It’s that time of year again. The wellies are being dusted off, the tents aired and bags packed in anticipation of the many music festivals that will be happening this summer. While music festivals offer a fantastic opportunity to see your favourite artists and bands back-to-back, listening to so much loud music for many hours can put your hearing at risk of damage.
Luckily, taking just a few simple precautions can help protect your hearing – allowing you to enjoy the festival scene now and for years to come. We’ve only got one pair of ears to last us a lifetime – so we need to protect their delicate machinery from damage. One part of our ears that’s particularly delicate are the hair cells located in the cochlea (a tiny fluid-filled organ in the inner ear that turns vibrations into nerve impulses).
These microscopic hairs can be damaged by loud noise exposure – and this damage is irreversible . The key factor in whether or not our ears get damaged by loud noise is the “dosage” of noise you’re exposed to. Dosage is compromised of two components: the intensity and duration of the sound.
Sound intensity is measured using the decibel scale (dB), which relates the intensity of sound to the quietest sound we can hear. It’s a logarithmic unit, which means an increase of 3dB equates to a doubling of sound energy and intensity. So an 88dB sound is twice as intense as an 85dB sound.
Sound intensity is not something we can easily measure without equipment – so be .