Are headphones bad for your brain? ( The Important Facts! )

Using headphones has become an integral part of our life these days. Whether it’s for listening to music, watching movies, or playing games, the headphones are always a constant there. With this common usage, the question has to be asked, “Are headphones bad for your brain?”

That’s what I will be discussing here today. So, if you are also wondering the same thing, stick with me till the end to find the answers. It’s essential to know about this because you probably don’t want to damage your brain at any cost, right?

Let’s not waste further time and get started with the real thing.

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How does a headphone affect your brain? 

Now, the good news is that headphone doesn’t have any direct negative impact on your brain. It only affects your brain when you follow some unhealthy habits regarding headphones. These habits can lead to issues like ear infections or hearing loss.

As you can see, there is no direct damage to your brain. Your ears are pretty close to your brains. As a result, damaging your ears end up causing issues in your brain as well.

To avoid this from happening, all you have to do is avoid doing things that can impact your ears negatively, to begin with. If you can avoid any damage to your ears, you won’t have to worry about brain damage.

Let’s go through the things with headphones that can negatively impact your brain.

Causes of effects on your ears through headphones 

I should clear out before anything else that radiation from the headphones doesn’t harm your brain. Many people get concerned with whether radiation can do anything to their brain or not. Well, the radiation from headphones is too weak to get past your skull, so it can’t even reach your brain to damage it.

Aside from that, several things can negatively impact your ears. Here are the causes for those issues –

• Loud volume damaging ears 

Whenever you are using headphones with your phone, you might get a volume level warning from your phone. That’s because louder volumes through headphones pose a severe threat to your ears.

Usually, human ears have a tolerance level of 90 decibels for loudness. As long as the volume stays within that range, it shouldn’t harm your ears in any way.

However, when you cross that level, you open up the possibility of damaging your ears. And if it goes over 120 decibels, then you can face issues that you can’t fix ever again.

• Ear infections from headphones 

Another common issue you can face with headphones is an ear infection. This mostly happens because you might be using the headphones or earphones in the wrong way.

When you are wearing your headphones on, you seal off any air source for your ear. This is an unnatural condition for your ears. This can lead to bacterial growth in your ears, leading to infections.

Even though an ear infection doesn’t have anything to do with your brain, it should still be avoided.

• Ear fatigue or ear pain 

Having ear pain after an intense session of gaming is pretty standard. The pain feels quite sharp due to long hours of gaming while having the headphones on the whole time. This can also happen when you are studying with headphones on.

The reason for this mainly depends on two factors—the fit of your headphone and the comfort it provides. If the fit of your headphone isn’t perfect, it will cause too much pressure to hear and there. When that goes on for quite a while, you will end up experiencing pain in your ears.

Another reason is the discomfort from lack of padding. When there is no padding or cushioning on your headphone, the hard surface touches your ears. The longer this part keeps touching your ears, the more painful it becomes for you.

Usually, these are the issues you may encounter with using headphones. However, they aren’t something that you must face. With proper use of headphones, you can avoid these things very quickly. So, let’s check out how you can avoid them.

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Avoiding issues caused by headphone 

When you follow a healthy habit of using your headphones, you don’t have to worry about any kind of damages or issues to your ears. Let’s check out the things that can help you build a healthy habit of using headphones.

• Maintain the 80/90 method while using your headphones. This method suggests you use your headphone at 85 decibels for less than 90 minutes at a time. And if you choose to increase the volume, you have to reduce the listening period as well. But try keeping it below 90 decibels at all costs.
• Try using headphones that have a noise cancellation feature. This helps you greatly in having a good listening experience without raising the volume. Most of the time, you might be raising the volume to avoid the noises around you. A noise-canceling headphone will cancel those noises automatically, so you won’t have to raise the volume at all.
• Even though earbuds or earphones may be convenient, try avoiding them. Go for headphones instead of earbuds. The reason is that, with headphones, you may have some room for air in your ears. But with earbuds or earphones, you are necessarily blocking your ear from getting any kind of air whatsoever. Also, the impact of earbuds is far greater than headphones on your ears.
• To avoid pain in your ears, try getting headphones with comfortable padding. Also, get headphones that aren’t too tight on your head or your ears. If you plan to game or study for long hours with headphones on, it’s important to consider their comfortability.

Just following these things can greatly help you avoid those issues with headphones.

Wrap up 

To sum up, are headphones bad for your brain? I would have to say no; they don’t affect your brain directly. However, they can impact your brain by damaging your ears. And now that you know how to avoid that from happening, you won’t have to worry too much. Just follow the steps I shared to avoid these problems, and you will be good.