WEBVTT - Why Should You Bring Ear Plugs to Music Festivals?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey

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<v Speaker 1>brain Stuff, I'm Lauren Vogelbaum and as I record this,

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<v Speaker 1>we're in the throes of music festival season. These multi

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<v Speaker 1>day concert art debauchery parties can be a blast, but

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<v Speaker 1>research shows that they can also be a bummer for

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<v Speaker 1>your ears. The sheer length of some music festivals, for example,

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<v Speaker 1>each weekend of Coachella runs three days with ten plus

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<v Speaker 1>hours of music every day, a plus the widespread use

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<v Speaker 1>of alcohol and drugs can inflict serious damage on your hearing,

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<v Speaker 1>with potentially permanent consequences. We spoke with Marshall Chasen, an

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<v Speaker 1>audiologist from Toronto who specializes in hearing last prevention for musicians.

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<v Speaker 1>He says that there's nothing inherently bad about going to

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<v Speaker 1>the occasional loud concert or cranking your headphones up to

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<v Speaker 1>Mack's volume to listen to your favorite song, as long

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<v Speaker 1>as you do it in moderation. That's where three day

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<v Speaker 1>music festivals become a problem. There's a point at which

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<v Speaker 1>all sounds above eighty five deciples equivalent to the dial

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<v Speaker 1>tone on a telephone, can inflict permanent hearing damage. Exposure

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<v Speaker 1>to eighty five deciples of noise seems harmless enough, but

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<v Speaker 1>if you listened to a dial tone forty hours a

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<v Speaker 1>week for a full year, you'd suffer some level of

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<v Speaker 1>permanent hearing loss. And if you turn up the volume

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<v Speaker 1>to ninety four decibles, which is about halfway to full

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<v Speaker 1>volume on an MP three player, all it would take

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<v Speaker 1>is five hours a week to damage your hearing. Jason said,

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<v Speaker 1>it's the total dose that matters, much like a radiation dose.

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<v Speaker 1>A single X ray here and there won't hurt you,

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<v Speaker 1>but thirty seven X rays in a short period could

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<v Speaker 1>be problematic. Rock music at a live concert can easily

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<v Speaker 1>reach a hundred and ten decibls. At that volume, your

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<v Speaker 1>ears start to sustain permanent damage after only two minutes

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<v Speaker 1>of daily exposure. It's especially important to give your ears

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<v Speaker 1>a rest once they've suffered some short term hearing loss

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<v Speaker 1>that buzzing, ringing, or numbness in your ears after attending

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<v Speaker 1>a loud concert. There's a recovery period of sixteen to

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<v Speaker 1>eighteen hours, during which your ears are particularly sensitive to

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<v Speaker 1>further loud noises. Jason said, there's nothing wrong with going

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<v Speaker 1>to a rock concert on Friday night, just don't mow

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<v Speaker 1>the lawn on Saturday morning, and be careful about a

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<v Speaker 1>tending yet another rock concert on Saturday. If you don't

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<v Speaker 1>let your ears rest, there are several ways they can

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<v Speaker 1>suffer lasting damage. The inner ears smaller than the tip

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<v Speaker 1>of your pinky finger and contains the cochlea, a fluid filled,

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<v Speaker 1>stale shaped chamber lined with thousands of hair cells. Prolonged

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<v Speaker 1>exposure to very loud noises can disturb the fluid in

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<v Speaker 1>the cochleas so violently that the hair cells bend or break,

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<v Speaker 1>never to grow back. Another source of permanent hearing damage,

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<v Speaker 1>says Chason, lies deeper in the brain, where nerve cells

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<v Speaker 1>carry signals from the ear to neurons the process the sounds. Growing.

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<v Speaker 1>Research shows that overloading those neural pathways with loud noises

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<v Speaker 1>can disrupt the connection, creating situations where the neurons can't

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<v Speaker 1>detect the signals coming from the ear. Luckily, the solutioned

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<v Speaker 1>noise induced hearing loss from music festivals is simple. We're

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<v Speaker 1>ear plugs. Lots of concert goers avoid wearing earplugs because

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<v Speaker 1>they think it will muffle the music and ruin the experience,

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<v Speaker 1>but that only applies to the cheap, foamy disposable kind, which,

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<v Speaker 1>to be fair, I've had perfectly fine experiences with. However,

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<v Speaker 1>there are excellent inobtrusive ear plugs on the mark to

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<v Speaker 1>protect the air from dangerous sound levels without distorting the

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<v Speaker 1>quality of the music. Professional musicians have been using them

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<v Speaker 1>for decades. These are designed to evenly lower noise levels,

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<v Speaker 1>some by as much as twenty decibels across the hearing spectrum,

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<v Speaker 1>not just the high frequencies. You can find them for

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<v Speaker 1>less than twenty dollars and they're reusable forever. Weirdly, drug

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<v Speaker 1>and alcohol use at music festivals has also been shown

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<v Speaker 1>to increase the risk of hearing loss. A study out

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<v Speaker 1>of the Netherlands tracked fifty one participants with the main

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<v Speaker 1>age of twenty seven years who attended an outdoor music

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<v Speaker 1>festival in half were given ear plugs and half were not.

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<v Speaker 1>All were advised to refrain from drugs or alcohol so

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<v Speaker 1>that their hearing could be accurately tested after the four

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<v Speaker 1>and a half hour show. As to be expected, not

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<v Speaker 1>everyone abstained. The resulting data showed the concert goers who

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<v Speaker 1>drank beer or used drugs like cannabis or m d

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<v Speaker 1>m A experienced worse short term hearing. Loss, and interestingly,

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<v Speaker 1>so did male subjects, whether on drugs or not. What's

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<v Speaker 1>not clear from the data is whether the increased hearing

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<v Speaker 1>loss linked to drugs, alcohol, and being male is biological

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<v Speaker 1>or behavioral in origin. Chasen, for one, is convinced that

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<v Speaker 1>drugs or male hormones chemically alter the inner ear to

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<v Speaker 1>make it more susceptible to damage. Patterns of behavior are

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<v Speaker 1>more likely at play, he said, using alcohol or drugs

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<v Speaker 1>decreases your ability to self monitor, so you're more likely

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<v Speaker 1>to put your head right next to a loud speaker.

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<v Speaker 1>Your judgment is off, by the way. As far as

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<v Speaker 1>professional musicians go, more than half of all classical musicians

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<v Speaker 1>experience hearing loss, compared with only thirty percent of rock musicians.

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<v Speaker 1>Jason says it's a dose thing, with classical musicians exposed

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<v Speaker 1>more hours of loud ish music over their career than rockers.

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<v Speaker 1>Today's episode was written by Dave Ruse and produced by

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<v Speaker 1>Tyler clayg. Brain Stuff is a production of I Heart

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<v Speaker 1>Radio's How Stuff Works from Onenness and lots of other

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<v Speaker 1>rock and topics. Visit our home planet, how Stuff Works

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