Shhhhhhh!

When was the last time you say in silence. I am not talking quiet time. I am talking dead on silence. If you have to sit and think about it, then trust me, it has been far too long.

Let's go through a typical Saturday afternoon. You are mowing the grass, clearing off the driveway with the leaf blower(whatever happened to a rake and broom?), snipping away some branches from one of your trees with a chain saw. Now, by the end of your day, your nerves are frayed from all that noise, but looky what a purdy lawn you have.

To what end are we willing to jeopardize our hearing?

What many people do not realize is, not only is it the loudness of the sound, it is the length of time that will let you know how it has impacted you and your ears. We all know that one time exposure to extremely loud noises can inflict serious damage, but it is the repeated exposure to sounds in the hazardous range.

Our sound levels are measured in db's(decibels). Here are some familiar sounds and how much they put out in the way of decibels.

40db=quiet room
60db=normal conversation
80db=busy street
100db=chain saw
120db=amplified rock music
140db=gunshot

And once the hair cells of the inner ear are destroyed, there is no getting them back. But there are ways to drown out, if you will, the noise that is out there trying to invade our space. Get yourself a white noise machine. It can block out many a sounds that are unpleasant. There is nature sounds, via a CD. Or even some soothing music. Then there is the stress issue. The more we need to hear over something or be heard over something, that cannot be a good thing. So tune out and tone down the outside world every now and then and take a break from the world that is outside and the noises that come with it.