How many hours a day should I wear my hearing aids?

“How many hours should I wear my hearing aids every day?”

As one of clEAR’s in-house audiologists, this is one of the most frequent questions I receive from users who receive auditory brain training. Here are some of my responses:

• If your spouse or partner is saying that you need to put on your hearing aids, you probably need to wear them more often than you do. Your spouse probably recognizes that you engage in small talk much more easily and successfully when you wear your aids. 

• If you feel exhausted in the late afternoon or early evening, you might need to take a “time-out” from wearing your hearing aids and give your ears and your brain a rest. Find a quiet place, take a few deep breaths, and relax. Listening with hearing loss is sometimes a lot of work.

• If you need more motivation to wear your hearing aids, think of your brain health. Research shows that if the auditory region of your brain is not stimulated, it begins to lose “gray matter” and that its functionality begins to fade. This decline in turn can adversely affect other parts of your brain. Just like the muscles in your body need exercise, so too does your brain need auditory stimulation.

EARS train the brain: www.clearworks4ears.com