The best part of my ‘job’ is that every day I get to help people and make a difference in their lives, both immediate AND long term! Because they can hear better, in the day-to-day, they can more easily navigate life. They can appreciate and bask in the voice of a loved one or disconnect and relax to the sounds of nature. In the long term, the care I’m providing helps to maintain the current quality of auditory neural coding and cortical processing-helping them to hear better longer. And treating hearing loss with amplification is the single best modifiable behavior we know of to reduce the possibility of cognitive decline.
One of the most common joys people tell me about is the ability to hear birds again! People without hearing loss simply take this for granted. Unsurprisingly, we see a lot of ‘Birders’ in our practice who are struggling. I recently read an article that made me realize those ‘Birders’ might be onto something. Based on hundreds of peer-reviewed studies, we know that the more contact we have with nature, the better it is for both our body and brain health. What was surprising to me was that this recent research indicates that birds’ songs may play an outsized role in maintaining or improving mental (and therefore overall) health.
As a Deadhead, I’ve always loved “Bird Song”! All kidding aside, I was fascinated by the research in this article. According to the author of one study (Environmental Neuroscience graduate student Emil Stobbe at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development), “The special thing about birdsongs is that even if people live in very urban environments and do not have a lot of contact with nature, they link the songs of birds to vital and intact natural environments.” Several of the studies mentioned in the article found that just hearing recordings of birdsongs was measurably beneficial
The hypothesis behind the findings is based on a theory developed in the 1980s by Drs. Rachel and Stephen Kaplan, known as “Attention Restoration Theory” (ART). ART postulates that spending time in nature, or even looking at scenes of nature for that matter, improves peoples’ concentration. This theory has since been seen to translate to medical outcomes as well. The article I read had a link to a systematic review and analysis of observational and intervention studies looking at the health benefits of exposure to nature. This review of previous research revealed all kinds of different measurable physical health benefits associated with exposure to nature.
So it really does make sense that being able to hear the birds again is not only a nice thing in the moment, but can mean so much more in the long run for all aspects of our physical, cognitive and psychological health! “If you hear that same sweet song again, will you know why?” Yeah, because you chose wisely to treat your hearing loss!
Please continue to love your community by getting vaccinated/boosted & masking up where and when appropriate. And please always support our local businesses.
