Beautiful Sounds, Beautiful that you can hear them! Hearing, do you take it for granted? Probably. I think most people do. Look around, right now. What do you notice, what do you hear? Listen REALLY listen. Sound is pressure. Even when you are not actively aware your brain is "getting the picture". Can you hear cars going by or perhaps birds in the background? How about the wind? Maybe leaves blowing down the street? Any sirens? Lots of sirens all the time it seems. Any voices? How about your refrigerator? Music?
Your brain is taking it all in. It automatically collects information that it receives with every breath that we take. As sound pressure hits our outer ear (pinna) it is gathered and funneled down the ear canal and then hits our eardrum (tympanic membrane), flex's it back and forth thus moving the tiniest bones in our body in the middle ear (ossicles). The ossicular chain continues to send the sound pressure (kind of like pumping up a basketball) into the inner ear (cochlea). In the inner ear there are hair cells called stereocilia that receive the sound vibrations from the outer ear and convert them to electrical impulses and sends them to the brain by way of the auditory nerve. There are about 16,000 of these nerves inside the inner ear.
When you have normal hearing your brains "picture" is like a brilliant HD TV! Depending upon the position of the hearing nerves in the inner ear, some receive more pressure or damage than others, depending upon many variables. Unfortunately, if the hearing hair cells become damaged or completely die, they do not grow back. Stem cell research is ongoing at this point.
Most of us know that the brain has certain functions that take place differently on each side. Things are not exact on each part of our body. Usually, one eye is better than the other. Or one eye is best for distance and the other for reading. Or maybe you notice your left foot is smaller than your right. Well... our ears work differently too. The rights ear reacts best to speech and logic and the left is more tuned into emotion, intuition, and music. Scientists are researching this information. It may explain why people with greater hearing loss in their left ear have trouble understanding and dealing with friends/family's emotional issues. People who have more hearing loss on the right lose some of their ability to sort things out. This information clarifies why it is important for BOTH ears to be communicating to the brain. Binaural hearing (both ears) helps us to navigate in our noisy, busy world that we live in. Remember... sound is pressure and its coming from all directions and at different intensities all at once. Both ears provide a more natural, balanced sound. Studies show that you may hear up to four times better with two ears that with just one. Get your ears and your hearing checked today! To Hear Better Is To Live Better!