing damage.