While a hair dryer doesn’t seem to be extremely dangerous at first sight, you should be careful with them, because everyday devices like your hair dryer can bring major damage to your ears.

Not just fighter jets, loud concerts, chainsaws and other extremely loud noises can bring damage to your hearing. Where many people realize those extremely loud noises are very dangerous for your ears, not so many realize that everyday noises can be very damaging as well. It’s very important to realize that damage to the ears is cumulative. This means that all kinds of normal, less loud noises can do a little bit of damage every day. One of those ‘normal’ noises is the sound of a hair dryer.

Cumulative damage

A lot of hair dryers produce sound levels over 85 dB (and some go way beyond that), the level at which your hearing can get damaged. That doesn’t mean that using a hair dryer makes you deaf instantly, of course not. But because the damage is cumulative, and some people use their hair dryer every day or multiple times a week over the course of years or even decades, a hair dryer can do some serious damage.

“Exposure to everyday noises, not age, will be the leading cause of hearing loss in the near future”, says Australian professor Richard Dowell, director of the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital Cochlear Implant Clinic. That’s why it’s so important to realize that everyday sounds can do some serious damage in the long run.

Source: Your Best Digs

What to do

“Noise damage can begin at any age, and it tends to accumulate over time. That’s why avoiding excess noise is so critical,” says Dr. Gordon Hughes, ear specialist at NIH. “Hearing loss caused by noise is completely preventable.”

What can you do? Check the sound levels of your hair dryer, if they’re under 85dB, you should be safe. If it is over that, an option can be to buy another one. Of course, that is expensive and a shame. Wearing earplugs would be a fix, but most of them look a bit funky. Knops, however, is a great solution!