Two ears are better than one
No doubt you will have heard the old saying “Two ears are better than one”, but, in the world of audiology, what does that actually mean?
It’s not a secret, it’s a physical fact that – usually at birth - we are issued with two ears – and one mouth, which we’ll get to later. However, if we look beyond the mere aesthetics of having one ear on either side of our heads, what is the greatest advantage of having two ears, as opposed to one?
Data gathering (not in the 21st century, electronic way), is the main purpose of our ears.
The outer organ, the visible part, does everything it can to gather information from sources that continually surround us, and then filter it into the canal, and onward to the brain, which then scrambles the sounds into a means of communication that we can understand.
So, imagine the amount of sounds you would miss if you only had one. You would have no ‘surround sound’ (actually invented by the creators of humankind, not by Dolby!) so anything that happened behind you would be lost, and one side of you would be continually blind-sided by unexpected activity – which is very dangerous indeed.
Driving, socialising, sport, music and relationships etc would all be very difficult, dismal and potentially dangerous if all of our auditory information came from a single source, isolated at one side of your head. Imagine for a moment, how that would affect how you receive, interpret, and then react to the sounds that were processed by only one ear. It’s hard enough when you have an infection in one, so imagine that being permanent!
The localisation of sound is a term used in the world of audiology to identify which direction a person is in when calling you from another room, for example. Also localising the direction of traffic and emergency vehicles as well as helping to identify and filter background sounds, so that you can concentrate on the person you are engaging with.
The most effective way of achieving this is maximising our hearing capacity via our two ears.
Our balance is also affected by our hearing, with two ears affording us natural equity and a good strong footing. One ear only would present us with some pretty critical problems when moving around in many circumstances. In a lighter vein, the wearing of glasses, headphones and hats may present some challenges - or perhaps there would be a brand new “mono-lobe” range of products invented!
It would also be perilous to sleep on one side, as, if that was your ear side, you wouldn’t hear your alarm go off in the morning, rousing you for those all important holiday flights!
So, let’s move forward to the other classic phrase of “you have two ears and one mouth for a reason.” This is much bandied around in circles where people are expected to listen, or feel as though they aren’t being heard, but, actually, it’s a very interesting comment.
Perhaps what it tells us is that the information we receive through the ears is twice as valuable as what comes out of the mouth. Ears receive information, the mouth delivers it. People who use this caption are often really saying ‘listen to me more’, or even ‘value what I say’.
What we are saying here is that having two functioning ears – or at least maximising the usage of each ear - is crucial to our mental health.
If we start to lose functionality or efficacy of any sense, but especially our hearing, we almost inadvertently start to withdraw from situations that ask us to participate, because we are either scared to make a mistake, or scared to admit to having some sensory loss. We have written on more than one occasion how that may even contribute to the onset or increasing of Alzheimer’s disease, or other neurological degeneration.
In our professional, expert opinion, more people are prepared to endure hearing loss in sutton coldfield than almost any other sensory deficit, with vanity often being the reason. However, with the evolution of discreet and invisible hearing aids – that look more and more like the ever present ‘hearing buds’ that so many people continually wear these days, hardly anyone would look twice at a device behind the ear – unless it was to ask about how effective it is!
Many people, for many reasons, may find themselves subject of hearing loss to some degree. Whilst this is not curable, experts such as those at Steven Hale Hearing are able to offer help, guidance and advice with regards to how you can improve/maximise your ability to hear, and maybe even bring you back to the exalted position of having two ears and one mouth.