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There is nothing like seeing a concert of your favorite band. The crowd is pumped up and the adrenalin is flowing; the music is so loud you can feel it booming throughout your whole body. The light shows are incredible as well. There is a downside to all the fun and sounds though; you may develop ringing ears. Concert goers need to beware that along with the fun comes the dangers of hearing loss. This can be frightful if you have never experienced ringing in your ears known as tinnitus. After a concert the symptoms of this condition can last anywhere from an hour to days.
When you go through this after a concert you tend to wonder if the experience was worth the fight of getting it to go away. It has a white noise affect on your hearing; kind of like the static on your TV. Most of the time it will subside after a few days, but there is a slight chance that permanent damage may have occurred. It may be a good idea in the future that you use something that is going to protect your ears from damage.
After a concert you may experience a temporary hearing loss. This is for the most part due to the cochlea becoming damaged. When the vibrations from loud music go through your ears, then the hair cells within your ears can become damaged. When this happens the hairs can bend or break and the cells that transmit sound to the brain can misfire and cause ringing in your ears. When the ringing starts you are the only one that can hear the sounds. It is not audible to an outside source. When these cells become damaged the sounds just start to happen on their own without the cells being stimulated first.
Like everything in life it is good to do things in moderation and going to see a live concert is no different. We all want to do things that make us happy but we really need to be careful when it comes to our bodies and what we do to it. Protecting yourself is the key to enjoying yourself at the moment and in the future. If you do damage to your hearing that cannot be fixed then you won't be able to enjoy future endeavors. Make sure that you follow the proper steps to avoid any harm to yourself. We all love to hear the music, but not the ringing in the ears. Concerts can be a lot of fun, so don't deprive yourself of never being able to hear them again.
If you do not protect yourself from the beginning and end up breaking off those tiny hairs, you will not get another chance. Bending them is one thing, they can bend back but when you break them off completely then you will suffer permanent hearing damage. Ear plugs have been of great use to both the concert artist and the enthusiasts. Be careful to not become a casualty of ringing ears; concerts are a wonderful experience but how can you enjoy them if you can't hear them? Sound tests have shown that if the sound is over the sound of a lawnmower at 85 decibels then it is way too loud.
What is a decibel? This is a measure of sound intensity. It is important to realize that the decibel scale is logarithmic and not linear. What this means is that if a sound increases from 10 decibels to 20 decibels, it is not twice as loud but rather10 times louder. And if it increases from 20 decibels to 30 decibels, it is100 timeslouder than 10 decibels. So remembering that hearing loss can occur starting at 85 decibels, if the noise is "only" 95 decibels, this is still TEN TIMES higher than the damage threshold. Use caution and protect your ears!
If you do not heed this warning you will begin to lose your hearing and it will never return. You will begin losing your hearing between 4000 and 6000 Hz and as the condition worsens, additional frequencies will be affected. The same thing can occur after working in a loud industrial environment. Best advice: Wear hearing protection!
