Gatherings. So many family gatherings.
During the holiday seasons, it most likely seems like you’re meeting (or re-meeting) a new long-lost relative almost every weekend. The holiday season can be enjoyable (and also challenging) because of this. Usually, it’s easy to look forward to this annual catching up. You get to reunite with everybody and find out what they’re up to!
But those family gatherings might feel less inviting when you have hearing loss. Why is that? How will your hearing loss affect you when you’re at family get-togethers?
Hearing loss can impede your ability to communicate, and with other people’s ability to communicate with you. The resulting feelings of alienation can be especially disheartening and distressing around the holidays. Your holiday season can be more rewarding and enjoyable by using a few go-to tips formulated by hearing specialists.
Tips to help you enjoy the holiday season
Around the holidays, there’s so much to see, like decorations, gifts, food and so much more. But there’s also a lot to hear: how your nephew is doing in school, how your cousin’s pond hockey team is doing, and on, and on.
These tips are developed to help make sure you keep experiencing all of those moments of reconnection during the course of holiday gatherings.
Avoid phone calls – instead, use video calls.
For friends and family, Zoom video calls can be a fantastic way to stay in touch. If you have hearing loss, this is particularly true. If you have hearing loss and you want to touch base with loved ones during the holidays, try utilizing video calls instead of traditional phone calls.
While trying to communicate with hearing loss, phones present a particular obstacle. The voice that comes through the phone speaker can feel garbled and hard to understand, and that can certainly be frustrating. You won’t get clearer audio quality from a video call, but you will at least have visual clues to help figure out what’s being said. From body language to facial expressions, video calls provide additional context, and that will help the conversation have a better flow.
Be honest with people
Hearing loss is very common. It’s crucial to let people know if you need help. It doesn’t hurt to ask for:
- A quieter place to talk.
- People to repeat things, but requesting that they rephrase also.
- People to slow down a little when talking with you.
When people are aware that you’re dealing with hearing loss, they’re less likely to become annoyed if you need something repeated more than once. As a result, communication has a tendency to flow a little easier.
Select your locations of conversation wisely
Throughout the holidays, there are always topics of conversation you want to avoid. So, you’re strategic, you don’t just mention sensitive subjects about people, you wait for those people to bring it up. Similarly, you should try to cautiously choose spaces that are quieter for talking.
Here’s how to deal with it:
- Attempt to find spots that have less activity and fewer people walking by and distracting you. This’ll make it easier to concentrate on the lips of the people speaking with you (and help you read lips as a result).
- Try to sit with your back to a wall. That way, at least there won’t be people talking behind you.
- Attempt to find brightly lit places for this same reason. Contextual clues, such as body language and facial expressions, can get lost in darker spaces.
- Try to choose an area of the gathering that’s a little quieter. That might mean moving away from overlapping conversations or getting a bit further away from that loud football game on the TV.
So what if you’re in the noisy kitchen, filling up your mug of hot chocolate, and your niece starts talking to you? There are a couple of things you can do in cases like these:
- Ask your niece to carry on the conversation somewhere where it’s a bit quieter.
- Quietly lead your niece to a place that has less going on. And don’t forget to let her know this is what you’re doing.
- You can politely ask the host, if there’s music playing, to reduce the volume so you can hear what your niece is saying.
Communicate with the flight crew
So what about less obvious impacts of hearing loss on holiday plans? Like the ones that catch you by surprise.
Many people go on planes during the holidays, it’s especially essential for families that are fairly spread out. When you fly, it’s crucial to understand all the directions and communication provided by the flight crew. Which is why it’s really important to tell the flight crew that you have difficulty hearing or have hearing loss. This way, if necessary, the flight crew can take extra care to give you additional visual instructions. When you’re flying, it’s important not to miss anything!
Take breaks
When you have hearing loss, communication can become a lot of work. You may find yourself growing more fatigued or exhausted than you once did. This means that it’s essential to take frequent breaks. By doing this, your ears and your brain will get a break.
Invest in some hearing aids
How does hearing loss affect relationships? Well, as should be clear at this point, in a lot of ways!
Every conversation with your family through the holidays will be enhanced by hearing aids and that’s one of the biggest benefits. And, the greatest part, you won’t have to continue to ask people to repeat themselves.
Hearing aids will allow you to reconnect with your family, in other words.
Keep in mind that it may take you some time to get used to your hearing aids. So it’s recommended that you get them well in advance of your holiday plans. Of course, everybody’s experience will be different. So talk to us about the timing.
You can get help getting through the holidays
When you have hearing loss, sometimes, it can feel as if no one can relate to what you’re going through, and that you have to do it all alone. In this way, it’s almost like hearing loss impacts your personality. But you’re not alone. You can get through many of the challenges with our help.
Holidays can be tough enough even under typical circumstances and you don’t need hearing loss to make it even harder. During this holiday season, you can look forward to seeing, and hearing your family and friends. All you need is the right strategy.
