Summer is here and some of us cherish the ability to find a nice, quiet place to curl up with a good book.  Next time, pick-up an audiobook instead of the written kind because you could benefit from someone else telling you the story.  Yes, you can enjoy something and it is actually good for you!

Your ears are directly connected to your brain and while listening to a good summer read, your brain can be doing a workout.  One study showed that people who listened to audiobooks daily were better at understanding in background noise and rapid speech than those who did not.

If you have a hearing loss and don’t wear hearing aids, some devices give you the ability to “fine tune” the speakers or headphones either directly on the stereo settings or within the software of your smartphone or tablet.  You may want to increase the treble on your device so you benefit from hearing the /s/, /f/, /th/,  and /p/ sounds that may be difficult to hear with the most common type of high frequency hearing loss.

If you have any questions, please feel free to call Dr. Dawn at 630-930-1025.  Happy listening!

Dr. Dawn Heiman is a clinical audiologist with a private practice, Advanced Audiology Consultants, in Oak Brook, Illinois.  She has been helping people hear better for over 15 years.