Normal Isn't Normal: Why Your Ears Are Lying to You

Did you know that there is no true "normal" when it comes to hearing? Your ears may be lying to you and making you believe that what you are hearing is normal, when in fact it's just your brain adapting to not hearing the way you should. Understanding the complexities of hearing can be confusing, so in this blog post, we'll take a deeper dive into why your ears are lying to you and what you can do to help your brain properly perceive sound.

First, let's talk about what hearing actually is. When sound is created, it travels through the air as sound waves that will eventually reach our ears. Our ears then detect the sound and transmit the signal to the brain for interpretation. The brain takes the sound our ears hear and assigns meaning as well as importance. 

However, our brains don’t always interpret sound the way we expect them to. Our ears never turn off, they are always detecting every little sound in our environment. But our brain isn’t always listening. For instance, you might not even notice that the dishwasher is running, or when your air conditioner turns on. Even though your ears hear the sound, your brain has adapted to those sounds in your environment, decided they are “normal” and tunes them out as not important. 

Another factor that impacts how we perceive sound is hearing loss. When our ears are damaged they, of course, don't detect sound the way we expect them to. Sounds that are loud, suddenly become soft, and sounds that are soft we no longer perceive at all. So we become accustomed to not hearing well and our brain perceives this reduced perception of sound as “normal”. 

So why isn’t “normal”, normal? First, let’s review the definition. Normal = “conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected”. Day to day use of the word normal typically means it’s what we expect, what we typically experience, our usual. Except everyone’s version of “normal” is different. Our “normal” perception of sound is influenced by the development of our brain, what we grew up hearing, any training on sound we’ve had in the past, what we are used to hearing within our environment, and how much hearing we have. 

For someone, with hearing loss, the brain becomes used to hearing less than we should. Which is why our ears and brain are lying to us about what is “normal”.  To help your brain better perceive sound, there are a few options. First and foremost, get your hearing checked regularly. If you do have hearing loss, hearing aids or cochlear implants can be helpful in improving your ability to perceive sounds. Additionally, certain sound therapy exercises may help to retrain your ears to hear sounds more accurately.

What we perceive as "normal" hearing can be quite different from person to person. Our brains are very good at adapting to sound, and hearing loss can make it difficult to distinguish certain sounds. However, there are steps you can take to help your brain better perceive sound, including seeing an audiologist, using hearing aids, and doing sound therapy exercises. Remember, just because your ears may be lying to you, doesn't mean you have to live with it!