Conserve Your Hearing Before It's Too Late
Avid shooters, hunters, and sportsmen and women know that getting outside is one of the best ways to relieve stress. But when it comes to your ears, these activities are anything
but peaceful. In fact, they are one of the top ways to damage your hearing — often without realizing it until it's too late.
In this article, originally published in Bourbon and Boots Lifestyle, Dr. Grace Gore Sturdivant makes the case for protecting your hearing now, before the damage is done.
Noise-induced hearing loss is the most preventable form of hearing loss — and among hunters and shooters, it is also one of the most common. A single unsuppressed gunshot can register between 140 and 170 dB at the ear, well above the threshold at which permanent damage begins. The damage accumulates silently: there is no pain signal, and hearing loss often goes unnoticed until a significant portion of capacity is already gone. Modern hearing protection has advanced well beyond foam plugs that block everything — today's options preserve situational awareness and communication while still protecting against impulse noise. The case Dr. Sturdivant makes here is straightforward: the cost of protection now is far lower than the cost of hearing loss later.