What you hear – or don’t hear – may affect your balance.
Do you find yourself tripping often, falling regularly, or are you worried about your stability? There are a number of causes of instability, and now we can add noise to that list.
Our hearing, and what we are listening to, directly affects our balance and stability. Falling is the leading cause of injuries in the U.S. Hearing loss is an independent risk factor for falls but does what we listen to also affect our balance?
Apparently, it does.
Sounds change balance and stability
Researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital and School of Medicine looked at the link between sounds, and lack of sounds with noise cancelling headphones, with standing balance.
What did they find?
“This research suggests that sounds can have a stabilizing effect on balance — maybe acting as an anchor that patients can lean on when other senses are less reliable — and shows that being unable to hear sounds resulted in poorer balance. Ultimately an inability to hear puts patients at higher risk for instability and falls.”
Dr. Maura Cosetti, study author and Associate Professor at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Certain types of sounds increased instability. Sounds that jumped back and forth in headphones from one ear to the other increased instability. While static, background noise improved stability.
Improve your balance
Researchers found that sound is even more important when we are doing things that require balance. Our hearing is important for our sense of balance, we need to be able to “hear” our environment to maintain stability. If you want to improve your stability listen to your surroundings.
Change your mind, change your health,
Shayla
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