Between the Ears
What I see so often in my clinics in Australia, is that people who actually wear their hearing aids the required 12-16 hours a day report feeling less cognitive fatigue than those who only wear them sporadically. That’s why I wrote my latest, soon to be published book called Between the Ears. There’s so much more that people need to know about the impacts of addressing their hearing in relation to brain health.
Between the Ears is the perfect companion to hearing aids because it outlines nine of the most impactful hearing and brain health interventions to protect and improve cognitive health, hearing, and general health and wellbeing.
The research shows us that there’s a high risk of developing cognitive issues as a result hearing loss, and statistics demonstrate that it’s one of the most neglected health conditions. Untreated hearing loss is the number one modifiable risk factor for dementia, and the strain of not being able to hear well can cause a person to lose some of their faculties. That’s why I’m passionate about getting people to attend to their hearing.
I didn’t expect I’d be on the brink of tears after reading a book about ears. There are many deep, powerful messages in this generous book that touch more than the ears and what’s between them. This is a book about being human and living your best life.
Dr. Adele Varcoe
A holistic approach to hearing and brain health
Taking a holistic approach to your health, no matter what the condition, should result in you achieving more profound results because we’re not, for instance, just a set of ears; all kinds of elements effect our hearing, including lifestyle, diet, environment, medications and illnesses. In Between the Ears you’ll learn how social isolation, which hearing loss can cause, can be deleterious to your health, and how finding meaning in life can help you flourish.
You’ll discover just how ‘plastic’ the brain is; it’s ability for neuroplasticity can create new neural pathways that restore cognitive function lost due to hearing loss. Wearing hearing aids full-time can start the restoration, which is further enhanced by activities such as online brain training, learning a language, playing music or meditation.
The range of scientifically backed advice and information on lifestyle factors in this book includes how to adopt a longevity mindset, dietary supplements and meditation.
Mission control
The brain is the control panel for our thoughts, learning, thinking and body, interpreting information and regulating vital functions such as heartbeat and breathing. The hearing centres of the brain occupy the same areas as much of our memory and cognitive functions, so just having the ears on either side of the head is not the only connection they have to what goes on in between. Maintaining brain and hearing health are symbiotic so we should attend to health and lifestyle factors to deal with everything that happens in and between the ears.
‘Between the Ears’ aligns with the growing acceptance and understanding within allied health professions that treatment is most effective when we utilise a multidisciplinary approach that moves away from a medical model and towards the recognition that our minds, bodies, behaviours and environment are all interconnected. Andrew has done an incredible job of collating all this information into an easy to read, informative publication.
Jillian Searle – Clinical Psychologist
Dealing with hearing and brain health is a no-brainer
Of course, being an audiologist means I specialise in helping people address their hearing problems, however, I cannot imagine not addressing brain health in relation to hearing issues. My goal in founding my company, NeuAudio Hearing and Brain Health, was to help my patients live a life without limitation; a life that flourishes. Sometimes we must remove the barriers to a flourishing life.
Lifting the barriers to communication
Hearing is of fundamental importance to our ability to communicate and foster quality relationships. Between the Ears highlights studies that demonstrate that quality relationships are the most important factor in determining human happiness. By contrast, the least happy people are those who are socially isolated; a situation that is twice as deadly as obesity. Without our hearing, we can become withdrawn from everything that we hold dear.
What nearly 20 years of working in the field has shown me is that as long as you wear your devices full-time and have them adjusted appropriately when needed, short of extremely rare cases, there’s every reason to suggest you’ll hear well for the rest of your life.
I hear you
In my line of work both as an adult rehabilitation specialist audiologist and public educator, I’m in a unique position to gain insights into the greatest concerns of my patients. As it turns out, most are generally more concerned about cognitive decline than they are about the nuisance of hearing loss. Patients frequently ask, what else they can do to improve or protect their hearing and brain health. So, I wrote this book.
I’m not a psychologist, nutritionist, exercise physiologist, general practitioner or neurologist, just an avid researcher and unapologetic geek who wants to share what I know.
Stay tuned for the launch date of Between the Ears. If want to learn more about the connection between hearing and cognitive decline, please hop online and book into a free live or online seminar in an ever-growing list of cities at https://neuaudio.com.au/