According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, approximately 15% of all American adults experience some trouble with hearing or hearing loss. For these millions of people, everyday tasks, like going to the grocery store, suddenly present new challenges.
Understanding Hearing Loss
The process of hearing is complex. Sound waves travel through your ear canal and into the inner ear, where they are converted into electrical signals that the brain interprets as sound. In essence, the ear organs gather sound information, but it is the brain that truly hears.
When you have hearing loss, there is some disconnect between your ears and the auditory processing center in your brain. This commonly happens due to aging cells in your ear. Your ear misses out on sound information, so your brain never receives it. The brain is then forced to work harder to process the sound information it does receive and fill in the blanks.
How the Grocery Store Presents a Complex Hearing Environment
With average hearing, your brain is adept at processing sound information, determining what sounds are background noise, and filtering them out. With hearing loss, your brain works overtime, and its ability to filter out background noise is weakened. In this manner, the noise of a grocery store can become overwhelming to a person with hearing loss. Sounds like squeaky cart wheels, humming refrigerators, beeping scanners and announcements over the loudspeaker abound.
Moreover, engaging with staff can be incredibly challenging. In a noisy environment like the grocery store, it’s easy to miss or mishear what someone near you says, which can be frustrating if you asked them a question and need to hear the answer. Getting your groceries rang up and bagged can turn into a communication breakdown. Hearing their questions—how are you today? Did you find everything you were looking for? Do you need a receipt?—might require you to ask them to repeat themselves.
Practical Strategies for the Grocery Store
Resist the urge to skip the grocery store altogether; social isolation and loss of independence are two significant effects of hearing loss. Instead, shop smarter with these tips and tricks.
Most grocery stores experience peak hours (with peak crowds and peak noise) on Saturdays in the early afternoon and weekdays after 5 p.m. Plan to make your excursion outside of these hours. Oftentimes, the grocery store is quiet during typical work hours, such as weekday mornings. Sticking to off-hour trips will significantly reduce the amount of noise in the store.
Additionally, pick smaller stores if possible, rather than big box stores. Those big warehouse-style stores have terrible acoustics, meaning that sounds echo throughout the store and seem even louder. Also, a small grocer may have fewer customers, which will further alleviate the crowd difficulty discussed above.
If talking to a cashier at the end of a long shopping trip is too daunting, consider using self-checkout instead. The check-out machines use visual cues as well as auditory cues, meaning you won’t miss any important information due to not hearing.
Finally, make listening while shopping much easier by wearing your hearing aids while you shop. These essential devices help immensely with suppressing background noise, which is a huge boon in noisy grocery stores. If you’re not currently a hearing aid user, call Certified Hearing Aid Consultants today and get the help you need in your daily life.