There’s no doubt about it – it’s a very noisy world nowadays. Unless you’re living up in the mountains by yourself or inside a deep, dark, cave, it’s almost impossible to escape the noise that pervades our everyday existence. The loud music in your car, the din of construction equipment across the street, the buzzing of power tools as you work in your basement, or even the cheering of the fans as you’re watching your favorite sports on TV – they all contribute to the noise that surrounds us.

If we’re not careful, we could all end up with hearing problems by the time we’re forty years old, or even earlier. But let’s face it; we cannot hope to avoid the noise in our everyday lives. What we can do, though, is try to improve our hearing so that we can ward off the problems before it’s too late.

Here are some exercises that should help improve our hearing:

Location of Sound Sources – This exercise will help you in sharpening up your sense of hearing, and you will also improve your ability to sense which direction the sound is coming from, as well. What you need for this exercise is a simple device that creates sound, like a musical instrument, a bell, or a horn. You will also need a friend to help you out with this exercise.

Give the sound-making device to your friend and tell him to hide somewhere while you turn around and close your eyes. After a minute or two, he should then give out 2 or 3 bursts of sound, while you try to locate the exact source of the sound. Later on, you can also tell your friend to move around at different distances from you. You should then try to pinpoint his exact location, as well as give a close estimate of the distance.

Filtering Out the Noise – In this exercise, you could train your sense of hearing to pick out only the sounds that you are interested in, and filter out the rest. You will need at least two music-playing devices and a partner for this exercise.

Start by turning on the music source at medium volume, and then talk with your partner at the same time the music is playing. Don’t lean in or raise your voice during your conversation. After a few minutes of this, turn on the second music source, and then carry on the conversation with your partner. As with the first situation, do not raise your voices or lean in while talking to each other. During this exercise, you should learn to filter out the music and focus only on the voice of your partner during your conversation.

Sound Clues – This exercise will help to improve your ability to recognize a variety of sounds in your location. You won’t need any equipment or devices for this exercise, and you can do it all by yourself.

Just sit or stand wherever you are right now and close your eyes. Listen carefully to the sounds around you, and try to identify what they are. A song on the radio? A dog barking? The kettle bubbling on the stove? Or perhaps the hum of the airconditioner in the room?  After several minutes of doing this, you should proceed to locating the sounds and identifying them at the same time. You might then say, “An Elvis Presley song is playing on the radio in my daughter’s room.”

Aside from these exercises, of course, you should also try to stay away from harmful noise as much as possible. Try to do these exercises regularly, avoid noisy environments as much as you can, and you should see some improvement in your hearing as time goes on.